Collision of Cultures
Encounters, Exchanges, and
Establishments, 18000 B. C. E. -1600
From Asia to the “West?”
• Beringian hypothesis
• “Clovis” and “Folsom” peoples
• Agricultural revolutions
Olmecs
• Central Valley of Mexico 100 b. c. e-500 c. e.
• elaborate urban architecture (Tehotihuacan)
Tehotihuacan: The "Camino de los Muertos" from the
Pyramid of the Sun
Mayas
• Yucutan and Belize 500 –950
• great science and math, urban centers
What happened to the Maya?
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Theories:
ecological devastations
internal social and political unrest
external invasion
Maya Solar Calendar
Mexica (Aztec)
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Empire flourished from about 1325-1520
Vast political, trade, and tribute network
capital city was Tenochtitlan
conquered by Cortes.
Mexica Empire
Quechua Empire (Inca)
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extended through Ecuador, Peru, and Chile
flourished from about 1200 to 1533
conquered by Juan Pizarro.
The ruler, the Inca, had great power and kept his
empire together through a network of roads over
which messengers ran carrying
instructions/accounting “written” in the form of
knotted ropes. (Quipu)
Quechua Empire
Machu Picchu, major temple and
administration center
Human Beings al Norté
• Hohokam-Anasazi
• Adena-Hopewell
• Mississippian
Southwest Peoples
• Book to read: Stephen Plog, Ancient Peoples of the
Southwest
• Slow to develop agriculture
• Major cultural flowerings:
• HOHOKAM—Southern Arizona 1000 B. C. E.- 1100—Ball
Courts, feathers
• MOGOLLAN—Southern New Mexico 1000 B. C. E.-1000 —
Pit Houses and Pottery
• ANASAZI (now properly called Ancestral Puebloans)—
1000 B. C. E. –1300—Northern New Mexico and Arizona—
large villages and cliff dwellings, good roads.
Pueblo Bonito—Chaco Canyon, New
Mexico
Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde, Colorado
ADENA-HOPEWELL
• Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys 1000 B. C.
E.-800 A. D.
• Burial Mounds
• Trade Goods
Adena Hopewell Village—computer enhanced image by
scholars at the University of Cincinnati
MISSISSIPPIAN
• Flourished 900-1550
• Lower Mississippi Valley
• great moundbuilders
Cahokia
Emerald Mound in Mississippi 3.5
football fields long
Other Peoples
EASTERN WOODLANDS:
MUSKOGEAN—1500 present—Southeast—mound builders and
farmers (Natchez, Chickasaw, Choctaw)
IROQUOIS—1400 present—New York—longhouses—Senecas,
Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, Mohawks, Tuscaroras.
ALGONQUIAN—1200 present—agriculture, hunting, gathering,
fishing. (Wampanoag, Lenni Lenape, Shawnee)
GREAT PLAINS/GREAT BASIN—1500 B. C. E. – Present—hunters,
gatherers, horticulturalists, transhumance, bows and arrows—got horse
in 1600. (Utes—Nyuutsiyu, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, Lakota,
Dakota)
WESTERN--5000 B. C. E.-Present—good fishers, hunters of whales,
netters of fish. (Tlingits, Tillamook, Chinook)
Misc.
• In 1492, TOTAL INDIAN POPULATION—57
million to 112 million (10 million in North
America)
• How do we know about these “lost peoples/”
Archaeology—clovis/folsom hypothesis.
Kennewick Man—was he a Caucasoid
ecotumor? Oral History.
European Background to Its
Incursion in and Settlement
(Conquest) of North America
Context
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Norse migrations
Rise of Nation States
Renaissance
La Reconquista
Why Europe and not China? Zheng He
commanded a large treasure fleet in the
1430s, but China had no incentive to explore
beyond the Indian Ocean and East African
Coast.
How did the United States come to
be?
• Conquest of a continent was not a foregone
conclusion.
• A unitary state did not have to emerge out
of the conquered lands of native peoples.
• In many way, the European encounter with
the Americas was an accident.
Portuguese Forays
• Along the African Coast to India (Prince Henry
the Navigator)
• Bartholomew Dias around the Cape of Good
Hope (1488)
• Vasco da Gama to India (1498)
• Pedro Cabral to Brazil (1500)
Spanish Forays
• Christopher Columbus (1492—first of 4
voyages)
• Columbus Controversy—hero or instigator of
genocide?
The Pinta and the Santa Maria
Great Biological Exchange
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Maize
Potatoes
Rice
Dandelions
Small pox
Pollinating insects
U. S. Honeybee is native to
Asia.
Spanish Empire in the New World
• Conquistadors conquer Mexica and Quechua
(Cortes and Pizarro)
• Coronado and DeSoto explore interior of North
America
• Focus on Silver in Mexico, especially rich strikes at
Zacatecas.—Juan de Oñate
• Popé
• Encomienda
• Bartolomé de Las Casas
• Rivalries with France and England
• Legacies?
Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• English Reformation—from Henry to Elizabeth
ELIZABETH I—1558-1603
• Marriage politics
• Aided Protestants in
Netherlands
• Supported “Sea
Dogs”—really pirates
like Drake
Spanish Armada
• Phillip II desired to rid himself of both his
English and Protestant problems in the north.
• Mythology of Armada
• English freer to exploit North Atlantic
• Spanish sea power was considerably
weakened
• English morale heightened.
Walter Raleigh
• Established Roanoke on
Carolina’s outer banks
• Armada interfered with
supplying ti.
• “Lost Colony”