Notes

Glaciers-Thick sheets of ice
-There is no written record of when the first people arrived.
-During the Ice Age the water level was lower, exposing a land bridge between Alaska and Russia (Bering Land Bridge). We believe early hunters followed food/animals across this bridge and then spread out through North and South America over thousands of years.
-About 12,000 years ago the last ice age ended, glaciers melted and the water level rose, covering the land bridge. Large animals started to die out and people had to adapt.
-About 5,000 years ago people in Central America learned how to grow crops. Corn, beans, squash and other vegetables brought a stable food supply and the changes that come with it.
Olmec Civilization
The earliest known civilization in the Americas was the Olmecs in Central America around 3,500 years ago. They built stone temples, they studied the stars and made a calendar while predicting the change in seasons. Unfortunately they didn’t leave many written records.
The Mayas
Around 3,000 years ago the Mayas started clearing forests and swamps to create farmland. Now the farmers could produce more food, cities began popping up, creating a network in Central America and Mexico trading along the route.
Priests were very powerful in Mayan society, they could perform ceremonies to bring good harvests or victories in combat. Nobles served as warriors and government officials. Most of the society was made up of laborers who were farmers, they had a slave class made up of criminals and prisoners of war.
The Mayans studied the stars and the sun, they created a 365 day calendar. They developed a system of numbers that included the concept of zero. Around 900 CE the Mayans left their cities for unknown reasons and the forests swallowed up the buildings, today more than 2 million people speak Mayan languages.
The Aztecs
They were north of the Mayans, in the 1300s they settled around Lake Texcoco. On an island in the lake they built their capital, Tenochtitlan, and connected it by making raised roads to the mainland. They created floating gardens and grew many crops. They had a major market with over 60,000 people interacting daily.
They had priests who performed rituals to please many gods, the most important god was the Sun God. They believed the sun required human sacrifices to rise each day, they sacrificed thousands of people a year to please the god. They also had a calendar to help with the harvest.
By 1500 CE the Aztecs ruled from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, they were harsh rulers and had many enemies.
The Incas
Far south on the west coast of South America, their empire stretched 2,500 miles. Capital city was Cuzco, there the emperor (Sapa Inca) ruled, who was a descendant of the Sun God. Ruled over 10 million people, in a well organized manner. They had a system of roads and bridges, they altered the steep mountainside so they could farm on it. Runners used a ‘quipu’ to send messages, it was a cord with different knots on it representing different quantities for record keeping.
We have found evidence of Mayan and Aztec ideas further north, leading us to believe they traded and exchanged goods with people from North America.
Around 3,000 years ago knowledge of farming spread north. The Hohokams in Arizona created irrigation ditches so they could farm in the desert. The Anasazi used similar techniques in Colorado and Arizona.
The Anasazi built homes out of stone, but eventually had to change, to deter attackers they built homes in steep cliffs. They would grow crops above the cliffs.
Mound Builders were common in the rest of the United States, originally designed for burials they would be used for ceremonies as well. The biggest city was Cahokia in Illinois that had up to 30,000 people living there.