The document summarizes characteristics of advanced pre-Columbian civilizations in Latin America, including the Inca Empire, Mayan Empire, and Aztec Empire. It describes that these civilizations had complex institutions and governments, advanced agricultural practices including terraced farming, sophisticated calendars and mathematics, extensive trade networks, and organized religions that sometimes involved human sacrifice. Engineering accomplishments of the Incas included roads and suspension bridges. The Mayans had a developed written language in hieroglyphs and advanced astronomical concepts. The Aztecs ruled from the city of Tenochtitlan and also practiced herbal medicine, poetry, and a stratified class system.
3. Characteristics of Advanced Civilizations
• High populations within societies
• Advanced food storage and domestication of a variety of food
• Complex institutions, such as organized religion and
government
• Written language
• Specialization of jobs
5. Characteristics of the Incan Empire
• “the land of four quarters”
• No written language, but
pictographs, and quipus
• Engineering
accomplishments included
suspension bridges and
roads that connected the
empire.
6.
7. • Trade included textiles, gold,
silver and bronze, Peruvian
livestock and agriculture; used
coin money
• Terraced farms dotted the
mountainous landscape and
corn was grown at altitudes
over 13,000 ft.; steps provided
access to farms; guano used as
fertilizer
8. • Religious ceremonies were highly complex
and included human and animal sacrifices
• The supreme god of the Incas was the
creator god, Viracocha
• The royal family was believed to be
descended from the sun god, Inti
• Incas also practiced ancestry-worship and
mummification
10. Characteristics of the Mayan Empire
• Highly organized religious and government systems
• Religious rituals demanded involvement by all social classes
• Mayan society was divided by class and status, living in kin-based groups with a
hereditary chief
• Rulers were recognized as god-kings
11. • Hieroglyphs were their form of
writing
• Mayans used two calendars, one
was based on a 365-day year; the
other was used for religious
purposes
• Applied complex mathematical
systems including the concept of
zero
• Highly developed astronomical
concepts
17. Characteristics of the Aztec Empire
• Ruled from about 1428
until 1521 CE
• Tenochtitlán
• Chinampas
• City-states helped support
large populations, which
were highly organized
18. • Writing included pictographs but was
not as developed as the Mayan
• Mathematical concepts included a
counting system based on 20
• Accurate calendar
• Had the wheel, but only used for
children’s toys.
• Herbal remedies for specific ailments
• Tradition of poetry, music, and
drama.
19. • Belief systems supported
necessary human sacrifices to
appease the gods; these also
included child-sacrifices
20.
21.
22. • Class system was highly stratified; rulers were considered semi-divine
• Highly advanced trade system, extending into Guatemala, included lake salt, cacao
and textiles (no coin money)
• Today, %30 indigenous people in Mexico claim ancestry to the Aztec, 9% are purely
Spanish, %60 are mixed.
The Inca Empire was separated into four sections together known as 'Ttahuantin-suyu' or "land of the four quarters" each ruled by a governor or viceroy called 'Apu-cuna' under the leadership of the central 'Sapa Inca'.
BCE and CE are used to diminish the Gregorian Calendar’s influence over indigenous cultures. Even if in name and not mathematically different in actual years, BCE and CE are worth mentioning since the Catholic Church had an enormous influence over colonization in the “New” world.
The picture is a schematic map of Tenochtitlan drawn by an indigenous artist, probably at the behest of a Spanish Viceroy. It shows the city in the year of its founding, 1325 and represents th canals and lakes as an X set into a rectangle. The place-name of the city – a cactus growing from a rock – appears at the center, and the original founders of the city apperar in its four quadrants.
Sacrifice seems brutal, but it was seen as a duty. Sacrifical victims believed that they would become a king in the afterlife and went willingly. Children were made to cry to appease the god of rain before sacrificing. In war enemies were spared on the battlefield for sacrifice. One sacrifice included flaying the skin and wearing it. Priests would then boil and eat the victims to ingest the powers of the gods.
enochtitlan was built according to a fixed plan and centered on the ritual precinct, where the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan rose 50 m (164.04 ft ) above the city. Houses were made of wood and loam, roofs were made of reed, [26] although pyramids, temples and palaces were generally made of stone.
