Cultures in Contact
ANT 326L (30410) Spring, 2008
Samuel M. Wilson
Prehistory of the Americas
What was going on in the New World before European contact?
The American Situation
Long term trends
Clovis People
9500-9000 B.C.
Mobile hunter-gatherers
Specialized economy
Pleistocene extinctions?
Archaic Period - 8000 to 1000 BC
The Emergence of food production in the New World
Several centers of domestication
Domesticated animals
Emergence of Complex Societies
Complex Societies in the Americas
Cycles of complexity in the Americas
What brings on the “collapse” of civilizations?
some ideas…
Mesoamerica
The Olmec
Olmec ceremonialism
Teotihuacán (100 B.C. - 650 A.D.)
Teotihuacáno urbanism
City core
The Maya
The Maya Elite
Maya epigraphy
Aztec
The Inca
Inca Administration
constructions
North American complex societies
Early complex societies
Mississippian Period
Mississippian Cities
Mesoamerican connections?
Other N. Am. Complex societies
Northwest
coast
Aztec Empire
Tenochtitlán