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| 4368892209 | Cahokia | - historical site located near modern-day East St. Louis, Illinois; remnants of a sophisticated prehistoric native civilization north of Mexico. | 0 | |
| 4368897817 | Khipu | - system of cords and beads for counting - Inca bureaucrats were able to keep track of the labor service and tribute owed by ayllus. This accounts for the fact that there was no written language in the Incan empire. | 1 | |
| 4368906650 | mit'a system | - each person owed compulsory labor services to a state under this system; people within ayllus exchanged goods and services. - secured labor necessary for road construction, agricultural terraces, wavehouses, temples and other public works; added to ecnomic development with men doing heavy labor and women making textiles, poetry and jewelry. | 2 | |
| 4368922481 | tribute system | - system in which defeated people were forced to pay a tax in the form of goods and labor. - conquered people contributed crops such as maize, beans and other to supply Tenochtitlan in the Aztec Empire | 3 | |
| 4368935293 | chinampas | - floating garden; consisted of narrow artificial islands constructed by heaping muck from the lakes on beds of reeds anchored to the shores. | 4 | |
| 4368944359 | Inca (leader) | - chief ruler - considered to be a deity descended from the sun. He owned and knew everything. | 5 | |
| 4368950089 | Anasazi | - ancestors of the modern Pueblo, who inhabited southern Utah, southwestern Colorado, northeastern New Mexico and northern Arizona. - left a heavy accumulation of house remains and debris, so it was determined that the people lived in multistory stone-and-timber villages connected by roads and pueblos containing kivas, which revealed a lot about culture. | 6 | |
| 4368964908 | Mochica | - Pre-Incan South Merican society (300-700) known for their brilliant ceramics - Because there was no use of writing, Mochica beliefs, values, and ways of life remain largely unknown. They built an extensive irrgation system from mountain rives to irrigate crops. The society was highly stratified, with wealth and power concentrated in the hands of priests and military leaders. Decline theories could've been caused by natural disasters. | 7 | |
| 4368986801 | Aztecs | - Central American empire constructed by the Mexica and expanded greatly during the fifteenth century during the reigns of Itzcoatl and Moctezuma I. - Due to their geography, the Aztecs adopted themselves to an aquatic environment and used chinampas. They imposed a tribute system amongst conquered people. Rulers were militaristic aristocrats, whose lives centered on conquests. There was a clear and social hierarchy. Priests were among the elite and performed rituals and human sacrifices. | 8 | |
| 4369009439 | Topiltzin | - Toltecs' most famous ruler; aka a priest - He was associated with Quetzalcoatl (god), who forced into exile in the east ("land of the rising sun"). After this exile, the Toltec state began to decline, paving a path for the Aztecs to take over. | 9 | |
| 4369026331 | stelae | - a series of altars and memorial pillars built in Mayan societies - they were built to commemorate great actions of Maya leaders or to mark ceremonial occasions, and they were inscribed with hieroglyphic script. | 10 | |
| 4369038855 | slash and burn agriculture | - farming technique in which fields are cleared by slashing vegetation and burning debris. - this agriculture was used along with the Mayan-built terraces that trapped silt carried by the rivers, supported by irrigation and swamp drainage systems, since the land was originally and practically unfertile. This technique boosted agricultural productivity and helped to support the large population. | 11 | |
| 4369057922 | Inca (empire) | - powerful South America empire that would reach its peak in the fifteenth century during the reigns of Pachacuti Inca and and Topa Inca - strong/ambitious leaders consolidated political power that led to an aggressive expansion, also made possible by a supportive food surplus. They had polytheism. | 12 | |
| 4369082502 | Toltecs | - Central American society (950-1150) that was centered on the city of Tula, migrated from northwestern Mexico. - First group to unify central Mexico again after the Teotihuacans. They tapped he waters of the nearby River Tula to irrigate crops since the soil was thin and the area received very little rainfall. Their centralized state was based on military power. Civil conflict and nomadic incursion destroyed the Toltec state. | 13 | |
| 4369101269 | Teotihuacan | - Central American society (200 BCE-750 BCE); its pyramid of the sun was the largest structure in Mesoamerica. - The civilization was home to almost 200,000 inhabitants, scores of temples, several palatial residences, busy marketplaces and hundreds of workshops for artisans and craftsmen. Written records perished but paintings and murals suggested that Teotihuacan was a theocratic government. There were little signs of military organization. City's final decades may have been violent according to archaeologists since important public buildings were burnt down and religious images deflected. | 14 | |
| 4369128856 | Maya | - Brilliant Central American society (300-1000) known for math, astronomy, and a sophisticated written language. - they built more than eighty large ceremonial centers in the lowlands, all with pyramids, palaces, and temples, and it inhabited a large number of people. They boosted their agricultural productivity by building terraces that supports shifting agriculture to make use of unfertile land. Polytheism and human sacrifice played a huge role in their religion. Social classes existed, with rulers and other elite both having priestly and political functions and lower classes working for them and obeying orders. They constructed a solar (260 days). Accordingly, kingdoms always fought with each other. The civilization declined for an unknown reason, although theories include Mexican invaders, civil war or epidemic diseases. | 15 |
