Vocab Chap 8

Question 1

Meso-America

Answer 1

Anthropology, Archaeology. the area extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua in which diverse pre-Columbian civilizations flourished.

Question 2

Glyph

Answer 2

a pictograph or hieroglyph.

Question 3

Olmec

Answer 3

of or designating a Mesoamerican civilization, c1000–400 b.c., along the southern Gulf coast of Mexico, characterized by extensive agriculture, a dating system, long-distance trade networks, pyramids and ceremonial centers, and very fine jade work.

Question 4

Aztec

Answer 4

a member of a Nahuatl-speaking state in central Mexico that was conquered by Cortés in 1521.

Question 5

Hernan Cortes

Answer 5

Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire

Question 6

Montezuma

Answer 6

c1470–1520, last Aztec emperor of Mexico 1502–20.

Question 7

Yucatan peninsula

Answer 7

The Yucatán Peninsula separates the Gulf of Mexico from the Caribbean Sea, encompassing 3 Mexican states, plus portions of Belize and Guatemala. On the Caribbean, Mexico’s Riviera Maya resort strip is bookended by 2 popular destinations: Cancún, with its high-rise hotels and nightlife, and, down the coast, quieter Tulum, a rare seaside example of the Mayan ruins found throughout the peninsula’s interior.

Question 8

Tikal

Answer 8

an ancient Mayan city occupied c200 b.c. to a.d. 900, an important center of Mayan civilization, situated in Petén in the jungles of northern Guatemala and the site of significant archaeological discoveries in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Question 9

Chichenitza

Answer 9

Chichén Itzá is a world-famous complex of Mayan ruins on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. A massive step pyramid known as El Castillo dominates the 6.5-sq.-km. ancient city, which thrived from around 600 A.D. to the 1200s. Graphic stone carvings survive at structures like the ball court, Temple of the Warriors and the Wall of the Skulls. Nightly sound-and-light shows illuminate the buildings’ sophisticated geometry.

Question 10

Lake Texcoco

Answer 10

Lake Texcoco was a natural lake within the Anáhuac or Valley of Mexico. Lake Texcoco is most well known as where the Aztecs built the city of Tenochtitlan, which was located on an island within the lake.

Question 11

Tenochtitlan

Answer 11

the capital of the Aztec empire: founded in 1325; destroyed by the Spaniards in 1521; now the site of Mexico City.

Question 12

Chavin

Answer 12

of, relating to, or characteristic of a Peruvian culture flourishing from the 1st to the 6th century a.d.

Question 13

Inca

Answer 13

a member of any of the dominant groups of South American Indian peoples who established an empire in Peru prior to the Spanish conquest.

Question 14

Andes

Answer 14

a mountain range in W South America, extending about 4500 miles (7250 km) from N Colombia and Venezuela S to Cape Horn. Highest peak, Aconcagua, 22,834 feet (6960 meters).

Question 15

Quechua

Answer 15

the language of the Inca civilization, presently spoken by about 7 million people in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.

Question 16

Sacrifice

Answer 16

the offering of animal, plant, or human life or of some material possession to a deity, as in propitiation or homage.

Question 17

Francisco Pizarro

Answer 17

Francisco [fran-sis-koh;; Spanish frahn-thees-kaw,, -sees-] (Show IPA), c1470–1541, Spanish conqueror of Peru.

Question 18

Stone heads

Answer 18

The Olmec colossal heads are at least seventeen monumental stone representations of human heads sculpted from large basalt boulders.

Question 19

Maize

Answer 19

(chiefly in British and technical usage) corn1 (def 1).

Question 20

Long count

Answer 20

Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. … The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is a non-repeating, vigesimal (base-20) and base-18 calendar used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya. For this reason, it is often known as the Maya (or Mayan) Long Count calendar.

Question 21

Machu Pichu

Answer 21

Machu Picchu is an Incan citadel set high in the Andes Mountains in Peru, above the Urubamba River valley. Built in the 15th century and later abandoned, it’s renowned for its sophisticated dry-stone walls that fuse huge blocks without the use of mortar, intriguing buildings that play on astronomical alignments and panoramic views. Its exact former use remains a mystery.

Question 22

Copan

Answer 22

Copán is an archaeological site of the Maya civilization located in the Copán Department of western Honduras, not far from the border with Guatemala. It was the capital city of a major Classic period kingdom from the 5th to 9th centuries AD.

Question 23

Cusco

Answer 23

Cusco, a city in the Peruvian Andes, was once capital of the Inca Empire, and is now known for its archaeological remains and Spanish colonial architecture. Plaza de Armas is the central square in the old city, with arcades, carved wooden balconies and Incan wall ruins. The baroque Santo Domingo Convent was built on top of the Incan Temple of the Sun (Qoricancha), and has archaeological remains of Inca stonework.

Question 24

Popol Vuh

Answer 24

Popol Vuh (modern K’iche’: Poopol Wuuj [ˈpʰoːpʰol ˈʋuːχ]) is a corpus of mytho-historical narratives of the Post Classic K’iche’ kingdom in Guatemala’s western highlands. The title translates as “Book of the Community”, “Book of Counsel”, or more literally as “Book of the People”.

Question 25

Caral

Answer 25

Caral, or Caral-Chupacigarro, was a large settlement in the Supe Valley, near Supe, Barranca Province, Peru, some 200 kilometres north of Lima. Caral is the most ancient city of the Americas and a well-studied site of the Norte Chico civilization.

Question 26

Calendar

Answer 26

a table or register with the days of each month and week in a year

Question 27

Observatory

Answer 27

a place or building equipped and used for making observations of astronomical, meteorological, or other natural phenomena, especially a place equipped with a powerful telescope for observing the planets and stars.

Question 28

Pyramids

Answer 28

(in ancient Egypt) a quadrilateral masonry mass having smooth, steeply sloping sides meeting at an apex, used as a tomb.