Module 1 and 2 Quiz Flashcards
A form of agriculture in which people work small plots of land with simple tools.
horticulture
Native American agricultural practice of beneficially planting corn, beans, and squash together, resulting in higher yields and a healthy diet.
The Three Sisters
A people and civilization that established large cities on the Yucatán peninsula with strong irrigation and agricultural techniques, astronomical knowledge and mathematical and writing systems. While the Maya first emerged in 1500 BCE, they peaked between 300 CE and 800 CE before swiftly declining.
Maya
Spanish term for the Mexica, and indigenous people and empire of the same name, compromised of a network of city-states in present day Mexico between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. The empire collapsed following the arrival of the Spaniards.
Aztecs
Capital city of Aztec empire beginning in the fourteenth century. It was an island city, surrounded by artificial floating gardens and canals. In 1521, the city was taken over by the Spanish. Modern Mexico City is on the ancient site of Tenochtitlán.
Tenochtitlán
Andean people who built a complex bureaucratic empire ruled by aristocrats in the centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards amid the fertile land of the Andes Mountains along the Pacific coast. The Inca relied on a variety of domesticated animals and diverse farming techniques to survive. They reached the height of their power in the fifteenth century, controlling some 16 million people.
Incas
Native American peoples in present-day New Mexico and Arizona who share common religious and agricultural practices. Pueblo, the Spanish word for village, was used to refer to Native Americans who built permanent multi-story adobe dwellings in the Southwest.
Pueblo
A cultural and intellectual flowering that began in fifteenth-century Italy then spread north throughout the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. During this time, European rulers pushed for greater political unification of their states. It contributed to dramatic changes in art, cultivated knowledge, and the questioning of old forms of authority.
Renaissance
A religious person who travels to foreign lands with the goal of converting those they meet to a new religion.
missionary
A narrow, small, and swift sailing ship invented by the Portuguese during the fifteenth century, particularly useful because it allowed sailors to sail into the wind much faster than traditional vessels.
caravel
A tool originally invented by Greek astronomers and sailors for navigation or astronomical calculations that allowed sailors to identify distance and time based on the location of the sun and stars in relation to the horizon.
astrolabe
A religious judicial institution established by Pope Gregory IX in 1232, designed to find and eliminate heretical beliefs that did not align with official Catholic practices. The Spanish Inquisition was first established in 1478.
Inquisition
The biological exchange of people, plants, animals, and diseases between American and the rest of the world between 1492 and the end of the sixteenth century. Although its initial impact was strongest in the Americas and Europe, it was soon felt globally.
Columbian Exchange
The social, intellectual, economic, and biological interactions among peoples, plants, and animals bordering the Atlantic Ocean, mainly Africa, the Americas, and Western Europe, beginning in the late fifteenth century.
Atlantic World
System established by Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean by which Spanish leaders in the Americas received land and the labor of all resident Native Americans. For Native Americans, the encomienda system amounted to enslavement.
encomienda
