HTY 230: Old Worlds
The Peoples of the Americas
ORIGINS AND NUMBERS: Why they matter
See First Peoples
ANCIENT CULTURES and LIFESTYLES
CLOVIS HUNTER-GATHERER (13K bce)
The Beringia Theory of the ice-free corridor and conflicting new data. Multiple waves? Multiple Neolithic Revolutions independent of Eurasia.
AGRICULTURAL COMPLEX: maize, beans, squash
Olmec (1800-300BCE): agriculture, cities, art, religion, writing, trade, 365 day calendar
Zapotec (500BCE-700CE) to Mixtec (900-1400CE)
Chaan Muan, eighth-century ruler of the Maya city of Bonampak, captures a victim for sacrifice in a jungle raid.
Teotihuacan (300-850CE) 
Toltec (800-1200CE)
Mexica (Triple Alliance) (1250-!550)
Maya (300-1200CE) (DO SLIDE SHOW)
LANGUAGE AND MATHEMATICS 
Mexica calendar (based on Mayan)
ARCHITECTURE and RELIGION: Grand scale
sacrifice to the sun
Guatamala Maya
ANDEAN SOCIETIES
Chavin (700 BCE), Beni (Bolivia), Tiwanaku (Lake Titicaca), Wari (Peru, c. 1000-1450CE).
By the fifteenth century, the Inka (945-1438 tribal era, 1438-1537 imperial era) controlled the region from modern-day Ecuador to central Chile, a distance of 2,500 miles.
Textiles: everything from boats to armor (protective and the fearsome sling) to suspension bridges
Astronomer-Priests; Administration; Roads: Over 30,000 kilomters of stone paved roads
MISSISSIPPIAN MOUND BUILDERS
Ouachita (3400BCE); Poverty Point (1500BCE)
Adena/Hopewell (800BCE-400CE)
Cahokia (800CE-1250)
Monks mound measures at least 291 m (955 feet) north-south and 236 meters (774.3 feet) east-west. Its height is between 28 meters (92 feet) and 30 m (99 feet).
SOUTHWEST
Anasazi Hopi
COMMON ERA TRADE ROUTES NORTH AMERICA
COMMON ERA CULTURE GROUPS
EASTERN WOODLANDS CULTURES
Africa
In many parts of Africa rock and cave paintings dating as far back as 6500 BCE have been found and documented in recent years. The Sahara desert is the location of many rock paintings, preserved in the dry desert heat. Not always a desert, the Sahara was once a green and lush plain, home to many people and a variety of animals.
Morocco
ANCIENT GHANA
Rivers, Gold, and Salt
MALI
"Listen then sons of Mali, children of the black people, listen to my word, for I am going to tell you of Sundiata, the father of the Bright Country, of the savanna land, the ancestor of those who draw the bow, the master of a hundred vanquished kings." 13th century account handed down orally and delivered in 1960 by Mali griot, Djeli Mamdoudou Kouyate, master in the art of eloquence.
Mansa Musa 
Djenne
SONGHAY
In 1473, Sunni Ali "The Great" (1464-1492), conquered Djenne for the Songhai Empire. The Songhai dynasty controlled Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. Timbuktu had been an educational and commercial center under the Mali. The Songhai brought Timbuktu to its zenith of greatness.
Timbuktu
Africa 1729
Europe: Towns, agriculture, plague and recovery
According to Thomas Hobbes, life for most people was “nasty, brutish, and short.”
Trade and Trade Routes: Land
Harnesses and crop rotation, and cows and pigs and sheep, and other domesticated animals that all were linked to grain production; artisans and guilds.
Medieval weaving/textiles: 
Renaisance 
Humanism 
Faith 
Reason 
Reform 
The twelfth through thirteenth centuries was the period in which universities of Bologna, Paris, Montpellier, Oxford and Cambridge were founded. The new learning was inspired from the Greeks, Romans, and Moslem East. The Arabic scholars of Mohammed's Spain fueled European scientific and philosophical thought.
New applications: Ships 
Paper and Print 
Guns and Steel 
Knowledge of gunpowder (13th c.) 
Horsepower: 
Related developments: long distance trade, accounting, financial services and investment vehicles.
New trade routes by Sea
State formation
KEY SYMBIOSIS: Merchants/Trade---State/Crown---Church
Outward Bound
The expansion of population and commerce, the humanist impulse to discover knowledge, the search for direct trade routes, and the drive to spread Christianity combined to push Europeans to look outward. The Atlantic was the open highway. Discovery of the prevailing trade winds that assisted westerly travel in the south and easterly returns across the northern latitudes resulted in the Atlantic becoming a single arena, connecting Europe, Africa, and America. The history of America is intertwined in the development of this Atlantic world that connected Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
CIVILIZATIONS
Essential features common to all great civilizations:
- intensive agricultural economies,
- large concentrated populations,
- intense social stratification,
- occupational specialization,
- central governmental authority,
- state control of food production and distribution,
- standing armies,
- monumental architecture,
- organized religion
