MEDIEVAL HISTORY NOTES: GRADE 7

 

EARLY CIVILIZATIONS OF THE AMERICAS

 

Section 1: South America and the Incas

 I. Geography of the Americas

 -The Incas were not the first culture to develop in the Americas. Many groups had lived in the region for thousands of years.

 

-Individual cultures developed different ways of life to fit their geographic settings. Some people made their homes in dense forests or fertile river valleys.

 

-Other people lived among rocky cliffs in areas that were dry for much of the year.

 

-In North America, temperatures range from extreme cold in the far north to hot and tropical in the southern region.

 

-In South America, mountain regions are cold. Areas near sea level are hot near the Equator but much cooler in the far south.

 

II. The Mountain Empire of the Incas

 

-At its peak, the powerful South American empire of the Incas measured 2,500 miles from one end to the other. This great empire grew from small beginnings over many years.

 

-About the year A.D. 1200, the Incas settled in a small village on a high plateau in the Andes. This village, named Cuzco, became the Incas’ capital city and a center of both government and religion.

 

-In fact, the word cuzco means “center” in the Incan language.  

 

-The Incans extended their control over nearby lands through conquests. Over time, many different people came under their rule. By the 1400s, the lands ruled by the Incas had grown into an empire.

 

-At its height, the Incan Empire included as many as 12 million people. 

 

-The Inca ruler was called Sapa Inca or “the emperor.” The people believed that their emperor was related to the sun god.

 

-The emperor owned all the land and divided it among those under his rule. Under the Sapa Inca was the noble class. Nobles oversaw government officials who made sure the empire ran smoothly.

 

-Officials used a census, or an official count of the people, to keep track of everyone’s responsibilities. The census helped to make sure that everyone paid taxes.

 

-Farmers had to give the government part of their crops, while women had to weave cloth. In return, the empire took care of the poor, the sick, and the elderly.

 

-The official spoken language of the empire was Quechua, but the Incas did not have a written language. Instead, they invented a complex system for keeping detailed records.

 

-Information such as births, deaths, and harvests was recorded on a group of knotted strings called a quipu. Each quipu had a main cord with several colored strings attached. The colors represented different items, and knots of various sizes recorded numbers.

 

-Incan relay runners carried quipus across vast networks of roads and bridges to keep the government informed about distant parts of the empire.

 

 -The achievements of the Incas still amaze people today. They constructed thousands of miles of paved roads, massive walls, and mountaintop buildings. And they did all this with only stone hammers and bronze chisels.            

 

-Besides communication, one of the main purposes of the Incan roads was to allow the army to travel quickly. 

 

-The Incas took advantage of their environment. They used stone—plentiful in the Andes—for many purposes. When Incan stonemasons made a wall, they made sure its large, many-sided stones fit together perfectly.

 

-Construction without mortar, or cement, also allowed the massive stones to move and resettled during earthquakes without damaging the wall.

 

-Among their many ingenious uses of stone was a method to increase farm production. The Andes are steep, dry, and rocky. There is little natural farmland. By building terraces, or step-like cuts into the mountains, the Incas could farm on slopes that would otherwise have been too steep.

 

-Stone terraces held the soil in place so it would not be washed away by rain. A complex system of aqueducts, or stone-lined channels, carried water to these farms.

 

-The power of the Incan empire peaked in the 1400s. After that, it lasted for fewer than 100 years.

 

-A number of factors contributed to the fall of the empire. Members of the ruling family began to fight among themselves for control. Also many workers started to rebel against the strict government.

 

-Then, in the 1530s, a Spanish conquistador named Francisco Pizarro arrived in South America. Pizarro had heard of the wealthy Incan Empire. He wanted to explore the region and conquer its peoples.

 

-The Incan emperor welcomed Pizarro. But when he and his unarmed men met the conquistador, they walked into a trap. Pizarro captured the emperor and killed his men.

 

-The Spanish had superior weapons. They also carried diseases such as smallpox and measles, to which the Incas had never been exposed. These diseases killed much of the Incan population.

 

-The Spanish quickly gained control of the vast Incan Empire. For decades, the Incas tried to regain rule of the land, but they never succeeded.

 

Section 2: Cultures of Middle America

 

I. Introduction

 

-In about 1325, the Aztecs, a people who lived in the valley of Mexico, began looking for a place to build a new capital. According to legend, the Aztecs asked their god of war where they should build this capital. He replied, “Build at the place where you see an eagle perched on a cactus and holding a snake in its beak.”

 

-When the Aztecs found the sign their god had described, they were surprised. The cactus on which the eagle perched was growing on a swampy island in the center of Lake Texcoco. It was an unlikely setting for an important city.

 

-But they believed their god had given them this sign, and so this was the place where the Aztecs built Tenochtitlan, their capital. It would become one of the largest and finest cities of its time.

 

II. The Culture of the Maya 

 

-Thousands of years before the Aztecs built Tenochtitlan, other cultures thrived in Middle America. One of these ancient peoples, called the Olmec, lived along the Gulf Coast from about 1200 B.C. until about 600 B.C.

 

-The Olmec are known for their pyramid-shaped temples and huge carved stone heads.

 

-Somewhat later, an important culture developed in parts of Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula to the north. The Yucatan peninsula is located at Mexico’s southeastern tip.

 

-These people, called the Mayans, established a great civilization and built many cities in this region of Middle America.

 

-The Mayas may have been influenced by Olmec culture. The Mayan way of life lasted for many centuries. Its greatest period was from about A.D. 250 until 900.

 

-Mayan life was based on farming. To grow crops, Mayan farmers used a technique called slash-and-burn agriculture. They first cleared the land by cutting down trees. They then burned the tree stumps, saving the ash to use as fertilizer. Finally, they planted seeds.

 

-After a few years, however, the soil would be worn out. The farmers would then have to clear and plant a new area.

 

-Mayan farmers grew a variety of crops, including beans, squash, peppers, papayas, and avocados. But their most common crop was maize, or corn.

 

-In fact, maize was so important to the Mayans that one of the gods they worshipped was a god of corn. And since the corn needed the sun and rain to grow, it is not surprising that the Mayans also worshipped a rain god and a sun god.

 

-Mayan cities were religious and governmental centers. A different ruler commanded each city.

 

-Priests and nobles were also important community leaders. These leaders lived in large palaces within the city. Ordinary people lived on the edges of the city.  

 

-Each city held great festivals to honor the many Mayan gods. The most important religious events took place at large temple-pyramids. Some of the ceremonies included religious sacrifice.

 

-The Mayas also created a system of writing using signs and symbols called hieroglyphics. They used these hieroglyphics to record information in books made from the bark of fig trees.

 

-Around A.D. 900, the Mayas abandoned their cities, and their civilization declined. No one knows the exact reason they left. Crop failures, war, disease, or overuse of natural resources may have altered the Mayan way of life. Or people may have rebelled against their leaders.

 

-Today, descendants of the Mayans still live in Central America.

 

III. The Aztec Empire 

-The Aztecs built their new capital, Tenochtitlan, in the middle of a lake in about 1325. They had first settled in the Valley of Mexico in the late 1100s.

-By the 1470s, the Aztecs had conquered the surrounding lands. Their large empire stretched from the Gulf of Mexico in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west.

 

-A single powerful leader, the Aztec emperor, ruled these lands. All the people he conquered were forced to pay him tribute, or heavy taxes, in the form of food, gold, or slaves.

 

-In spite of its swampy origins, Tenochtitlan became a magnificent capital city. There were schools for the sons of nobles and large stone palaces. Raised streets of hard earth, called causeways, connected the city to the surrounding land.

 

-To supply the city with enough fresh water, the Aztecs built aqueducts.

 

-As the population of Tenochtitlan grew, the Aztecs realized they needed more farmland. Their solution was to build many island gardens in the shallow lakes around the capital.

 

-These raised fields, called chinampas, were made from rich soil dredged up from the lake bottom. Trees planted along the edges prevented soil from washing away. Between the fields were canals. Farmers used the canals to transport produce by boats to a huge marketplace near the capital.

 

-To bring about good harvests, Aztec priests held ceremonies that would win the favor of their gods. Their most important god was the sun god.

 

-Aztec religion taught that the sun would not have the strength to rise and cross the sky every day without human blood. Of course, if the sun did not rise, crops could not grow, and the people would starve. Therefore, Aztec religious ceremonies included human sacrifice. Prisoners captured in war often served as human sacrifices.

 

-To schedule their religious festivals and farming cycles, Aztec priests created a calendar based on the Mayan calendar and their own understanding of astronomy.

 

-The Aztecs also kept records using hieroglyphics similar to those used by the Mayans.

 

-Tenochtitlan had schools and a university. Boys from noble families attended these schools. They studied to be government officials, teachers, or scribes.

 

-Aztec society had a strict class structure. The emperor, of course, was most important. Next were members of the royal family, nobles, priests, and military leaders. 

 

-Soldiers were next in importance. Below soldiers came artisans—skilled creators of jewelry, pottery, sculpture, and other goods—and merchants. Then came the farmers. They made up the largest class of people.

 

-The lowest position in Aztec society was held by slaves, most of whom were prisoners captured in battle.

 -War was a part of life in the Aztec Empire, as new territory was conquered. Most young men over the age of 15 served as soldiers for a period of time. Priests and government officials did not serve in the military.

 -Aztec women were not allowed to work as soldiers or military leaders, though they could train to be priestesses. Most women—even women from noble families—had to be skilled at weaving.

 -Before teenage girls learned to weave, they were expected to grind flour, make tortillas, and cook meals.

 -In 1519, Spanish conquistadors invaded the Aztec Empire. Some of the peoples whose lands the Aztecs had conquered joined forces with the Spanish. Together they fought the Aztecs and tried to overthrow the Aztec emperor, Moctezuma (c. 1480-1520).

 -The two sides waged fierce battles. Diseases carried by the Spanish spread to the Aztecs and killed many of them. In 1521, the Aztecs surrendered to the Spanish. The once-powerful Aztec Empire was at an end.

 

IV. Focus on the Great Temple

 -In 1521, the Spanish conquered the Aztecs and began to destroy the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. On the site of the ruined Aztec city, they built a new capital: Mexico City.

 

-For many years, an important piece of Mexico’s past—the Great Temple of the Aztecs—remained buried under this new city. Scholars were not sure where the site of the Great Temple lay.

-Then in 1978, electrical workers dug up an old stone carving. Experts who studied the carving knew that it had been made by the Aztecs. The site of the Great Temple had been found.

-The Great Temple honored two Aztec gods: Tlaloc, the god of earth and rain, and Huitzilopochtli, the god of sun and sky.

-The Aztecs first built the temple about 1325. A solid earth-filled pyramid, the heavy temple soon began to sink into the soft soil of Tenochtitlan. To save their sinking monument, the Aztec rebuilt it six times within the next 200 years.

-The Aztecs rebuilt each new temple over the previous temple. After rebuilding, they honored their gods with human sacrifices in the temple’s shrines.

-By the time the Spanish began to destroy Tenochtitlan in 1521, the Great Temple had been built seven times.

-The double-headed serpent was a symbol of Tlaloc.    

 

Section 3: Cultures of North America

 I. Introduction

 -Seen from above, a huge snake seems to twist and turn across the landscape. A mysterious shape—perhaps an egg?—is at its mouth.

 

-This enormous earthwork was created hundreds of years ago in what is now Ohio. Called the Great Serpent Mound, it is the largest image of a snake anywhere in the world. Uncoiled, the serpent would be about 1,349 feet long.

 

-Archaeologists have found more than 1,000 earthen mounds across eastern North America. They were made by thousands of workers moving baskets of earth by hand.

 

-There are small mounds and large ones. Some contain graves, but others—like the Great Serpent Mound—do not. Most were constructed between around 700 B.C. and A.D. 1250.

 

-Today, we call the different Native American groups who built these curious and long-lasting mounds the Mound Builders.

 

II. The Eastern Mound Builders

 

-The Mound Builders lived in eastern North America. They occupied the region roughly between Minnesota and Louisiana, and between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean.

 

-The Mound Builders lived along the area’s many rivers, which provided them with plenty of fish and fresh water.

 

-They hunted wild animals for food, including deer, turkeys, bears, and even squirrels. They also gathered nuts such as acorns, pecans, and walnuts to supplement their diet.

 

-Over time, these communities began to grow their own food. This meant they did not have to move as much in search of food and could form settlements.

 

-Archaeologists have discovered evidence of early Mound Builders who lived about 600 B.C. in the Ohio Valley. Called the Adena, these people constructed mounds that are usually less than 20 feet high.

 

-Certain mounds were tombs that contained weapons, tools, and decorative objects in addition to bodies.

 

-Some items were made from materials not found locally, such as copper and seashells. Thus, historians believe that the Adena must have taken part in long-distance trade. Little is known about the daily life of the Adena, but they seem to have declined about 100 B.C. 

 

-About 100 years before the Adena disappeared, another culture appeared along the Ohio and upper Mississippi Rivers.

 

-Called the Hopewell, these peoples built larger mounds. The Hopewell did not have a highly organized society with a single ruler. Instead, they lived in many small communities with local leaders.

 

-The Hopewell people grew a greater variety of crops than did the Adena. They also seem to have traded over a wider area. There is evidence that goods were traded from the Gulf of Mexico to present-day Canada and from the Rocky Mountain to the Atlantic Ocean.

 

-Hopewell sites have silver from the Great Lakes region and alligator teeth from present-day Florida.

 

-About A.D. 400, the long-distance trade across eastern North America seems to have faded out. Also the Hopewell stopped building new mounds. Historians are not sure why.

 

-By about A.D. 700, a new and important culture called Mississippian began to flower in eastern North America. Like the earlier Mound Builders, the Mississippians lived along rivers and built mounds.

 

-They, too, grew new kinds of crops. Maize and beans became important parts of their diet. Both foods are easily dried and stored in large amounts. This helped the Mississippians protect themselves against years of drought and bad harvests.

 

-The Mississippian culture spread over a wide area in the present-day South and Midwest. During this period, long-distance trade revived. Populations increased over time, and major centers of government and religion developed.

 

-These include Moundville in present-day Alabama, and Etowah in present-day Georgia. The largest center was Cahokia, located in what is now Illinois.

 

-One of Cahokia’s mounds, around 100 feet tall, was the largest mound in North America.

-Cahokia was a large city for its day. Historians estimate it reached its peak about A.D. 1100. At that time, as many as 20,000 to 30,000 people may have lived there. But by 1250, the population had dropped.

 

-The disappearance of the last of the Mound Builders is as mystifying as the many earthworks they left behind.

 

III. Peoples of the Southwest and the Great Plains

 

-The Anasazi were an ancient Native American peoples of the southwest. Their name can be translated as “the ancient ones.”

 

-Anasazi culture began about A.D. 100. Historians think that Chaco Canyon, in present-day New Mexico, was a trading center for the region.

-A network of roads connected distant Anasazi villages to Chaco Canyon. Archaeologists have found tens of thousands of turquoise pieces as well as baskets, pottery, shells, and feathers in Chaco Canyon.

 

-Southwestern North America has harsh winters in some areas and hot, dry summers. The soil is mostly poor, and there is little water. To capture rainwater for their fields, the Anasazi created a system of canals and dams.

 

-This system allowed them to grow maize, beans, and squash for food. They also grew cotton for cloth. 

 

-For their homes, the Anasazi constructed pueblos. These stone and adobe dwellings, built next to one another, helped keep people warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

 

-Round rooms called kivas were used for special religious ceremonies. As the population grew, so did the pueblos. Some pueblos were five stories tall and had hundreds of rooms.

 

-Between 1275 and 1300, however, severe droughts hit the region. The Anasazi abandoned all their major pueblos, never to return.

 

-Anasazi customs survived among later groups who lived to the south of Anasazi sites. They are called Pueblo people, or simply Pueblos. Like the Anasazi, their crafts included weaving, basket-making, and pottery. They were also skilled farmers.

 

-The region of New Mexico where the Pueblos lived receives only 8-13 inches of rain per year, but it does have rivers. The Pueblos planted corn, squash, beans, and other crops in the river bottoms near their dwellings.

 

-They relied on intensive irrigation to raise these crops. Hunting and gathering provided the Pueblos with the food they could not grow.

 

-The Pueblos believed in many spirits called kachinas. They wanted to please these spirits, who they believed controlled the rain, wild animals, and harvests.

 

-Many times a year, the Pueblo gathered for ceremonies that involved prayer, dancing, and singing. Today, modern descendants of the Pueblo peoples, including the Hopi and the Zuni, keep many of these traditions alive.  

 

-West of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains is a mostly flat and grassy region called the Great Plains. For centuries, this land was home to diverse groups of Native Americans called Plains Indians. 

 

-Individual groups had their own languages and traditions. They used a form of sign language to trade with one another.

 

-Some groups, such as the Mandan, were farmers. They lived in fenced villages along the Missouri River, in lodges made of earth and wood.

 

-Others, such as the Sioux, followed herds of bison that roamed the plains. Dwellings such as tipis—easy to take apart, carry, and set up again—were ideal for such a lifestyle.

 

-After the arrival of Europeans, the lives of Plains Indians changed rapidly. They had to share their land with eastern Native Americans, such as the Omaha, who had been forced west by white settlers.

 

-Newly introduced horses, guns, and railroads altered their traditions. Most groups suffered from diseases brought by Europeans and lost their land to European settlement.

 

-Many Native American cultures began to break down.

 

-The arrival of the horse in the Americas brought major changes to the lives of many plains Indians. Native Americans on horseback became expert buffalo hunters.

 

-They came to depend more and more on the buffalo for their existence, using the animal for food, clothing, and shelter. Many previously settled Indian groups became nomadic. They rode their horses across the plains, following the great herds of buffalo.   

 

IV. Peoples of the Woodlands

 

-Native American groups lived in woodlands in different parts of present-day Canada and the United States. The peoples of the Northwest Coast hunted in the forests and fished in rivers full of salmon as well as in the Pacific Ocean.

 

-They lived in settlements of wooden homes. Like the Mound Builders and the Pueblos, early Native Americans of the Northwest Coast created remarkable structures. They were called totem poles.

 

-Totem poles were carved and painted logs stood on end. They typically had images of real or mythical animals. Totem poles were a symbol of the owner’s wealth, as were ceremonies called potlatches.

 

-At a potlatch, a person of high rank invited many guests and gave them generous gifts.

-In the eastern woodlands, Native American groups such as the Iroquois not only hunted in the forests but also cleared land for farms.

 

-Because the men were often at war, the women were the farmers.

 

-In the 1500s, five Iroquois nations—Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Oneida—formed a peace alliance.

 

-Nations of the Iroquois League governed their own villages, but they met to decide issues that affected the group as a whole. This was the best-organized political system in the Americas when the Europeans arrived. 

 

SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES FROM OUR READINGS

 

Historians believe that there are four (4) reasons that the Mayan people abandoned their cities around A.D. 900.

 

1.   The cities grew so big that the ground around them couldn’t grow enough food to support the cities’ inhabitants.

 

2.   Hurricanes and earthquakes swept across the Yucatan Peninsula, wrecking houses and temples.

 

3.   The people were growing tired of the cruelty and violence of their kings.

 

4.   The Aztecs were growing stronger and attacking the Mayan cities with their armies.

 

 

 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

 

1. LIST 3 GROUPS OF MOUND BUILDERS

 

HOPEWELL

ADENA

MISSISSIPPIANS

 

2. FOR THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTHWEST COAST, WHAT WERE TWO SYMBOLS OF SOMEONE’S WEALTH? 

TOTEM POLES

CEREMONIES CALLED POTLATCHES

 

3. WHY DID THE AZTECS SACRIFICE HUMANS TO THE SUN GOD?

THEY BELIEVED THAT HUMAN BLOOD GAVE THE SUN GOD THE STRENGTH TO RISE EACH MORNING.

 

4. ON WHAT NUMBER WAS THE MAYAN NUMBER SYSTEM BASED? 

 

UNLIKE OUR NUMBER SYSTEM, WHICH IS BASED ON 10, THE MAYA'S NUMBER SYSTEM WAS BASED ON 20.