At Mexico City’s heart is the Plaza de la Constitucíon, a square popularly known as the Zócalo. Around the Zócalo are splendid public buildings—the Metropolitan Cathedral, the National Palace, and the Municipal Palace—built by Spanish colonists who arrived in Mexico in the 1500s. But just off the square is a remnant of an even earlier era in the country’s history. The Templo Mayor (Main Temple) ruins are a monument to the great empire of the Aztec people, who dominated central Mexico when the Spanish arrived.
The Spanish conquerors methodically destroyed the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán, and constructed Mexico City over the rubble of its temples and palaces. They could not, however, erase the memory of the civilization they displaced. This book examines the Aztec Empire and other advanced Indian civilizations of the ancient Americas. Among them are the Maya and the Inca, which rank alongside the Aztec as the best-known ancient civilizations. But also here are many lesser-known cultures that are remarkable for their own achievements, whether in agriculture, social organization, architecture, the arts, or other areas.
The earliest Americans were the Paleo-Indians, who migrated from Asia during the last ice age. Nomadic hunters and gatherers, they relied on big game like mammoths as well as wild plant foods. Eventually, environmental changes such as dramatically increasing temperatures caused the largest animals to die off, so Indians turned to alternatives like elk and fish. They also remained in one area for longer periods and began farming. These changes are characteristic of the Archaic Indian cultures.
The ruins of the Incan city of Machu Picchu still stand in south-central Peru. Shutterstock.com
The greatest agricultural advancements of the Archaic period occurred in Middle and South America. Having domesticated crops like corn and squash as early as 8000 BC, Middle American Indians could settle into villages and focus on arts and commerce. By about 1200 BC, the first elaborate Indian civilization in the region, that of the Olmec, had appeared. The Olmec built large towns and created extraordinary stonework, including their renowned “colossal heads.”
Later Indian cultures in Middle America showed the influence of the Olmec. In the first millennium AD these civilizations created the first cities in the Western Hemisphere. The Maya of Guatemala and the Yucatán Peninsula built cities with stone temples, pyramids, palaces, ball courts, and plazas. They also reached great heights in astronomy, mathematics, calendar making, and hieroglyphic writing. During the same period, Teotihuacán, near present-day Mexico City, housed some 150,000 people, making it one of the largest cities in the world. Later came the Toltec and then the Aztec.
In South America’s Andes Mountains, complex civilizations began to develop in about 2300 BC. The earliest Andean civilizations include the Tiwanaku and Chimú kingdoms, which occupied lands in Bolivia and Peru. When the Spanish came to Peru in 1532, the Inca controlled an extensive empire. The Machu Picchu ruins reveal outstanding architecture and stepped agricultural fields watered by long aqueducts. The Inca had a highly stratified social hierarchy led by their emperor, who was considered a child of the Sun and ruled by divine right.
The Indians of Northern America (present-day United States and Canada) developed farming villages a little later than the peoples of Middle and South America. In the Southwest, the Ancestral Pueblo, Mogollon, and Hohokam managed to grow corn, squash, and other crops by using irrigation to overcome the dry climate. In the East, the most extensive prehistoric farming culture was created by the Mississippian Indians. Mississippian towns, characterized by huge earthen mounds topped by temples, were scattered throughout the Southeast and the Northeast.
Through the years, many accounts of American history have begun with the arrival of European explorers and colonists in the New World. As this book amply illustrates, however, the story of the Americas started long before the first European ships landed on their shores. Read on to meet the Maya, Aztec, Inca, and other remarkable ancient Americans.