Early Societies in the Americas and Oceania

• Teotihuacan was an ancient city of Mesoamerica which dominated the highlands of Mexico between the years of 400 and 600 C.E., and at its greatest, housed nearly 200,000 inhabitants.
• Teotihuacan was governed by a hierarchal system of priest and rulers.
• In the city of Teotihuacan, water for food production did not come from extensive irrigation system, but from water channeled from mountain streams into their fields. This allowed for a successful agriculture society with crops that were much like the Maya City-States.
• Rewards for the elites would often include cocoa beans (often used as currency), gold, obsidian, slaves, etc. Blood to the Mayans and Teotihuacan was an important aspect in tributes meant for the gods and elites. Once a slave's owner died the slave wouldn't be granted freedom, rather they would be sacrificed.

• The city's architecture shows it had a limitless labor force.
• The leaders were involved in both the administrative & the religious life of the city. Farmers, craftsmen, merchants, bureaucrats, and foreigners all shared the common trait of being below the nobility. Farming communities were very important to the city due to a large population. Merchants provided certain economic stability, and took part in the vast trading enterprise of the city.
• What is known is that the growth of the Teotihuacan was more due to the trade than war. The wealth of the Teotihuacan was based largely on the monopoly they had on the trade of obsidian.
• Like most societies at the time, men performed more of the physical jobs while women performed the household jobs, but this didn't subject them to strong inequality between genders.

• People first arrived in Australia during the year 60,000 B.C.E.

• Unlike most other places, Australia didn't start agriculture until the Europeans arrived during the 19th and 20th centries to set up settlements. People remained hunter-gatherers until then.

• They used tools like axes, clubs,lassos, nets and the iconic boomerangs to hunt local animals.

• Some of the only people to never make the bow and arrow on their own.

• Australians' diet mainly consisted of plants due to the abundance of vegetation surrounding them.

• 3000 B.C.E. mariners visited the northern coast of New Guinea; they used trade and began to form communities.
• This same year, the people used agriculture and grew crops like yams and taro. They also domesticated island wide pigs and chickens.
• While agriculture spread to all parts of New Guinea, it was not integrated into Australian society until European influence in the late 18th century C.E.

Maya Society

The Olmec Society:

• Maya society is perhaps most famous for its large class of priests who maintained knowledge of astronomy and mathematics, as well as an elaborate calendar.

• Maya merchants were seen not as common traders, but as ambassadors to neighboring s and allied people. These merchants traded luxury goods, such as rare animal skins, cacao beans, and artwork.

• Large classes of peasants and slaves fed the entire society and provided the physical labor that the Mayan Society needed to thrive.

Heirs of the Olmec: The maya

Decline of the Mayan empire

• The Olmec society was best known for their large sculptures of human heads and the establishment of ceremonial centers during 12000 B.C.E.
• Ceremonial centers housed priests and artisans, and were the place where people gathered to practice the ceremonies of their religion.
• Common subjects had to work for the Olmec elites. These subjects also had work for projects, and create

artistic decorations such as the massive human

heads.

• This society was over by 400 B.C.E.

This is how the temples of the Mayans looked.

• The Mayas were the earliest heirs of the Olmec.

• This society occupied what is now Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador.

Olmec Stone Heads

The fall of the Maya is one of history’s great mysteries. All of a sudden, some of the major cities, such as Tikal, were abandoned and the Maya stonemasons suddenly stopped the construction of temples. Although there is not enough evidence explaining why the civilization collapsed, there are several different theories. Some believe that it collapsed due to foreign invasions, while other believe its due to epidemic diseases. Joseph Tainter believed that the collapse of the Maya society was due to the development of and the declining marginal returns from the increasing social complexity of the competing Maya city-states.

Olmecs - The Rubber People:

The ruins of the Ancient Mayan civilization.

Map of Mayan Region

• The Olmecs were the first Mesoamerican society which originate in Veracruz.
• Their staple food was maize, cultivated squashes, beans, chile peppers, avocados, and tomatoes.
• The animals in the region included turkeys and barkless dogs.
• The name "Olmec", meaning "Rubber People", refers to the rubber trees that flourished in that region.
• San Lorenzo, La Venta, and Tres Zapotes were the

heartlands of Olmec societies.

• The Olmec's region didn't recieve an abundance of

rainfall, so they didn't build irrigation systems.

However, they did need to construct drainage systems.

Heirs of the Olmecs: Teotihuacan

Map of the Olmec Region

This is how the maize that the Olmec society grew looked.

Teotihuacans continued...

The Early Societies of Mesoamerica:

Teotihuacan Sun Pyramid

• The earliest group of people arrived to the Americas during the year 13000 B.C.E through the Bering Land Bridge that connected Siberia to Alaska.

• By 9500 B.C.E, the people had migrated to the southern region of South America.

• However, by 8000 B.C.E, this population couldn't survive off of foraging due to climate changes and over-hunting. This forced them to turn to agriculture.

Early Societies of South America: Andean Society

The boats they used to migrate looked like this.

• The Andean society and the Mesoamerican societies were quite different even though they were close to eachother geographically. This was mainly due to the Andes mountains.
• Cultivators grew beans, peanuts, and sweet potatoes.
• They domesticated animals such as llamas and alpacas.
• Grew and processed cotton.
• A new religion, called the Chavin Cult spread during the period between 900 and 800 B.C.E, but vanished around 300 B.C.E.
• No records remain that explain the significance of this religion.

Early societies of Oceania: New Guinea

early Societies of Oceania: Australia

Ten-Question Assessment

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jY1gOfx8HaCZXS69WcvDDid-8QQrwInf3sgprvkX4GQ/edit

Ancient Australian Society

Video

The ancient Australian civilization were the first people to create the boomerang.

Early Societies in the

Americas and Oceania

Work Cited

Bentley, Jerry H., and Herbert Ziegler F. "Chapter 6:

Early Societies in the Americas and Oceania." Traditions & Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past. 5th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000. 106-24. Print.

Tainter, Joseph A. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge UP, 1988. Print.

By: Aisha Mahmood and Leah Handrick