Guides: Ancient Civilizations: Americas

Peoples

Olmec
The culture of ancient Mexican natives inhabiting the tropical coastal plain of the contemporary states of Veracruz and Tabasco, between 1300 and 400 B.C.
Zapotec
Indigenous people of Mexico, primarily in S Oaxaca and on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
Maya civilization
One of the great cultures of mesoamerica, Maya civilization extended throughout southern mexico and northern Central America.
Aztec
Member of an American Indian people who migrated south into the valley of Mexico in about 1168.
Inca
Pre-Columbian empire, W South America.
Pre-Columbian Civilizations
From Chambers Dictionary of World History
The term pre-Columbian civilizations denotes the cultures that developed in parts of Mexico and Central America (Mesoamerica) and western South America (Andean region) prior to European incursions into the continent from the 16c.
Mound Builders
Name given to those people who built mounds in a large area from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mts.
Mississippians
From Encyclopedia of North American Indians
Mississippian is an archaeological term denoting those mound-building societies that flourished in North America's eastern woodlands after a.d. 700.

Encyclopedia of North American Indians, Houghton Mifflin
Written by contemporary authorities, the volume features many Native American contributors - including eminent writers, tribal elders, scholars, and activists - with voices as distinct as their subjects, offering a deeper and more informed appreciation of American Indian life, past and present.
Encyclopedia of Mexico: History, Society & Culture
Presents a processual view of Mexican history, society and culture from ancient civilizations to the present day.
Canada's Diverse Peoples: A Reference Sourcebook
In this comprehensive reference, Historian J.M. Bumsted takes readers on a chronological tour of Canada's ethnic history.

Native American Agriculture
From Encyclopedia of North American Indians
Before the Christian era many Indian cultural groups of North America cultivated plants of Mesoamerican and indigenous origin. By a.d. 1000 corn (maize), beans, and squash were their most important cultivated food plants.
Native American Architecture
From Encyclopedia of North American Indians
Indian architectural traditions reflected the diversity of tribal economic patterns, social organizations, historical experiences, religious systems, and worldviews.
Mesoamerican Religion
From Encyclopedia of Mexico: History, Society & Culture
Important Mesoamerican religious themes: cosmic topography, power-filled inhabitants, calendrically determined transformation, and sacrifice.
Mayan Literature
From Concise Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature
The Maya were the only people of America's high cultures who developed a glyph-writ language (a partly ideographic, partly phonetic mode of writing) capable of recording events.
Quetzalcoatl
[Nahuatl,=feathered serpent], ancient deity and legendary ruler of the Toltec in Mexico.
Quipu
From Iberia and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History
Quipu is an Andean mnemonic device consisting of primary and secondary cords (spun of llama or alpaca wool) of various colors on which are several types of variously spaced knots.

Mesoamerica
From Encyclopedia of Archaeology: History and Discoveries
Coined in 1943 by the scholar Paul Kirchoff, the name Mesoamerica is used to describe the culture area of the ancient civilizations of central and southern Mexico and northern Central America.
Teotihuacán
Ancient commercial and religious center in the central valley of Mexico. The largest (c.7 sq mi/18.1 sq km) and most impressive urban site of ancient America.
Palenque
From Encyclopedia of Archaeology: History and Discoveries
Palenque is a classic Maya site and kingdom in the southern state of Chiapas in Mexico.
Machu Picchu
Inca site in Peru. The imposing city is one of the largest pre-Columbian sites found virtually intact.
Cahokia
From Encyclopedia of North American Indians
Cahokia was a major Mississippian urban center. Occupied between about AD 700 and AD 1250, the core of the site covered more than two hundred acres and was surrounded by a wooden palisade containing in excess of twenty thousand logs.
Serpent Mound
From Encyclopedia of North American Indians
The largest known serpent effigy in the world, Great Serpent Mound is located in rural Ohio. The mound's form is of an undulating serpent, uncoiling and opening its mouth to swallow a large oval.