Aztec Mayan Inca Final Paper

1st EXAM STUDY GUIDE – AZTEC

THE ARCHAIC PERIOD (8000-2000 BC)

- Environment: semi-tropical, resource-rich, thorn-cactus-scrub woodland (like today)

- Diet relied on hunted animals and wild plants; also started to make some experiments with agriculture. MAIZE + BEANS + SQUASH GROWN TOGETHER

- Teosinte: ancestor of maize or corn

• This plant is a wild grass

• It was first eaten popped (each of its seed is in a hard fruit case, and the only way to eat it was to pop it over a fire)

• Wild fields combined this the wild ancestor of corn, beans, and squash; people later planted these 3 crops together

• Other crops gathered during Archaic are tomatoes, chili peppers, gourd, and avocado

- People were living in bands of two different sizes:

• During dry seasons, groups broke into small microbands (nuclear family of 4-6, mobile); almost no ritual

• During wet or abundant seasons, scattered groups came together to form a macroband camp (temp settlements of 20-50); allowed for trade, hunting, mating, and rituals - several involving human sacrifices and cannibalism

• groups were not sedentary

- What activities did the earliest rituals in Mexico involve?

• Cannibalism + human sacrifice (evidence = broken skulls of children, burning, human remains painted red)

• Performed rituals to thanks supernatural beings for rain/harvest + to make a request to supernatural deity’s

- Why did Archaic people move across great distances over the course of the year?

• Archaeologists believe that Archaic hunter-gatherers traveled over well-established routes, returning to favorite areas about the same time each year as plant and animal resources became seasonally available; “making the seasonal rounds”

THE EARLY FORMATIVE PERIOD (1600-850 BC)

- Corn was bigger and more productive ⋄ could support sedentary life in villages:

• people were living in wattle-and-daub houses

• people started to...