Apush Textbook Notes
Shaping of North America
- Pangea Split North America formed
- “America’s Mountains” = Rockies, Sierra Nevada, Cascades, Coast Ranges
Peopling the Americas
- 35,000 years ago = Ice Age
Glaciers that connected Eurasia with N. America (present day Bering Sea)
Nomadic Asian hunters (immigrant ancestors of the Natives)
Trekked across the Bering isthmus for 250 centuries
Reached far tip of S. America (15,000 miles from Siberia)
By the time Europeans arrived in 1492, 54 million people inhabited the two Am. Continents
Incas in Peru
Mayans in Central America
Aztecs in Mexico
- Four Great Nations (Natives, before colonists)
Aztecs
Maya
Inca
Cahokia
- Maize = Indian corn
- Built elaborate cities and carried on far-flung commerce
- Mathematicians (made accurate astronomical observations)
- Aztecs Sought the favor of their gods by offering human sacrifices (over 5,000 people ritually slaughtered for crowning of ONE chieftain)
The Earliest Americans
- Agriculture
Corn growing
Accounted for size and sophistication of Na.A. in Mexico and S.A.
5000 BC, hunter-gatherers in highland Mexico developed wild grass into the staple crop of corn – Became staff of life and foundation of complex, large-scare, centralized Aztec and Incan nation-states that eventually emerged
Process went slowly and unevenly
Corn planting reached American Southwest by 1200 BC
- Pueblo people (Rio Grande valley) constructed irrigation systems to water their cornfields. Dwelled in villages of multistory buildings.
- No dense concentrations of population or complex nation states comparable to the Aztec empire existed in N.Am. outside of Mexico when the Europeans arrived.
- Mound Builders (Ohio River valley), Anasazi (Southwest) sustained large settlements after incorporating corn planting.
- Cultivation of MAIZE, BEANS, SQUASH
- “Three-Sister” Farming: Beans growing on trellis of cornstalks and squash covering the planting mounds to retain moisture in the soil
- Highest
- Pangea Split North America formed
- “America’s Mountains” = Rockies, Sierra Nevada, Cascades, Coast Ranges
Peopling the Americas
- 35,000 years ago = Ice Age
Glaciers that connected Eurasia with N. America (present day Bering Sea)
Nomadic Asian hunters (immigrant ancestors of the Natives)
Trekked across the Bering isthmus for 250 centuries
Reached far tip of S. America (15,000 miles from Siberia)
By the time Europeans arrived in 1492, 54 million people inhabited the two Am. Continents
Incas in Peru
Mayans in Central America
Aztecs in Mexico
- Four Great Nations (Natives, before colonists)
Aztecs
Maya
Inca
Cahokia
- Maize = Indian corn
- Built elaborate cities and carried on far-flung commerce
- Mathematicians (made accurate astronomical observations)
- Aztecs Sought the favor of their gods by offering human sacrifices (over 5,000 people ritually slaughtered for crowning of ONE chieftain)
The Earliest Americans
- Agriculture
Corn growing
Accounted for size and sophistication of Na.A. in Mexico and S.A.
5000 BC, hunter-gatherers in highland Mexico developed wild grass into the staple crop of corn – Became staff of life and foundation of complex, large-scare, centralized Aztec and Incan nation-states that eventually emerged
Process went slowly and unevenly
Corn planting reached American Southwest by 1200 BC
- Pueblo people (Rio Grande valley) constructed irrigation systems to water their cornfields. Dwelled in villages of multistory buildings.
- No dense concentrations of population or complex nation states comparable to the Aztec empire existed in N.Am. outside of Mexico when the Europeans arrived.
- Mound Builders (Ohio River valley), Anasazi (Southwest) sustained large settlements after incorporating corn planting.
- Cultivation of MAIZE, BEANS, SQUASH
- “Three-Sister” Farming: Beans growing on trellis of cornstalks and squash covering the planting mounds to retain moisture in the soil
- Highest