World Civilizations
Tenochtitlan
Built on an island in Lake Texcoco, on the site of present-day Mexico City, Tenochtitlan was the capital city of the Aztec Empire. Tribute from conquered peoples made the city prosperous and it grew rapidly to become a heavily populated urban center; in the early 16th century, Tenochtitlan's population of about 400,000 was the largest in Mesoamerica. According to tradition, Tenochtitlan was founded in the first half of the 14th century CE (some scholars give the date 1325) by the Aztec (or Mexica) people on the site where they found an eagle perched on a cactus devouring a snake; this discovery fulfilled a prophecy about their city's location.
Quipu
From the Inca Empire, around 1400/1500 BCE. Specially trained Inca officials kept census accounts and records of all kinds on colored counting cords tied in knots called quipus, and runners carried messages in relays so that the Inca rulers were always kept informed about their empire.
Mita
From the Inca Empire, around 1400/1500 BCE. The mita was a compulsory rotational labor draft (corvée) system used in the Andes by the Incas that was later adopted for use by the Spanish in the New World. Tasks assigned to mita laborers included clearing and terracing land, building roads and maintaining them, cleaning irrigation channels, constructing military fortresses, and mining. Overall, the mita system and its consequences proved very disruptive to the life of the ayllu and native villages.
Nazca
In the arid desert between the foothills of the Andes Mountains and the Pacific coast of southern Peru, the Nazca culture—architects of perhaps the most astonishing and mystifying engineering feat of the ancient world—survived and flourished in a hostile climate. The archaeological record evinces that the Nazca were innovative and resourceful farmers, yet it is their utterly unique contribution to the world's engineering and artistic heritage that endures them to the ages. It is widely speculated that the Nazca civilization developed from the Paracas culture and that it reached its peak ca. 200 B.C.-A.D. 600. Subject to frequent droughts, the Nazca developed an underground irrigation system to withstand the harsh desert environment. That irrigation system appears to have consisted of a number of subterranean aqueducts and canals to siphon off water from natural sources, including mountainous sites. Transporting water allowed the Nazca to maintain an agrarian society. The greatest achievement of the Nazca civilization is unquestionably the so-called Nazca Lines. It is perhaps the most astounding man-made creation of any epoch. The well-preserved lines, covering more than 800 miles, are an intricate network of glyphs that were etched into the desert sand. Scholars are uncertain of the reason for the intricate Nazca Lines. Speculation varies from an elaborate astronomical chart to some sort of geological calendar. Nazca were eventually assimilated entirely by the Tiahuanaco people. Yet the vast desert glyphs—unyielding of their secrets and justly held in quiet awe by all subsequent visitors to the arid Peruvian coast—assure the vanished Nazca people of an historical immortality.
Inca
In the century before the Spaniards arrived in the New World, the Inca of South America [Ecuador, Peru, and Chile, as well as territory in Argentina and Bolivia]. The Inca did not use a written language, so accounts of Incan history are based on oral histories passed down by the Inca and then recorded by Spaniards after the Spanish conquest. Therefore, all the historical details have been filtered twice: first by those passing on the stories orally and second by the Spanish conquerors. Agricultural expansion was a key part of the Inca's imperial strategy. Labor supplied by the provinces produced many of the most impressive accomplishments of the Inca Empire. The Quechua language (the language of the Inca) was imposed as the official language of the empire. At times, the Inca moved conquered people to settle and work far from their homeland, thereby reducing their power. Military might enforced the power and authority of the rulers (until leaders died). At that time, with the Inca Empire's military might depleted by disease, years of difficult wars, and a violent civil war, the Spaniards invaded. With fewer than 200 men, Spanish explorer Francisco Pizarro captured Atahualpa in 1532—bringing the great Inca Empire to its knees.
Teotihuacán
One of the greatest cities in Mesoamerica, Teotihuacán dominated the Valley of Mexico for many centuries. The city stood about 30 miles from the later Aztec city of Tenochtitlán (the site of present-day Mexico City). During its heyday, Teotihuacán was one of the world's largest cities in terms of both population and physical area. Because the city's original name was lost, the Aztecs named it Teotihuacán ("Birthplace of the Gods"). Teotihuacán has been excavated since the late 19th century, and recent work has uncovered apartment buildings decorated with vibrantly-colored murals, networks of tunnels below the city, stone sculptures weighing many tons, and elaborate burials of sacrificed humans, falcons, jaguars, and other animals.Teotihuacán was founded before 400 BC as a village of farmers.
Aztec
The Aztec people of Mexico have often been portrayed as a war-loving people, notable for their practice of human sacrifice. The Aztecs, however, also possessed a complex, multilayered society with a sophisticated economy and history steeped in rich mythology. Originally a tribal band of nomads known as the Mexica, the ancestors of the Aztec probably lived in the northernmost region of present-day Mexico. Scholars have not been able to pinpoint exactly where they came from, but the Aztecs described their homeland as a place called Aztlán, which may have been purely mythical. Sometime during the 12th century AD, the Mexica began moving southward toward present-day Mexico City.
The Han dynasty
The Han dynasty, which ruled over China for more than four centuries from 206 BC to AD 220, not only administered a great empire, but also created an environment in which art, literature, education, and scientific innovation flourished.Gao Zu, a Chinese peasant and one of the rebel leaders who succeeded in deposing the Qin emperor, founded the Han dynasty. Keeping the centralized form of government of the Qin, Gao Zu and his successors expanded it into a bureaucracy founded on education and accountability. That bureaucratic administration set the stage for expanding the imperial territory and influence.Even the provincial governors were supervised by inspectors sent from the emperor. Every great civilization has its high point, but China has had several periods of cultural achievement, including the Han dynasty. Not the least of the Han's accomplishments was the revival of the Confucian classics and the priority placed on education. Local schools were founded in addition to the national university, and academic pursuits soon expanded into literary ones. Richly detailed histories were written during the 400-plus years of Han rule, as were poems, prose, and textbooks on math and medicine. Like the Qin before them, the Han drafted male citizens into military or public works service. Requiring farmers and craftsmen to leave their land put them under great financial hardship, but it also resulted in the construction of roads, bridges, canals, dikes and other structures that facilitated defense, trade, and communication throughout one of the great empires of the ancient world.
Olmec
The Olmec civilization is the name historians have given to a culture that occupied the area along the Gulf Coast in southern Mexico between 1200 and 400 BC. The Olmecs established a sophisticated level of governance; such public building projects as pyramids and large platform mounds; a writing/dating system; and characteristic architecture and art, including enormous stone heads and other monuments. Those massive monuments, archaeologists believe, were the first ones created by any Mesoamerican society.
Toltec
The Toltec, who dominated Mesoamerica from the 10th to the 12th centuries, adopted many features of the preceding cultures, including the Teotihuacán and Olmec civilizations. They were the last advanced indigenous culture before the rise of the Aztec Empire. The Toltec made significant contributions to Mesoamerican history. Their influence spread through much of Mesoamerica and can be seen at the Maya city of Chíchen Itzá. Their pottery has been found as far south as Costa Rica.
Tiwanaku
The city of Tiahuanaco (or Tiwanaku), located just south of Lake Titicaca in present-day Bolivia, was the capital of the pre-Inca civilization also called Tiahuanaco. The city was inhabited for nearly 1,000 years and at its height was a major Andean power whose cultural influence is seen in other South American civilizations, especially those of the Huari (Wari) and the Inca. At some point between 1000 and 1100, Tiahuanaco was deserted. A few centuries later, the site was considered sacred by the Incas who made pilgrimages there to perform religious ceremonies. Inca traditions held that Tiahuanaco was a holy site associated with Viracocha, their god of creation, and was the birthplace of the first Inca ruler, Manco Capac.
Maya
The story of the people known as the Maya stretches back more than 3,000 years. Within the forests and jungles of Central America, for many years there flourished a civilization whose accomplishments equaled many of the most impressive achievements of the better-known civilizations of ancient Europe and Asia. Maya civilization was not organized under one unified empire but rather was a set of separate political and social entities with a common cultural background. Linguistic evidence suggests that the Maya did not even all speak the same language, although the various Mayan languages were all related to each other. Other methods of agriculture included raised plots, terraced fields, and house gardens, all of which could be farmed year after year. However, those areas were limited, and those methods all required much more intensive labor. It is now known that each city-state was ruled by a hereditary line of kings and that the cities fought with each other for territory and power. Some of the most important Maya exports included cacao beans (from which chocolate is made) and feathers of tropical birds, which they exchanged for copper tools and ornaments. For the most part, the Maya conducted trade via sea routes, as roads within the Maya territory were generally not well developed.Nevertheless, descendants of the Maya people survived. Even today, more than a million people in regions of the Yucatán and Guatemala speak various Mayan languages.
Bering Strait
This fresco at the National Anthropological Museum of Mexico depicts hunters migrating from Asia across at the Bering Strait. North, Central, and South America were populated over a period of thousands of years after nomadic hunters crossed over a land bridge into North America ca. 35,000-9000 B.C.
