Early Latin America
The Olmecs 1500BC – 200 AD
• Central American Civilizations
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Olmec - 1500BCE-200CE
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Maya 200-1200CE
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Aztecs 1350-1530
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South America
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Inca – 1350 - 1530
◦ Many older Civilizations across South America are united by the Inca
Meso-American Civilization Origins
• Olmec 1500 BCE – 200 CE
Geography
Yukatan Penninsula
• located on the hot, humid coasts of the Gulf of Mexico
• surrounded by rain forests, grasslands, and swamps
Olmec Politics
• Called “Cult of the Jaguar”
• City state government that united for religious celebrations under the authority of a
Priest/shaman
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Dirt and clay pyramids used for political power and religious ceremonies
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Why is it that most early civilizations were set up as city states?
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Colossal stone heads of rulers used as power symbols
Economic Life
• most were farmers
• localized trade for minerals and jade for art
Olmec Religion:
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Polytheist nature worship
• shaman ruled, claimed to shape-change, control nature (rain, sun, crops), fly, killing enemies from a distance, and bear off-spring even though they are men.
• Jaguars seen as magical animals and shaman claimed to shape shift into them
• foundation of later Maya civilization.

Social Class
• based on power and wealth
• priests and government were the most powerful
• merchants and craftspeople were next
• farmers were the lowest
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Most city states had their own language and customs
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Social Life Typical of Agricultural Society
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Men:
• plowed and planted fields
• tended to the crops
• hunted and fished
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◦ housekeeping chores making clothes supplying the home with firewood and water
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◦ caring for younger children learned about farming and housekeeping chores
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Women/Older girls
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Children
Intellectual Life
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Maize Domesticated 3000BCE
• Major staplecrop in Mesoamerica
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Also domesticated cotton, cacao, feathers, pelts, woods, rubber
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Olmec Art: Jade Sculpture (plus giant heads and pyramids)
Olmec Influence on the Mayans
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Maize projection
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Ceremonial centers with temple pyramids
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Calendar based on the Olmec one
• Ball games
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Rituals involving human sacrifice
The Mayans 200 – 1200
Mayan Dynasty Overview
The Mayan Dynasty began around 2600BC. and had many great accomplishments such as creating a calendar and creating the idea of zero as a place holder. The calendar helped the Mayans keep track of important dates as well as astronomical discoveries. Today, the idea of a calendar is still used as well as some of the predictions the Mayans had written down. The Mayans invented zero because they understood the concept of zero and found it necessary to have an object as a place holder. The concept of zero helped make their

math very accurate and complex. The decline however isn’t really known although we do have many assumptions about the possible causes.
Mayan Social Organization
First and foremost, the start of the Mayan dynasty came to be because of many small
Central American tribes. One of their greatest discoveries was astronomy the Mayans had great and superior knowledge on the subject. With this knowledge they were able to create calendars and tell time along with other astronomical changes. Mayans liked to keep organization they had many city-states that were ruled by kings. The organization of their social class consist of having the king/emperor on top of the social pyramid followed by the priest which was then followed by commoners and at eh bottom of the pyramid they had salves. Having such a great social organization contributed with everyone doing their part in society and help mold a great future for their civilization.
Mayan Temples
Furthermore, the Mayans had many great leaders that led them into many successful time periods. Yik'in Chan K'awiil, for example, built one of the greatest temples known.
Within this temple are many Mayan artifacts and stories that help us depict of the events that had happened during their time of rule. Inside this temple they also had many pictographs which were the first form of writing known. These temples also served as a place where sacrifice was held. Sacrifice was very important to the Mayans they believed that with a sacrifice they would get the gods on their side and in return the gods would bless them with good crops and good luck with anything. Sacrifices were held on special occasions to please the many gods they had.
Reasons for Mayan Decline
To conclude, although the Mayan civilization was successful in many aspects it still had its defects that lead to its decline and end of rule. There are many theories about the decline but none of them have been proven. The first theory is that the Mayans had worn out the environment around them to the point that it could no longer uphold a very large population. The Mayan population had multiplied greatly within the years. This lead to a higher demand for food and more crop planting leaving little to no space for other activities. The second speculation as to why they declined was warfare. There was always a constant conflict between many competing city-states. The war between city-states caused many trade alliances to diminish along with the traditional system of dynastic power. The last possible reason for decline was drought. Water was a great necessity to the Mayans because not only was it needed for drinking but it was also used to irrigate crops-- which were especially hard.

Mayan Civilization Cult of the Jaguar
Maya Timeline
• c. 1500 Olmec Civilization
• c. 750 Writing is developed in Mesoamérica.
• c. 420 The earliest known solar calendars
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100 The city of Teotihuacán forms; cultural, religious and trading centre of
Mesoamérica.
• c. 150 The decline of the Olmecs.
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400 The Maya highlands fall under the domination of Teotihuacán, and the disintegration of Maya culture and language begins in some parts of the highlands.
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500 Tikal becomes the first great Maya city
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751 Long-standing Maya alliances begin to break down. Trade between Maya citystates declines, and inter-state conflict increases.
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899 Tikal is abandoned.
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900 The Classic Period of Maya history ends, with the collapse of the southern lowland cities. Maya cities in the northern Yucatán continue to thrive.
• 1224 The Northern Maya city of Chichén Itzá is abandoned by the Toltecs.
• The Itzá people settle in the deserted area.
Only 20% of ruins have been uncovered and researched so more is to come
Mayan Political Systems
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City states united in a loose confederacy
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Ruled by powerful semi-divine kings called halach uinic ("True Man") and his lesser nobles
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Nobles own most of the land and are the important merchants
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Priests
• Maintained an elaborate calendar and transmitted knowledge of writing, astronomy, and mathematics
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Population largely rural used cities for primarily relgious centers
• War
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Mayan kingdoms fought constantly with each other and warriors won tremendous prestige by capturing high-ranking enemies
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Captives were usually made slaves, humiliated, tortured, and ritually sacrificed
• Tikal is the capital city
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Tikal was the most important Mayan political center between the 4 th
and 9 th
Centuries
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Meeting place for all Mayan city states on important astronomical/religious dates
• 40,000 people lived here

Mayan Economic Systems
• Agricultural society
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Terrace farming
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Shifting cultivation
• Grew Maize, cacao
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Architects, sculptors, Potters
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Cacao used as money
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Merchants traded in luxury goods like jade, fancy textiles and animal pelts
Mayan Religion
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Polytheistic; gods made people out of maize and water
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Human Blood Sacrifice and ceremony keep the gods happy so they keep the world going and agriculture good
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Mayan Ball Game
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Winners live losers sacrificed to the gods
• Human Sacrifice and 
Bloodletting Rituals
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Bloodletting involved both war captives and Mayan royals
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Bloodletting involved pircing the tongue and/or genitals and dripping the blood down a rope into a bowl before offering it to the gods
• Religious Ritual
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Killing animals, slaves, children, and prisoners of war were important parts of their culture
• occurred on important dates, when priests demanded it, or as punishment for crimes.
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Burned copal resin along with the sacrifice, creating more smoke and a sweet smell.
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Offerings to the spirits were to insure agricultural success.
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Priests –
◦ responsible for keeping calendar, holding ceremonies to the gods and Human sacrifice
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Most important Priest called Ah Kin Mai ("The Highest One of the Sun")
◦ ruled over priests below him (called Ah Kin , "The Ones of the Sun").
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There were two special priestly functions involved in human sacrifice: the chacs, who were elderly men that held down the victim, and the nacon, who cut the living heart from the victim.
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Mayan After life
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The Mayas believed in an elaborate afterlife, but heaven was reserved for those who had been hanged, sacrificed, or died in childbirth. Everyone else went to xibal, or hell, which was ruled over by the Lords of Death.
Mayan Social Hierarchy
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King and ruling family
• Priests
• Hereditary nobility (from which came the merchant class)þ
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Warriors
• Professionals and artisans

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Peasants
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Slaves
Mayan beauty
• prized a long, backward sloping forehead
• infants would have their skulls bound with boards.
• Crossed-eyes favored
• infants would have objects dangled in front of their eyes in order to permanently cross their eyes (this is still practiced today).
Mayan Intellectual Developments
• astronomy, calendrical systems, hieroglyphic writing, ceremonial architecture, and masonry without metal tools
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Could plot planetary cycles and predict eclipses of the sun and moon
• Invented the concept of zero and used a symbol to represent zero mathematically, which facilitated the manipulation of large numbers
• calculated the length of the solar year at 365.242 days– about 17 seconds shorter than the figure reached by modern
Maya Number System
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Mayan Calendar
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Interwove two kinds of year
• A solar year of 365 days governed the agricultural cycle
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A ritual year of 260 days governed daily affairs by organizing time into twenty
“months” of thirteen days each
• Mayan Art
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Writing
• ideographic elements and symbols for syllables
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Used to write works of history, poetry, and myth and keep genealogical, administrative, and astronomical records
Mayan Decline
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By about 800, most Mayan populations had begun to desert their cities
• Full scale decline followed everywhere but in the northern Yucatan
Possible causes include foreign invasion, internal dissension and civil war, failure of the water control system leading to agricultural disaster, ecological problems caused by destruction of the forests, epidemic diseases, and natural disasters
The Aztecs 1300 – 1530
Aztec Background
The Aztec Empire was built in the areas around the Gulf of Mexico, with their capital city,
Tenochtitlan, seated on the western side of Lake Texcoco. Their empire was established in about 1325

by native tribes from the north. The Aztecs are known for their warlike nature and their brutal human sacrifices. These two go hand in hand because when the Aztecs were fighting their various foes, they would capture their enemies and use them in their religious human sacrifices.
Their sacrifices and warlike tendencies are important because when their civilization was conquered by the Spaniards, the Aztecs' religion was considered barbaric and they were not allowed to continue their traditional ways. The northern tribes that established the capital city of the Aztecs said that there was an ancient prophecy stating that the wandering tribes would find the destined site for a great city when they saw an eagle eating a snake while perched on a cactus. They found said eagle on the western side of Lake
Texcoco and built a great city there, calling it Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs had very advanced art, economic system, and social structure. There were two main types of Aztecan economy: commercial and political. In the commercial branch of economics, small cities would have markets weekly, but large cities would have local markets every day where farmers could sell some of their produce and professional merchants who traveled from market to market could sell their items. Cacao beans were used as currency.
Aztec Social Status
In the political economy; nobles owned all of the land and commoners got access to farmlands through a variety of arrangements, from sharecropping to serf-like labor. Since the nobles

owned all of the land, this led to only three main categories of people: the nobles, the peasants and the slaves. According to Eduardo Noguera, only twenty percent of the peasants were farmers; the other eighty percent were warriors, traders, and artisans. An Aztec person could become a slave by debts, punishment, or because they were a war captive. Slaves, however, were able to buy their freedom and were set free if they had children with or married their master.
Aztec Poetry
In the Aztec culture, song and poetry were highly valued. There were also several genres of poetry: Yaocuicatl poetry was devoted to war and the various gods of war, Teocuicatl poetry was dedicated to the gods and adoration to the gods, Xochicuicatl was written about flowers and life's deeper meanings, and Tlahtolli was prose. There were presentations and poetry contests at many Aztec festivals as well as shows that included acrobats, actors, and musicians. When the Spaniards landed on the Gulf Coast in 1519, their leader, Cortes, allied himself with the Aztecs' long time nemesis, the Confederacy of
Tlaxcala.
The Aztec and the Spanish
The Spaniards and their new allies became increasingly dangerous and in June of 1520, hostilities broke out, causing a massacre in the Main Temple and the death of Moctezuma
II, the leader of the Tlaxcalas. The
Spaniards fled the town, but returned with their Tlaxcallan allies in the spring of 1521.
This battle ended on August 13, when Tenochtitlan was destroyed. After this, the nearly-ruined empire went through many rulers, eventually being ruled by leaders installed by the Spanish, leading to the Spanish colonization of Central America.
Flower Wars

The Aztecs' warlike nature effected aspects of their culture, such as childbirth, and the unusual “Flower Wars”. Aztec fighting techniques were clever and well organized, showing how much thought the Aztecs put into wars. When a woman was in labor, she was attended to by a midwife. The act of childbirth itself was thought of as a war between the mother and her child. When the baby was born, the midwife would shriek a series of battle cries to symbolize that the “war” between the mother and baby was over. Dying in childbirth was equated to dying in battle. The Aztecs also participated in “Flower Wars”. These mini-wars were fought between the Aztecs and a smaller army after both sides agreed to this preplanned battle. The “Flower War” was not aimed at conquering the enemy's city-state but instead gave each side a chance to give young warriors a chance to fight in real combat and to give each side a chance to capture enemy soldiers for ritual sacrifice ceremonies. The Aztecs almost always won these small wars because of their superior army and fighting styles.
According to Ross
Hassig, the “Flower Wars” allowed the Aztecs to take sacrificial captives, demonstrate their military power, and to make the opposing army's force smaller. The war also served as a propaganda towards other city-states and to the Aztec people themselves by allowing Aztecan rulers to flaunt their power with a constant flow of war captives and victories. The signal to attack was given by a drummer and a conch-shell trumpeter. The war usually began with projectile fire shot by commoners armed with bows and slings. Warriors then advanced to
“meelee” combat. This combat primarily used missile weapons. First to enter “meelee” were the distinguished warriors, followed by the Eagle and Jaguar warriors, the commoners and unpracticed youth, and lastly, the allies. The youngest Aztecan fighters were not allowed to fight until it was obvious that the Aztecs were going to win. Aztecan warriors would try to capture their

foes to be used as religious sacrifices instead of killing them. The Aztecs would sometimes fake retreats and ambushes by having a small portion of the Aztecan army would attack and then fall back, luring the enemy into a trap where more warriors were hidden.
Aztec Human Sacrifice
The practice of religious human sacrifice was a very important part in the Aztec culture in three main ways: sacrifice repaid debt, sustained the world, and apologized for the wrongdoings of the
Aztec civilization. According to Aztecan legend, the gods sacrificed themselves so that the Aztecs might have life. The Aztecs believed that they must sacrifice some of their people and prisoners of war as a way to repay and thank the gods for their sacrifice. In a cosmological sense, the Aztecs thought that the universe ran on blood, and if they stopped sacrificing people then the world would explode. Heart extraction was a common form of human sacrifice and the Aztecs believed that the heart was a fragment of the sun's heat. In the Aztecs' point of view, a human's “divine sun fragments” were considered “trapped” by their body. Heart removal was considered liberating the heart and reuniting it with the sun. Sacrifice was also viewed as a way to apologize for the wrongdoings of the
Aztecs.
Society considered even the littlest sin as an extremely evil supernatural force. Some
Aztecan hymns say that the victim was sent to death to plead for them and their forgiveness.

Aztecs – c. 1350- 1550
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A Continuation of the Olmec and Maya cultures
Location / Geography
• Central Mexico (not the Yucatan)
• Capital at Tenochtitlan (island)þ 500,000 people
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Total Pop: 10-20 million
Aztecs Politics
• Theocracy led by divine king/Priest
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Military – nearly constant brutal wars for conquest, collect tribute, captives for slaves and sacrifice
Aztecs Economics
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Agriculturally based
• merchants are limited by what they can carry since they don’t have large pack animals
• Chinampas – huge floating islands for agriculture
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The great market – daily trade in the merchant section of large cities
Aztecs Religion
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Polytheistic
• Many Temples based on astronomy for worship, agricultural planning and sacrifice
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Each holiday included ceremonies involving human sacrifice/cannibalism
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Fatalistic and cyclical view of the world
Aztecs Social
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Large gap between upper/lower classes
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Role of Women – decide fate of prisoners, domestic chores (grinding maize), can inherit land
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Common people in constant fear of war/sacrifice/slavery
Aztecs Intellectual
• calendar, numbers and pictorial writing similar but not identical to Maya
• Capital built on an island required great planning and coordination
Aztecs Art
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Temples
• Gold objects
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Sculpture
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Skull racks
Aztecs Decline and Fall
• Conquered by Spanish

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Spanish conquistadors led by Cortes crush the Aztecs during the 1530s
The Incas 1300 – 1550
The Inca Overview
The Inca began their rein in the year 1350.c.e. The Inca were a loose confederation of tribes ruled by a royal family. The Inca was a costal empire that at its peak covered an area close to two million square kilometers stretching along South
America’s eastern coast from nowadays Quito, Ecuador to Santiago, Chile. Inca rulers were able to control their empire easily with the magnificent and extensive road system they created. This allowed the Inca to better communicate across the empire thus allowing for rapid deployment of troops to troubled spots. The roads also made it possible for the Inca to transport the huge boulders which ultimately led to the construction of some of the Incas greatest creations such as Macchu Picchu.
Inca Beginning
After a long time migrating throughout the Andes Mountains the Inca finally settled around Lake Titicaca. For a while the Inca lived as one of many peoples in the region until Pachacuti came to power around 1438.c.e. Pachacuti began a series of military campaigns that greatly expanded the Incas authority. It is said that Pachacuti was a great warrior, so much so that Inca legends state that he fought battles so furiously that he inspired the stones in the battle field to fight alongside him. This could be one of the reasons why he was given the name Pachacuti which means “earthshaker”. Pachacuti’s campaigns were long and brutal but all ended in victory, extending the Inca’s borders even further across the Andes Mountains.
Inca Roads 
The grand and seemingly infinite Inca roads were the empires most important accomplishments, stretching nearly 4,000 miles across the land. The roads were centuries ahead of their time. So good that when the Spanish came to the new world they were amazed with the roads, six carts wide, with trees providing shade for travelers.
Some of the Spanish even stated that the Inca roads were better than those of Spain.
Considering the fact that the Inca had not yet invented the wheel thus not having any carts or chariots you would wonder why their roads would be so wide? Some experts believe the roads were designed in this way for easy transportation of boulders from the quarry to the building site could be easier.
Inca Stone Building Technique
Another huge accomplishment by the Inca was their incredible stone buildings; not only were they able to build in places that seem inaccessible, like the tops of mountain ridges, but just the way these buildings were constructed was amazing. The Inca did not have bricks; instead they used stones to pound the boulders smooth. This way they could be placed between other boulders without the use of mortar. This is why when looking at an ancient Inca wall it can tend to resemble a puzzle. The greatest site in which the Incas made that uses this type of building style is known today as Macchu Picchu.

Inca Dynasty (1350-1550)
Inca c. 1350 – 1550
Geography
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Western coast of S. America
• Total Pop: 10 million
Inca Politics
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Capital at Cuzco, religious center Machu Pichu
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4000 miles in length
• Made up of hundreds of tribes loosely ruled by the Inca
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Empire included deserts along the coast, jungle and high mountain villages
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Loose confederation of tribes
• Smart captives were trained/brainwashed in Cuzco to rule for Inca and then sent back home to be Incan governors
• Maintain authority by trading supplies to “good” regions and not to “bad” regions
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Constant need to expand in order to support the trade/bribery with other regions
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Divine Kings
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Emperor and principle wife seen as gods
• Inca nobility dominate the bureaucracy
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Macchu Picchu
Incan Economy
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Agriculturally based –
• terraced farming,
• different crops based on location and altitude
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Lots of labor/workers necessary for transport of goods
• Excellent Roads/infrastructure for transfer of goods from coastal desert to jungle to mountain villages
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Trade from different regions provided lots of different food to eat
• Domesticated and bred hundreds of varieties of potatoes, tomatoes, peppers
Incan Religion
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Religious tolerance but must worship Incan gods
• Polytheistic, sun god is most importantþ
• Human sacrifice rare
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Great Inca – emperor, descendant of the sun god
Incan Social Life
• Diverse geography = diverse population
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Social hierarchy
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Kings/nobles
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Merchants/rich
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Farmers
• slaves

• land/money split to several heirs kept people more equal in wealth
• “Mita” – obligation to the empire (military service/public works)þ
• women have almost no rights but work hard farming and run the home
Inca Intellectual life and Art
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No writing!
• Incan Knots (Quipu) used to keep records of taxes, population, trade and names
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Mummies are common
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Nazca lines in the desert sand form animal shapes (possibly festival dancing patterns?)
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Quipus (FYI only)
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Quipu means "to tie".
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A quipu was composed of a rope to which a collection of counting-threads, each about
60 centimeters long, were tied.
• Information was recorded on the threads using different materials, colors, ties and placement. The most important information was placed on the leftmost thread.
Yellow, white, and red represented gold, silver, and soldiers, respectively.
• In a population census, men and women were counted on separate quipus, in which the:
1st thread recorded persons over the age of 60
2nd thread recorded persons between 50 and 60 years ...
8th thread recorded babies, 0-1 years.
When an event was to be recorded, a Quipu was used to store facts. The story itself had to be memorized and could be retold using the Quipu's recorded facts. Interpretation of a
Quipu was complicated because every counter, Quipucamayo , used his own system of ties and retold information from the Quipu orally