Vocabulary Basics
These are thick sheets of ice.
What are glaciers?
These are raised roads or paths built across water or wet ground.
What are causeways?
About this many years ago, the Ice Age ended and glaciers melted.
What is 12,000 years ago?
The Olmec lived along this body of water in southern Mexico.
What is the Gulf Coast?
The Aztec built their capital, Tenochtitlán, on islands in this lake in central Mexico.
What is Lake Texcoco?
These are places where groups of people establish communities and build homes.
what are settlements?
These are flat areas cut into the side of a hill or mountain, used especially for farming.
What are terraces?
This theory suggests that people traveled from Asia to North America across Beringia, a stretch of land between Siberia and Alaska.
What is the land-bridge theory?
The Olmec carved these enormous stone objects, some of which weigh many tons.
What are stone heads?
This city in present-day Peru was the Inca capital and an important center of government and religion.
What is Cuzco?
This is an extra supply of something, especially food, beyond what is immediately needed
What is a surplus?
This is a political unit that controls a city and its surrounding land.
What is a city-state?
This theory suggests that people traveled along the Pacific coast, using boats and walking along the shore
What is the coastal-route theory?
The Maya lived in independent political units, each with its own ruler.
What are city-states?
The Inca emperor was called by this title.
What is the Sapa Inca?
This word means made up of many connected parts; complicated or intricate.
What is complex?
This is a system of knotted strings used by the Inca to record information and keep accounts.
What is a quipu?
About 5,000 years ago, people in the Americas began farming these three main crops.
What are maize, beans, and squash?
The Maya developed a calendar based on a year of this many days.
What is 365 days?
The Aztec empire's power depended partly on this—payments or goods demanded from conquered peoples.
What is tribute?
A society sharing a language, territory, and economy with certain basic features.
What is a civilization?
The Aztec built these raised garden plots in shallow lake areas to grow crops; they're often called floating gardens.
What are chinampas?
Farming provided this type of food supply, allowing people to settle in one place and build permanent homes
What is a dependable or more reliable food supply?
Around this year (CE), many major Maya cities in the southern lowlands were abandoned or greatly reduced in size.
What is 900 CE?
By 1500, the Inca ruled a vast empire along these mountains, stretching through parts of six modern countries in South America.
What are the Andes Mountains?