CIVILIZATIONS OF MESOAMERICA
Read pages 192-194
 Take notes on important information
Maya: Writing & Warfare
 Math and astronomy

Writing

Agriculture
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Collapse

Environmental degradation
Teotihuacan: America’s greatest city – 150 B.C.E. to 650 C.E.
 Largest urban complex in the Americas
 Little is known about this civilization. All that is known is from archeological digs and artifacts.
 Limited form of writing
CIVILIZATIONS OF THE ANDES
Chavin: A Pan-Andean Religious Movement – 2000 to 1000 B.C.E.
 Became the center of a religious movement that swept throughout Peru.
 Strategic location situated on trade routes to both the coastal region to the west and Amazon rain
forest in the east.

Moche: A Regional Andean Civilization – 100 to 800 C.E.
 Intensive agriculturalists that relied heavily on a complex irrigation system.
 Governed by warrior-priests
 Skilled craftsmen
 Natural disasters such as earthquakes, periodic drought and torrential rains contributed to the end of
the Moche.
NORTH AMERICA
 Semi-sedentary – agricultural societies that were less intensive and productive than elsewhere and
supported a smaller population. And, did not have large urban centers or empires.
Pit houses & Great Houses: the Ancestral Pueblo
 Agriculture based on maize, beans and squash
 Local trading networks
 Increased dependency on agriculture, increasing population and greater patterns of exchange = larger
settlements called pueblos.
 Skilled astronomers
 Warfare, internal conflict = end of people
The Mound Builders of the Eastern Woodlands
 Modest agricultural revolution, assimilated corn and beans from distant sources developed
increasingly complex societies and created monumental structures, new technologies and artistic
traditions.
 Dominant center = Cahokia