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Peoples andCivilizations of theAmericas, 600–1500

CHAPTER OUTLINEClassic-Era Culture and Society in Mesoamerica, 600–900

The Postclassic Period in Mesoamerica, 900–1500

Northern Peoples

Andean Civilizations, 600–1500

DIVERSITY AND DOMINANCE: Burials as Historical Texts

ENVIRONMENT AND TECHNOLOGY: Inca Roads

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In late August 682 C.E. the Maya˚ princess Lady Wac-Chanil-Ahau˚ walked down the steep steps from

her family’s residence and mounted a sedan chairdecorated with rich textiles and animal skins. As theprocession exited from the urban center of Dos Pilas˚,her military escort spread out through the fields andwoods along its path to prevent ambush by enemies.Lady Wac-Chanil-Ahau’s destination was the Mayacity of Naranjo˚, where she was to marry a powerfulnobleman. Her marriage had been arranged to re-establish the royal dynasty that had been eliminatedwhen Caracol, the region’s major military power, haddefeated Naranjo. Lady Wac-Chanil-Ahau’s passage toNaranjo symbolized her father’s desire to forge a mili-tary alliance that could resist Caracol. For us, the storyof Lady Wac-Chanil-Ahau illustrates the importanceof marriage and lineage in the politics of the classic-period Maya.

Smoking Squirrel, the son of Lady Wac-Chanil-Ahau, ascended the throne of Naranjo as a five-year-old in 693 C.E. During his long reign he proved to be acareful diplomat and formidable warrior. He was alsoa prodigious builder, leaving behind an expanded andbeautified capital as part of his legacy. Mindful of theimportance of his mother and her lineage from DosPilas, he erected numerous stelae (carved stone mon-uments) that celebrated her life.1

When population increased and competition forresources grew more violent, warfare and dynastic cri-sis convulsed the world of Wac-Chanil-Ahau. The de-feat of the city-states of Tikal and Naranjo by Caracolundermined long-standing commercial and politicalrelations in much of southern Mesoamerica and ledto more than a century of conflict. Caracol, in turn,was challenged by the dynasty created at Dos Pilas bythe heirs of Lady Wac-Chanil-Ahau. Despite a sharedculture and religion, the great Maya cities remaineddivided by the dynastic ambitions of their rulers andby the competition for resources.

As the story of Lady Wac-Chanil-Ahau’s marriageand her role in the development of a Maya dynastysuggests, the peoples of the Americas were in con-stant competition for resources. Members of heredi-tary elites organized their societies to meet thesechallenges, even as their ambition for greater powerpredictably ignited new conflicts. No single set of po-litical institutions or technologies worked in every en-vironment, and enormous cultural diversity existed inthe ancient Americas. In Mesoamerica (Mexico andnorthern Central America) and in the Andean regionof South America, Amerindian peoples developed anextraordinarily productive and diversified agriculture.2

They also built great cities that rivaled the capitals ofthe Chinese and Roman Empires in size and beauty.The Olmecs of Mesoamerica and Chavín˚ of the An-des were among the earliest civilizations of the Amer-icas (see Chapter 2). In the rest of the hemisphere,indigenous peoples adapted combinations of huntingand agriculture to maintain a wide variety of settle-ment patterns, political forms, and cultural traditions.All the cultures and civilizations of the Americas ex-perienced cycles of expansion and contraction asthey struggled with the challenges of environmentalchanges, population growth, social conflict, and war.

As you read this chapter, ask yourself the follow-ing questions:

● How did differing environments influence the de-velopment of Mesoamerican, Andean, and north-ern peoples?

● What technologies were developed to meet thechallenges of these environments?

● How were the civilizations of Mesoamerica and theAndean region similar? How did they differ?

● How did religious belief and practice influence po-litical life in the ancient Americas?

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CLASSIC-ERA CULTURE AND

SOCIETY IN MESOAMERICA,600–900

The Mesoamerican civilization of the period 600 to900 C.E. was the culmination of several centuries of

growth involving several peoples speaking different lan-guages. Though no regionwide political integration de-veloped, Mesoamericans were unified by similarities inmaterial culture, religious beliefs and practices, and so-cial structures. Building on the earlier achievements ofthe Olmecs and others (see Chapter 2), the peoples oftoday’s Central America and south and central Mexicodeveloped new forms of political organization, made ad-vances in astronomy and mathematics, and improvedagricultural productivity. Population grew, traders ex-changed a variety of products over longer distances, and

social hierarchies became more complex, giving rise togreat cities that served as centers of political and spiri-tual life.

Classic-period cities, as archaeologists call those ofthe period ending in about 900 C.E., continued to be fea-ture platforms and pyramids devoted to religious func-tions. They had large full-time populations divided intoclasses and dominated by hereditary political and reli-gious elites who controlled nearby towns and villagesand imposed their will on the rural peasantry.

Political and cultural innovations did not depend onnew technologies. The agricultural foundation of Meso-american civilization was centuries old. Irrigation, thedraining of wetlands, and the terracing of hillsides hadall been in place for more than a thousand years. In-stead, the achievements of the classic era depended onthe ability of increasingly powerful elites to organize andcommand growing numbers of laborers and soldiers.What changed was the reach and power of religious andpolitical leaders.

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C H R O N O L O G YMesoamerica Northern peoples Andes

600 Teotihuacan at height ofpower

ca. 750 Teotihuacan destroyed800–900 Maya centers aban-

doned, end of classic period968 Toltec capital of Tula

founded

1156 Tula destroyed

1325 Aztec capital Tenochtitlanfounded

1502 Moctezuma II crowned Aztecruler

700–1200 Anasazi culture

919 Pueblo Bonito founded

1050–1250 Cahokia reaches peakpower

1150 Collapse of Anasazi centersbegins

1500 Mississippian culture declines

600–1000 Tiwanaku and Waricontrol Peruvian highlands

700 End of Moche control ofPeruvian coast

1438 Inca expansion begins

1500–1525 Inca conquer Ecuador

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Located about 30 miles (48kilometers) northeast of mod-ern Mexico City, Teotihuacan˚

(see Map 11.1) was at the height of its power in 600 C.E.and verging on decline. With between 125,000 and200,000 inhabitants, it was the largest city in the Ameri-cas and larger than all but a few contemporary Euro-pean and Asian cities.

Religious architecture rose above a city centeraligned with nearby sacred mountains and reflecting themovement of the stars. Enormous pyramids dedicated tothe Sun and Moon and more than twenty smaller tem-ples devoted to other gods were arranged along a centralavenue. The people recognized and worshiped manygods and lesser spirits. Among the gods were the Sun, theMoon, a storm-god, and Quetzalcoatl˚, the featheredserpent. Quetzalcoatl was a culture-god believed to bethe originator of agriculture and the arts. Like the earlier

TeotihuacanOlmecs, people living at Teotihuacan practiced humansacrifice. More than a hundred sacrificial victims werefound during the excavation of the temple of Quetzal-coatl at Teotihuacan. Sacrifice was viewed as a sacredduty toward the gods and as essential to the well-beingof human society.

The rapid growth in urban population initially re-sulted from a series of volcanic eruptions that disruptedagriculture. Later, as the city elite increased its power,farm families from the smaller villages in the region wereforced to relocate to the urban core. As a result, morethan two-thirds of the city’s residents retained their de-pendence on agriculture, walking out from urban resi-dences to their fields. The elite of Teotihuacan used thecity’s growing labor resources to bring marginal landsinto production. Swamps were drained, irrigation workswere constructed, terraces were built into hillsides, andthe use of chinampas was expanded. Chinampas˚, some-times called “floating gardens,” were narrow artificial is-

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lands constructed along lakeshores or in marshes. Theywere created by heaping lake muck and waste materialon beds of reeds that were then anchored to the shoreby trees. Chinampas permitted year-round agriculture—because of subsurface irrigation and resistance to frost—and thus played a crucial role in sustaining the region’sgrowing population. The productivity of the city’s agri-culture made possible its accomplishments in art, archi-tecture, and trade.

As population grew, the housing of commoners un-derwent dramatic change. Apartment-like stone build-ings were constructed for the first time. These apartmentcompounds were unique to Teotihuacan. They com-monly housed members of a single kinship group, butsome were used to house craftsmen working in the sametrade. The two largest craft groups produced potteryand obsidian tools, the most important articles of long-distance trade. It appears that more than 2 percent of theurban population was engaged in making obsidian toolsand weapons. The city’s pottery and obsidian have beenfound throughout central Mexico and even in the Mayaregion of Guatemala.

The city’s role as a religious center and commercialpower provided both divine approval of and a materialbasis for the elite’s increased wealth and status. Mem-bers of the elite controlled the state bureaucracy, tax col-lection, and commerce. Their prestige and wealth werereflected in their style of dress and diet and in the sepa-rate residence compounds built for aristocratic families.The central position and great prestige of the priestlyclass were evident in temple and palace murals. Teoti-huacan’s economy and religious influence drew pilgrimsfrom as far away as Oaxaca and Veracruz. Some of thembecame permanent residents.

Unlike the other classic-period civilizations, thepeople of Teotihuacan did not concentrate power in thehands of a single ruler. Although the ruins of their im-pressive housing compounds demonstrate the wealthand influence of the city’s aristocracy, there is no clearevidence that individual rulers or a ruling dynastygained overarching political power. In Teotihuacan thedeeds of individual rulers were not featured in public art,nor were their images represented by statues or othermonuments as in other Mesoamerican civilizations. Infact, some scholars suggest that Teotihuacan was ruledby alliances forged among elite families or by weak kingswho were the puppets of these powerful families. Re-gardless of what form political decision making took,we know that this powerful classic-period civilizationachieved regional preeminence without subordinatingits political life to the personality of a powerful individ-ual ruler or lineage.

Historians debate the role of the military in the de-

velopment of Teotihuacan. The city walls of 600 C.E. hadnot been there a century and a half earlier, suggestingthat Teotihuacan enjoyed relative peace during its earlydevelopment. Archaeological evidence, however, revealsthat the city created a powerful military to protect long-distance trade and to compel peasant agriculturalists totransfer their surplus production to the city. The discov-ery of representations of soldiers in typical Teotihuacandress in the Maya region of Guatemala suggests to somethat Teotihuacan used its military to expand trade rela-tions. Unlike later postclassic civilizations, however,Teotihuacan was not an imperial state controlled by amilitary elite.

It is unclear what forces brought about the collapseof Teotihuacan about 650 C.E. Pictorial evidence frommurals suggests that the city’s final decades were violent.Early scholars suggested that the city was overwhelmedmilitarily by a nearby rival city or by nomadic warriorsfrom the northern frontier. More recent investigatorshave uncovered evidence of conflict within the rulingelite and the mismanagement of resources. This, they ar-gue, led to class conflict and the breakdown of public or-der. As a result, most important temples in the citycenter were pulled down and religious images defaced.Elite palaces were also systematically burned and manyof the residents killed.

During Teotihuacan’s ascen-dancy in the north, the Mayadeveloped an impressive civi-

lization in the region that today includes Guatemala,Honduras, Belize, and southern Mexico (see Map 11.1).Given the difficulties imposed by a tropical climate andfragile soils, the cultural and architectural achievementsof the Maya were remarkable. Although they shared asingle culture, they were never unified politically. In-stead, rival kingdoms led by hereditary rulers struggledwith each other for regional dominance.

Today Maya farmers prepare their fields by cuttingdown small trees and brush and then burning the deadvegetation to fertilize the land. Swidden agriculture (alsocalled shifting agriculture or slash and burn agriculture)can produce high yields for a few years. However, it usesup the soil’s nutrients, eventually forcing people to moveto more fertile land. The high population levels of theMaya classic period, which ended about 900 C.E., re-quired more intensive forms of agriculture. Maya livingnear the major urban centers achieved high agriculturalyields by draining swamps and building elevated fields.They used irrigation in areas with long dry seasons, andthey terraced hillsides in the cooler highlands. Nearlyevery household planted a garden to provide condiments

The Maya

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and fruits to supplement dietary staples. Maya agricul-turists also managed nearby forests, favoring the growthof the trees and shrubs that were most useful to them.

The most powerful cities of the classic period con-trolled groups of smaller dependent cities and a broadagricultural zone by building impressive religious tem-ples and by creating rituals that linked the power of kingsto the gods. High pyramids, commonly aligned with themovements of the sun and Venus, and elaborately deco-rated palaces surrounding open plazas awed the massesdrawn to the centers for religious and political rituals.

Bas-reliefs painted in bright colors covered mostpublic buildings. Religious allegories, the genealogies ofrulers, and important historical events were the mostcommon motifs. Beautifully carved altars and stonemonoliths were erected near major temples. Everything

was constructed without the aid of wheels—no pulleys,wheelbarrows, or carts—or metal tools. Masses of menand women aided only by levers and stone tools cut andcarried construction materials and lifted them into place.

The Maya cosmos was divided into three layers con-nected along a vertical axis that traced the course of thesun. The earthly arena of human existence held an inter-mediate position between the heavens, conceptualizedby the Maya as a sky-monster, and a dark underworld. Asacred tree rose through the three layers; its roots were inthe underworld, and its branches reached into the heav-ens. The temple precincts of Maya cities physically rep-resented essential elements of this religious cosmology.The pyramids were sacred mountains reaching to theheavens. The doorways of the pyramids were portals tothe underworld.


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Rulers and other members of the elite served bothpriestly and political functions. They decorated theirbodies with paint and tattoos and wore elaborate cos-tumes of textiles, animal skins, and feathers to projectboth secular power and divine sanction. Kings commu-nicated directly with the supernatural residents of theother worlds and with deified royal ancestors throughbloodletting rituals and hallucinogenic trances. Scenesof rulers drawing blood from lips, ears, and penises arecommon in surviving frescoes and on painted pottery.

Warfare in particular was infused with religiousmeaning and attached to elaborate rituals. Battle scenesand the depiction of the torture and sacrifice of captiveswere frequent decorative themes. Typically, Maya mili-tary forces fought to secure captives rather than territory.Days of fasting, sacred ritual, and rites of purificationpreceded battle. The king, his kinsmen, and other rank-ing nobles actively participated in war. Elite captiveswere nearly always sacrificed; captured commoners weremore likely to be forced to labor for their captors.

Only two women are known to have ruled Mayakingdoms. Maya women of the ruling lineages did playimportant political and religious roles, however. The

consorts of male rulers participated in bloodletting ritu-als and in other important public ceremonies, and theirnoble blood helped legitimate the rule of their hus-bands. Although Maya society was patrilineal (tracingdescent in the male line), there is evidence that somemale rulers traced their lineages bilaterally (in both themale and the female lines). Like Lady Wac-Chanil-Ahau’sson Smoking Squirrel, some rulers emphasized the fe-male line if it held higher status. Much less is knownabout the lives of the women of the lower classes, butscholars believe that women played a central role in thereligious rituals of the home. They were also healers andshamans. Women were essential to the household econ-omy, maintaining essential garden plots and weaving,and in the management of family life.

Building on what the Olmecs had done, the Mayamade important contributions to the development ofthe Mesoamerican calendar and to mathematics andwriting. Their interest in time and in the cosmos was re-flected in the complexity of their calendric system. Eachday was identified by three separate dating systems. Likeother peoples throughout Mesoamerica, the Maya had acalendar that tracked the ritual cycle (260 days divided

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into thirteen months of 20 days) as well as a solar calen-dar (365 days divided into eighteen months of 20 days,plus 5 unfavorable days at the end of the year). The con-currence of these two calendars every fifty-two years wasbelieved to be especially ominous. Alone among Meso-american peoples, the Maya also maintained a continu-ous “long count” calendar, which began at a fixed date inthe past that scholars have identified as 3114 B.C.E., adate that the Maya probably associated with creation.

Both the calendars and the astronomical observa-tions on which they were based depended on Mayamathematics and writing. Their system of mathematicsincorporated the concept of the zero and place value buthad limited notational signs. Maya writing was a form ofhieroglyphic inscription that signified whole words orconcepts as well as phonetic cues or syllables. Aspects ofpublic life, religious belief, and the biographies of rulersand their ancestors were recorded in deerskin and bark-paper books, on pottery, and on the stone columns andmonumental buildings of the urban centers.

Between 800 and 900 C.E. many of the major urbancenters of the Maya were abandoned or destroyed, al-though a small number of classic-period centers survivedfor centuries. In some areas, decades of urban popula-tion decline and increased warfare preceded abandon-ment. Some scholars have proposed, on little evidence,that epidemic disease played a role in this catastrophe.Others contend that the earlier destruction of Teotihua-can around 650 C.E. disrupted trade, thus underminingthe legitimacy of Maya rulers who had used the goods inrituals. There is growing consensus that the populationexpansion led to environmental degradation and declin-ing agricultural productivity, which, in turn, provokedsocial conflict and warfare.

THE POSTCLASSIC PERIOD IN

MESOAMERICA, 900–1500

The division between the classic and postclassic pe-riods is somewhat arbitrary. Not only is there no

single explanation for the collapse of Teotihuacan andmany of the major Maya centers, but these events oc-curred over more than a century and a half. In fact,some important classic-period civilizations survived un-scathed. Moreover, the essential cultural characteristicsof the classic period were carried over to the postclassic.The two periods are linked by similarities in religious be-lief and practice, architecture, urban planning, and so-cial organization.

There were, however, some important differencesbetween the periods. There is evidence that the popula-tion of Mesoamerica expanded during the postclassicperiod. Resulting pressures led to an intensification ofagricultural practices and to increased warfare. The gov-erning elites of the major postclassic states—the Toltecsand the Aztecs—responded to these harsh realities by in-creasing the size of their armies and by developing polit-ical institutions that facilitated their control of large andculturally diverse territories acquired through conquest.

Little is known about theToltecs˚ prior to their arrival incentral Mexico. Some scholars

speculate that they were originally a satellite populationthat Teotihuacan had placed on the northern frontierto protect against the incursions of nomads. After theirmigration south, the Toltecs borrowed from the culturallegacy of Teotihuacan and created an important post-classic civilization. Memories of their military achieve-ments and the violent imagery of their political andreligious rituals dominated the Mesoamerican imagina-tion in the late postclassic period. In the fourteenth cen-tury, the Aztecs and their contemporaries erroneouslybelieved that the Toltecs were the source of nearly all thegreat cultural achievements of the Mesoamerican world.As one Aztec source later recalled:

In truth [the Toltecs] invented all the precious andmarvelous things. . . . All that now exists was theirdiscovery. . . . And these Toltecs were very wise; theywere thinkers, for they originated the year count, theday count. All their discoveries formed the book forinterpreting dreams. . . . And so wise were they [that]they understood the stars which were in the heavens.3

In fact, all these contributions to Mesoamerican cul-ture were in place long before the Toltecs gained controlof central Mexico. The most important Toltec innova-tions were instead political and military.

The Toltecs created the first conquest state basedlargely on military power, and they extended their politi-cal influence from the area north of modern Mexico Cityto Central America. Established about 968 C.E., the Tolteccapital of Tula˚ was constructed in a grand style (seeMap 11.1). Its public architecture featured colonnadedpatios and numerous temples. Although the populationof Tula never reached the levels of classic-period Teoti-huacan, the Toltec capital dominated central Mexico.

The Toltecs


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Toltec decoration had a more warlike and violent char-acter than did the decoration of earlier Mesoamericancultures. Nearly all Toltec public buildings and templeswere decorated with representations of warriors or withscenes suggesting human sacrifice.

Two chieftains or kings apparently ruled the Toltecstate together. Evidence suggests that this division of re-sponsibility eventually weakened Toltec power and ledto the destruction of Tula. Sometime after 1000 C.E. astruggle between elite groups identified with rival reli-gious cults undermined the Toltec state. According tolegends that survived among the Aztecs, Topiltzin˚—oneof the two rulers and a priest of the cult of Quetzalcoatl—and his followers bitterly accepted exile in the east, “theland of the rising sun.” These legendary events coincidedwith growing Toltec influence among the Maya of the Yu-catán Peninsula. One of the ancient texts relates theseevents in the following manner:

Thereupon he [Topiltzin] looked toward Tula, andthen wept. . . . And when he had done these things . . .he went to reach the seacoast. Then he fashioned a raftof serpents. When he had arranged the raft, he placedhimself as if it were his boat. Then he set off across thesea.4

After the exile of Topiltzin, the Toltec state began todecline, and around 1156 C.E. northern invaders over-came Tula itself. After its destruction, a centuries-longprocess of cultural and political assimilation produced anew Mesoamerican political order based on the urban-ized culture and statecraft of the Toltecs. Like Semiticpeoples of the third millennium B.C.E. interacting withSumerian culture (see Chapter 1), the new Mesoamer-ican elites were drawn in part from the invading cul-tures. The Aztecs of the Valley of Mexico became themost important of these late postclassic peoples.

The Mexica˚, more commonlyknown as the Aztecs, wereamong the northern peoples

who pushed into central Mexico in the wake of the col-lapse of Tula. At the time of their arrival they had a clan-based social organization. In their new environmentthey began to adopt the political and social practicesthat they found among the urbanized agriculturalists ofthe valley. At first, the Aztecs served their more powerfulneighbors as serfs and mercenaries. As their strengthgrew, they relocated to small islands near the shore of

The Aztecs

Lake Texcoco, and around 1325 C.E. they began the con-struction of their twin capitals, Tenochtitlan˚ and Tlate-lolco (together the foundation for modern Mexico City).

Military successes allowed the Aztecs to seize con-trol of additional agricultural land along the lakeshore.With the increased economic independence and greaterpolitical security that resulted from this expansion, theAztecs transformed their political organization by intro-ducing a monarchical system similar to that found inmore powerful neighboring states. The kinship-basedorganizations that had organized political life earliersurvived to the era of Spanish conquest, but lost influ-ence relative to monarchs and hereditary aristocrats.Aztec rulers did not have absolute power, and royal suc-cession was not based on primogeniture. A council ofpowerful aristocrats selected new rulers from amongmale members of the ruling lineage. Once selected, theruler was forced to renegotiate the submission of tributedependencies and then demonstrate his divine mandateby undertaking a new round of military conquests. Warwas infused with religious meaning, providing the rulerwith legitimacy and increasing the prestige of successfulwarriors.

With the growing power of the ruler and aristocracy,social divisions were accentuated. These alterations insocial organization and political life were made possibleby Aztec military expansion. Territorial conquest al-lowed the warrior elite of Aztec society to seize land andpeasant labor as spoils of war (see Map 11.1). In time, theroyal family and highest-ranking members of the aris-tocracy possessed extensive estates that were cultivatedby slaves and landless commoners. The Aztec lowerclasses received some material rewards from imperialexpansion but lost most of their ability to influence orcontrol decisions. Some commoners were able to achievesome social mobility through success on the battlefieldor by entering the priesthood, but the highest socialranks were always reserved for hereditary nobles.

The urban plan of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco con-tinued to be organized around the clans, whose mem-bers maintained a common ritual life and accepted civicresponsibilities such as caring for the sick and elderly.Clan members also fought together as military units.Nevertheless, the clans’ historical control over commonagricultural land and other scarce resources, such asfishing and hunting rights, declined. By 1500 C.E. greatinequalities in wealth and privilege characterized Aztecsociety.

Aztec kings and aristocrats legitimated their ascen-dancy by creating elaborate rituals and ceremonies to

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distinguish themselves from commoners. One of theSpaniards who participated in the conquest of the AztecEmpire remembered his first meeting with the Aztecruler Moctezuma˚ II (r. 1502–1520): “many great lordswalked before the great Montezuma [Moctezuma II],sweeping the ground on which he was to tread and lay-ing down cloaks so that his feet should not touch theearth. Not one of these chieftains dared look him in theface.”5 Commoners lived in small dwellings and ate alimited diet of staples, but members of the nobility livedin large, well-constructed two-story houses and con-sumed a diet rich in animal protein and flavored bycondiments and expensive imports like chocolate fromthe Maya region to the south. Rich dress and jewelry alsoset apart the elite. Even in marriage customs the twogroups were different. Commoners were monogamous,great nobles polygamous.

The Aztec state met the challenge of feeding an ur-ban population of approximately 150,000 by efficientlyorganizing the labor of the clans and additional laborerssent by defeated peoples to expand agricultural land. Theconstruction of a dike more than 51⁄2 miles (9 kilometers)

long by 23 feet (7 meters) wide to separate the freshwa-ter and saltwater parts of Lake Texcoco was the Aztecs’most impressive land reclamation project. The dike al-lowed a significant extension of irrigated fields and theconstruction of additional chinampas. One expert hasestimated that the project consumed 4 million person-days to complete. Aztec chinampas contributed maize,fruits, and vegetables to the markets of Tenochtitlan. Theimposition of a tribute system on conquered peoplesalso helped relieve some of the pressure of Tenochtitlan’sgrowing population. Unlike the tribute system of TangChina, where tribute had a more symbolic character (seeChapter 10), one-quarter of the Aztec capital’s food re-quirements was satisfied by tribute payments of maize,beans, and other foods sent by nearby political depen-dencies. The Aztecs also demanded cotton cloth, mili-tary equipment, luxury goods like jade and feathers, andsacrificial victims as tribute. Trade supplemented thesesupplies.

A specialized class of merchants controlled long-distance trade. Given the absence of draft animals andwheeled vehicles, this commerce was dominated bylightweight and valuable products like gold, jewels,feathered garments, cacao, and animal skins. Merchants


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also provided essential political and military intelligencefor the Aztec elite. Operating outside the protection ofAztec military power, merchant expeditions were armedand often had to defend themselves. Although merchantsbecame wealthy and powerful as the Aztecs expandedtheir empire, they were denied the privileges of the highnobility, which was jealous of its power. As a result, themerchants feared to publicly display their affluence.

Like commerce throughout the Mesoamericanworld, Aztec commerce was carried on without moneyand credit. Barter was facilitated by the use of cacao,quills filled with gold, and cotton cloth as standard unitsof value to compensate for differences in the value ofbartered goods. Aztec expansion facilitated the integra-tion of producers and consumers in the central Mexicaneconomy. As a result, the markets of Tenochtitlan andTlatelolco offered a rich array of goods from as far awayas Central America and what is now the southwesternborder of the United States. Hernán Cortés (1485–1547),the Spanish adventurer who eventually conquered theAztecs, expressed his admiration for the abundance ofthe Aztec marketplace:

One square in particular is twice as big as that of Sala-manca and completely surrounded by arcades wherethere are daily more than sixty thousand folk buyingand selling. Every kind of merchandise such as maybe met with in every land is for sale. . . . There is noth-ing to be found in all the land which is not sold in thesemarkets, for over and above what I have mentionedthere are so many and such various things that onaccount of their very number . . . I cannot detail them.6

The Aztecs succeeded in developing a remarkableurban landscape. The combined population of Tenochti-tlan and Tlatelolco and the cities and hamlets of the sur-rounding lakeshore was approximately 500,000 by 1500C.E. The island capital was designed so that canals andstreets intersected at right angles. Three causeways con-nected the city to the lakeshore.

Religious rituals dominated public life in Tenochtit-lan. Like the other cultures of the Mesoamerican world,the Aztecs worshiped a large number of gods. Most ofthese gods had a dual nature—both male and female.The major contribution of the Aztecs to the religious lifeof Mesoamerica was the cult of Huitzilopochtli˚, thesouthern hummingbird. As the Aztec state grew in powerand wealth, the importance of this cult grew as well.Huitzilopochtli was originally associated with war, buteventually the Aztecs identified this god with the Sun,worshiped as a divinity throughout Mesoamerica. Huit-

zilopochtli, they believed, required a diet of humanhearts to sustain him in his daily struggle to bring theSun’s warmth to the world. Tenochtitlan was architec-turally dominated by a great twin temple devoted toHuitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, the rain god, symbolizing thetwo bases of the Aztec economy: war and agriculture.

War captives were the preferred sacrificial victims,but large numbers of criminals, slaves, and people pro-vided as tribute by dependent regions were also sac-rificed. Although human sacrifice had been practicedsince early times in Mesoamerica, the Aztecs and othersocieties of the late postclassic period transformed thisreligious ritual by dramatically increasing its scale. Thereare no reliable estimates for the total number of sacri-fices, but the numbers clearly reached into the thou-sands each year. This form of violent public ritual hadpolitical consequences and was not simply the celebra-tion of religious belief. Some scholars have emphasizedthe political nature of the rising tide of sacrifice, notingthat sacrifices were carried out in front of large crowdsthat included leaders from enemy and subject states aswell as the masses of Aztec society. The political subtextmust have been clear: rebellion, deviancy, and opposi-tion were extremely dangerous.

NORTHERN PEOPLES

By the end of the classic period in Mesoamerica,around 900 C.E., important cultural centers had ap-

peared in the southwestern desert region and along theOhio and Mississippi river valleys of what is now theUnited States. The introduction of maize, beans, andsquash from Mesoamerica played an important role inthe development of complex societies. Once established,these useful food crops were adopted throughout NorthAmerica.

As growing populations came to depend on maizeas a dietary staple, large-scale irrigation projects wereundertaken in both the southwestern desert and theeastern river valleys. This development is a sign of in-creasingly centralized political power and growing socialstratification. The two regions, however, evolved differ-ent political traditions.

Of all the southwestern cul-tures, the Hohokam of the Saltand Gila river valleys of south-ern Arizona show the strongest

Mexican influence. Hohokam sites have platformmounds and ball courts similar to those of Mesoamerica.

SouthwesternDesert Cultures

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Hohokam pottery, clay figurines, cast copper bells, andturquoise mosaics also reflect Mexican influence. By1000 C.E. the Hohokam had constructed an elaborate ir-rigation system that included one canal more than 18miles (30 kilometers) in length. Hohokam agriculturaland ceramic technology spread over the centuries toneighboring peoples, but it was the Anasazi to the northwho left the most vivid legacy of these desert cultures.

Archaeologists use Anasazi˚, a Navajo word mean-ing “ancient ones,” to identify a number of dispersed,though similar, desert cultures located in what is nowthe Four Corners region of Arizona, New Mexico, Col-orado, and Utah (see Map 11.2). By 600 C.E. the Anasazi

had a well-established economy based on maize, beans,and squash. Their successful adaptation of these cropspermitted the formation of larger villages and led to anenriched cultural life centered in underground build-ings called kivas. Evidence suggests that the Anasazimay have used kivas for weaving and pottery making, aswell as for religious rituals. They produced pottery deco-rated with geometric patterns, learned to weave cotton


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cloth, and, after 900 C.E., began to construct large multi-story residential and ritual centers.

One of the largest Anasazi communities was locatedin Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico. Eightlarge towns were built in the canyon and four more onsurrounding mesas, suggesting a regional populationof approximately 15,000. Many smaller villages werelocated nearby. Each town contained hundreds of roomsarranged in tiers around a central plaza. At PuebloBonito, the largest town, more than 650 rooms werearranged in a four-story block of residences and storagerooms. Pueblo Bonito had thirty-eight kivas, including agreat kiva more than 65 feet (19 meters) in diameter. So-cial life and craft activities were concentrated in smallopen plazas or common rooms. Hunting, trade, and theneed to maintain irrigation works often drew men awayfrom the village. Women shared in agricultural tasks andwere specialists in many crafts. They also were respon-sible for food preparation and childcare. If the prac-tice of the modern Pueblos, cultural descendants of theAnasazi, is a guide, houses and furnishings may have be-longed to the women, who formed extended familieswith their mothers and sisters.

At Chaco Canyon high-quality construction, the sizeand number of kivas, and the system of roads linking thecanyon to outlying towns all suggest that Pueblo Bonitoand its nearest neighbors exerted some kind of politicalor religious dominance over a large region. Some archae-ologists have suggested that the Chaco Canyon cultureoriginated as a colonial appendage of Mesoamerica, butthe archaeological record provides little evidence for thistheory. Merchants from Chaco provided Toltec-periodpeoples of northern Mexico with turquoise in exchangefor shell jewelry, copper bells, macaws, and trumpets.But these exchanges occurred late in Chaco’s develop-ment, and more important signs of Mesoamerican influ-ence such as pyramid-shaped mounds and ball courtsare not found at Chaco. Nor is there evidence from theexcavation of burials and residences of clear class dis-tinctions, a common feature of Mesoamerican culture.Instead, it appears that the Chaco Canyon culture devel-oped from earlier societies in the region.

The abandonment of the major sites in ChacoCanyon in the twelfth century most likely resulted from along drought that undermined the culture’s fragile agri-cultural economy. Nevertheless, the Anasazi continuedin the Four Corners region for more than a century afterthe abandonment of Chaco Canyon. There were majorcenters at Mesa Verde in present-day Colorado and atCanyon de Chelly and Kiet Siel in Arizona. Anasazi set-tlements on the Colorado Plateau and in Arizona wereconstructed in large natural caves high above valley

floors. This hard-to-reach location suggests increasedlevels of warfare, probably provoked by population pres-sure on limited arable land.

Building large mounds for eliteburials, the residences of chiefs,and as platforms for templeshad been a feature of villagelife in an area stretching from

New York to Illinois and from Ontario to Florida for a pe-riod of a thousand years before the development of Mis-sissippian culture (700–1500 C.E.). Economically, the earlymound builders depended on hunting and gatheringsupplemented by limited cultivation of locally domesti-cated seed crops.

As in the case of the Anasazi, some experts have sug-gested that contacts with Mesoamerica influenced Mis-sissippian culture, but there is no convincing evidenceto support this theory. It is true that maize, beans, andsquash, all first domesticated in Mesoamerica, wereclosely associated with the development of the urban-ized Mississippian culture. But these plants and relatedtechnologies were probably passed along through nu-merous intervening cultures.

Mississippian political organization continued theearlier North American chiefdom tradition, wherein aterritory that had a population as large as 10,000 wasruled by a chief, a hereditary leader with both religiousand secular responsibilities. Chiefs organized periodicrituals of feasting and gift giving that established bondsamong diverse kinship groups and guaranteed access tospecialized crops and craft goods. They also managedlong-distance trade, which provided luxury goods andadditional food supplies.

Urbanized Mississippian sites developed from theaccumulated effects of small increases in agriculturalproductivity, the adoption of the bow and arrow, and theexpansion of trade networks. An improved economy ledto population growth and social stratification. The largesttowns shared a common urban plan based on a cen-tral plaza surrounded by large platform mounds. Majortowns were trade centers where people bartered essen-tial commodities, such as the flint used for weapons andtools.

The Mississippian culture reached its highest stageof evolution at the great urban center of Cahokia, locatednear the modern city of East St. Louis, Illinois (see Map11.2). At the center of this site was the largest moundconstructed in North America, a terraced structure 100feet (30 meters) high and 1,037 by 790 feet (316 by 241meters) at the base. Areas where commoners lived

Mound Builders:The MississippianCulture


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ringed the center area of elite housing and temples. At itsheight in about 1200 C.E., Cahokia had a population ofabout 20,000—about the same as some of the largestpostclassic Maya cities.

Cahokia controlled surrounding agricultural landsand a number of secondary towns ruled by subchiefs.The urban center’s political and economic influence de-pended on its location on the Missouri, Mississippi, andIllinois Rivers. This location permitted canoe-basedcommercial exchanges as far away as the coasts of theAtlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. Sea shells, copper, mica,and flint were drawn to the city by trade and tribute fromdistant sources and converted into ritual goods andtools. Burial evidence suggests that the rulers of Cahokiaenjoyed most of the benefits of this exalted position. Inone burial more than fifty young women and retainerswere apparently sacrificed to accompany a ruler on histravels after death.

No evidence links the decline and eventual aban-donment of Cahokia, which occurred after 1250 C.E.,with military defeat or civil war. Climate changes andpopulation pressures undermined the center’s vitality.Environmental degradation caused by deforestation, asmore land was cleared to feed the growing population,and more intensive farming practices played roles aswell. After the decline of Cahokia, smaller Mississippiancenters continued to flourish in the southeast of thepresent-day United States until the arrival of Europeans.

ANDEAN CIVILIZATIONS,600–1500

The Andean region of South America was an unlikelyenvironment for the development of rich and pow-

erful civilizations (see Map 11.3). Much of the region’smountainous zone is at altitudes that seem too high foragriculture and human habitation. Along the Pacificcoast an arid climate posed a difficult challenge to thedevelopment of agriculture. To the east of the AndesMountains, the hot and humid tropical environment ofthe Amazon headwaters also offered formidable obsta-cles to the organization of complex societies. Yet theAmerindian peoples of the Andean area produced someof the most socially complex and politically advancedsocieties of the Western Hemisphere. The very harshnessof the environment compelled the development of pro-ductive and reliable agricultural technologies and at-tached them to a complex fabric of administrativestructures and social relationships that became the cen-tral features of Andean civilization.

From the time of Chavín (seeChapter 2) all of the great An-dean civilizations succeeded inconnecting the distinctive re-sources of the coastal region,

with its abundant fisheries and irrigated maize fields, tothe mountainous interior, with its herds of llamas andrich mix of grains and tubers. Both regions faced signifi-cant environmental challenges. The coastal region’s fieldswere periodically overwhelmed by droughts or shiftingsands that clogged irrigation works. The mountainousinterior presented some of the greatest environmentalchallenges, averaging between 250 and 300 frosts peryear.

Cultural Responseto EnvironmentalChallenge

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The development of compensating technologies re-quired an accurate calendar to time planting and har-vests and the domestication of frost-resistant varieties ofpotatoes and grains. Native peoples learned to practicedispersed farming at different altitudes to reduce risksfrom frosts, and they terraced hillsides to create microenvironments within a single area. They also discoveredhow to use the cold, dry climate to produce freeze-driedvegetable and meat products that prevented faminewhen crops failed. The domestication of the llama andalpaca also proved crucial, providing meat, wool, andlong-distance transportation that linked coastal andmountain economies. Even though the Andean environ-ment was harsher than that of Mesoamerica, the region’sagriculture proved more dependable, and Andeanpeoples faced fewer famines.

The effective organization of human labor allowedthe peoples of both the high mountain valleys and drycoastal plain to overcome the challenges posed by theirenvironments. The remarkable collective achievementsof Andean peoples were accomplished with a record-keeping system more limited than the one found inMesoamerica. A system of knotted colored cords, khi-pus˚, was used to aid administration and record popula-tion counts and tribute obligations. Large-scale drainageand irrigation works and the terracing of hillsides to con-trol erosion and provide additional farmland led to anincrease in agricultural production. Andean people alsocollectively undertook road building, urban construc-tion, and even textile production.

The sharing of responsibilities began at the house-hold level. But it was the clan, or ayllu˚, that providedthe foundation for Andean achievement. Members of anayllu held land communally. Although they claimed de-scent from a common ancestor, they were not neces-sarily related. Ayllu members thought of each other asbrothers and sisters and were obligated to aid each otherin tasks that required more labor than a single house-hold could provide. These reciprocal obligations pro-vided the model for the organization of labor and thedistribution of goods at every level of Andean society.Just as individuals and families were expected to providelabor to kinsmen, members of an ayllu were expected toprovide labor and goods to their hereditary chief.

With the development of territorial states ruled byhereditary aristocracies and kings, these obligationswere organized on a larger scale. The mit’a˚ was a rota-tional labor draft that organized members of ayllus towork the fields and care for the llama and alpaca herdsowned by religious establishments, the royal court, and

the aristocracy. Each ayllu contributed a set number ofworkers for specific tasks each year. Mit’a laborers builtand maintained roads, bridges, temples, palaces, andlarge irrigation and drainage projects. They producedtextiles and goods essential to ritual life, such as beermade from maize and coca (dried leaves chewed as astimulant and now also the source of cocaine). The mit’asystem was an essential part of the Andean world formore than a thousand years.

Work was divided along gender lines, but the work ofmen and women was interdependent. Hunting, militaryservice, and government were largely reserved for men.Women had numerous responsibilities in textile produc-tion, agriculture, and the home. One early Spanish com-mentator described the responsibilities of Andean womenin terms that sound very modern:

[T]hey did not just perform domestic tasks, but also[labored] in the fields, in the cultivation of their lands,in building houses, and carrying burdens. . . . [A]ndmore than once I heard that while women were carry-ing these burdens, they would feel labor pains, andgiving birth, they would go to a place where there waswater and wash the baby and themselves. Putting thebaby on top of the load they were carrying, they wouldthen continue walking as before they gave birth. Insum, there was nothing their husbands did where theirwives did not help.7

The ayllu was intimately tied to a uniquely Andeansystem of production and exchange. Because the region’smountain ranges created a multitude of small ecologicalareas with specialized resources, each community soughtto control a variety of environments so as to guaranteeaccess to essential goods. Coastal regions producedmaize, fish, and cotton. Mountain valleys contributedquinoa (the local grain) as well as potatoes and other tu-bers. Higher elevations contributed the wool and meatof llamas and alpacas, and the Amazonian region pro-vided coca and fruits. Ayllus sent out colonists to exploitthe resources of these ecological niches. Colonists re-mained linked to their original region and kin group bymarriage and ritual. Historians commonly refer to thissystem of controlled exchange across ecological bound-aries as vertical integration, or verticality.

The historical periodization of Andean history issimilar to that of Mesoamerica. Both regions developedhighly integrated political and economic systems longbefore 1500. The pace of agricultural development, ur-banization, and state formation in the Andes also ap-proximated that in Mesoamerica. Due to the uniqueenvironmental challenges in the Andean region, however,


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distinctive highland and coastal cultures appeared. Inthe Andes, more than in Mesoamerica, geography influ-enced regional cultural integration and state formation.

By 600 C.E. the Moche˚ haddeveloped cultural and politi-cal tools that allowed them to

dominate the north coastal region of Peru. Moche iden-tity was cultural in character. They did not establish aformal empire or create unified political structures. TheMoche and the Chimu˚ who followed them cultivatedmaize, quinoa, beans, manioc, and sweet potatoes withthe aid of massive irrigation works. At higher elevationsthey also produced coca, which they used ritually. Com-plex networks of canals and aqueducts connected fieldswith water sources as far away as 75 miles (121 kilome-ters). These hydraulic works were maintained by mit’alabor imposed on Moche commoners or on subjectpeoples. The Moche maintained large herds of alpacasand llamas to transport goods across the region’s dif-ficult terrain. Their wool, along with cotton providedby farmers, provided the raw material for the thrivingMoche textile production. Their meat provided an im-portant part of the diet.

Evidence from surviving murals and decorated ce-ramics suggests that Moche society was highly stratifiedand theocratic. The need to organize large numbers oflaborers to construct and maintain the irrigation sys-tem helped promote class divisions. Wealth and poweramong the Moche was concentrated, along with politicalcontrol, in the hands of priests and military leaders. Theresidences of the elite were constructed atop large plat-forms at Moche ceremonial centers. Rich clothing andjewelry confirmed their divine status and set them far-ther apart from commoners. Moche rulers and othermembers of the elite wore tall headdresses. Gold andgold alloy jewelry marked their social position: goldplates suspended from their noses concealed the lowerportion of their faces, and large gold plugs decoratedtheir ears (see Diversity and Dominance: Burials as His-torical Texts).

Most commoners devoted their time to subsistencefarming and to the payment of labor dues owed to theirayllu and to the elite. Both men and women were in-volved in agriculture, care of llama herds, and the house-hold economy. They lived with their families in one-roombuildings clustered in the outlying areas of cities and insurrounding agricultural zones.

Moche

Among craft workers, women had a special role inthe production of textiles; even elite women devotedtime to weaving. Moche potters produced highly indi-vidualized portrait vases and decorated other vesselswith line drawings representing myths and rituals. Themost original Moche ceramic vessels depict explicit sex-ual acts. In addition to gold jewelry, metalworkers pro-duced a range of tools made of heavy copper and copperalloy for agricultural and military purposes.

Without written sources, a detailed history of theMoche cannot be written. The archaeological record re-veals, however, that the rapid decline of the major cen-ters coincided with a succession of natural disasters inthe sixth century. When an earthquake altered the courseof the Moche River, major flooding seriously damagedurban centers. In addition, a thirty-year drought ex-panded the area of coastal sand dunes, and powerfulwinds pushed sand onto fragile agricultural lands, over-whelming the irrigation system. As the land dried, peri-odic heavy rains caused erosion that damaged fields and

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Efforts to reveal the history of the Americas before the ar-rival of Europeans depend on the work of archaeologists.

The burials of rulers and other members of elites can be viewedas historical texts that describe how textiles, precious metals,beautifully decorated ceramics, and other commodities wereused to reinforce the political and cultural power of ruling lin-eages. In public, members of the elite were always surroundedby the most desirable and rarest products as well as by elabo-rate rituals and ceremonies. The effect was to create an aura ofgodlike power. The material elements of political and culturalpower were integrated into the experience of death and bur-ial as members of the elite were sent into the afterlife.

The first photograph is of an excavated Moche tomb inSipán, Peru. The Moche (100 C.E.–ca. 700 C.E.) were one of themost important of the pre-Inca civilizations of the Andeanregion. They were masters of metallurgy, ceramics, and tex-tiles. The excavations at Sipán revealed a “warrior/priest”buried with an amazing array of gold ornaments, jewels, tex-tiles, and ceramics. He was also buried with two women, per-haps wives or concubines, two male servants, and a warrior.The warrior, one woman, and one man are missing feet, as ifthis deformation would guarantee their continued faithful-ness to the deceased ruler.

The second photograph shows the excavation of a Classic-Era (250 C.E.–ca. 800 C.E.) Maya burial at Río Azul in Guatemala.Here a member of the elite was laid out on a carved woodenplatform and cotton mattress; his body painted with decora-tions. He was covered in beautifully woven textiles and sur-rounded by valuable goods. Among the discoveries were anecklace of individual stones carved in the shape of heads,perhaps a symbol of his prowess in battle, high-quality ceram-ics, some filled with foods consumed by the elite like cacao.The careful preparation of the burial chamber had required thework of numerous artisans and laborers, as was the case in theburial of the Moche warrior/priest. In death, as in life, theseearly American civilizations acknowledged the high status, po-litical power, and religious authority of their elites.

QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS1. If these burials are texts, what are stories?2. Are there any visible differences in the two burials?3. What questions might historians ask of these burials

that cannot be answered?4. Are modern burials texts in similar ways to these an-

cient practices?

D I V E R S I T Y A N D D O M I N A N C E

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weakened the economy. This succession of disasters un-dermined the authority of the religious and politicalleaders, whose privileges were based on their ability tocontrol natural forces through rituals. Despite massiveefforts to keep the irrigation canals open and constructnew urban centers in less vulnerable areas, Moche civi-lization never recovered.

In the Andean highlands theTiwanaku and Wari culturesparalleled that of Moche ofthe coastal regions. At nearly

13,000 feet (3,962 meters) on the high treeless plain nearLake Titicaca in modern Bolivia stand the ruins of

Tiwanaku andWari

Tiwanaku˚ (see Map 11.3). Modern excavations providethe outline of vast drainage projects that reclaimednearly 200,000 acres (8,000 hectares) of rich lakesidemarshes for agriculture. This system of raised fields andditches permitted intensive cultivation similar to thatachieved by the use of chinampas in Mesoamerica. Fishfrom the nearby lake and llamas added protein to a dietlargely dependent on potatoes and grains. Llamas werealso crucial for the maintenance of long-distance traderelationships that brought in corn, coca, tropical fruits,and medicinal plants.

The urban center of Tiwanaku was distinguished bythe scale of its construction and by the high quality of its

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stone masonry. Large stones and quarried blocks weremoved many miles to construct a large terraced pyra-mid, walled enclosures, and a reservoir—projects thatprobably required the mobilization of thousands oflaborers over a period of years. Despite a limited metal-lurgy that produced only tools of copper alloy, Ti-wanaku’s artisans built large structures of finely cutstone that required little mortar to fit the blocks. Theyalso produced gigantic human statuary. The largest ex-ample, a stern figure with a military bearing, is cut froma single block of stone 24 feet (7 meters) high.

Many scholars portray Tiwanaku as the capital of avast empire, a precursor to the later Inca state. It is clearthat the elite controlled a large, disciplined labor force inthe surrounding region. Military conquests and the es-

tablishment of colonial populations provided the high-land capital with dependable supplies of products fromecologically distinct zones. Tiwanaku cultural influenceextended eastward to the jungles and southward to thecoastal regions and oases of the Atacama Desert in Chile.But archaeological evidence suggests that Tiwanaku, incomparison with contemporary Teotihuacan in centralMexico, had a relatively small full-time population ofaround 30,000. It was not a metropolis like the largestMesoamerican cities; it was a ceremonial and politicalcenter for a large regional population.

The contemporary site of Wari˚ was located about450 miles (751 kilometers) to the northwest of Tiwanaku,

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near the modern Peruvian city of Ayacucho. Wari sharedelements of the culture and technology of Tiwanaku, butthe exact nature of this relationship remains unclear.Some scholars argue that Wari began as a dependency ofTiwanaku, while others suggest that they were joint cap-itals of a single empire. Wari was larger than Tiwanaku,measuring nearly 4 square miles (10 square kilometers).The city center was surrounded by a massive wall and in-cluded a large temple. The center had numerous multi-family housing blocks. Less-concentrated housing forcommoners was located in a sprawling suburban zone.

Perhaps as a consequence of military conflict, bothTiwanaku and Wari declined to insignificance by about1000 C.E. The Inca inherited their political legacy.

In little more than a hundredyears, the Inca developed avast imperial state, which they

called “Land of Four Corners.” By 1525 the empire had apopulation of more than 6 million and stretched fromthe Maule River in Chile to northern Ecuador and fromthe Pacific coast across the Andes to the upper Amazonand, in the south, into Argentina (see Map 11.3). In theearly fifteenth century the Inca were one of many com-peting military powers in the southern highlands, anarea of limited political significance after the collapse ofWari. Centered in the valley of Cuzco, the Inca were ini-tially organized as a chiefdom based on reciprocal giftgiving and the redistribution of food and textiles. Strongand resourceful leaders consolidated political authorityin the 1430s and undertook an ambitious campaign ofmilitary expansion.

The Inca state, like earlier highland powers, wasbuilt on traditional Andean social customs and eco-nomic practices. Tiwanaku had relied in part on the useof colonists to provide supplies of resources from dis-tant, ecologically distinct zones. The Inca built on thislegacy by conquering additional distant territories andincreasing the scale of forced exchanges. Crucial to thisprocess was the development of a large, professionalmilitary. Unlike the peoples of Mesoamerica, who dis-tributed specialized goods by developing markets andtribute relationships, Andean peoples used state powerto broaden and expand the vertical exchange systemthat had permitted ayllus to exploit a range of ecologicalniches.

Like earlier highland civilizations, the Inca were pas-toralists. Inca prosperity and military strength dependedon vast herds of llamas and alpacas, which provided foodand clothing as well as transport for goods. Both menand women were involved in the care of these herds.Women were primarily responsible for weaving; men

The Inca

were drivers in long-distance trade. This pastoral tradi-tion provided the Inca with powerful metaphors thathelped shape their political and religious beliefs. Theybelieved that the gods and their ruler shared the obliga-tions of the shepherd to his flock—an idea akin to refer-ences to “The Lord is my Shepherd.”

Collective efforts by mit’a laborers made the IncaEmpire possible. Cuzco, the imperial capital, and theprovincial cities, the royal court, the imperial armies,and the state’s religious cults all rested on this founda-tion. The mit’a system also created the material surplusthat provided the bare necessities for the old, weak, andill of Inca society. Each ayllu contributed approximatelyone-seventh of its adult male population to meet thesecollective obligations. These draft laborers served as sol-diers, construction workers, craftsmen, and runners tocarry messages along post roads. They also drainedswamps, terraced mountainsides, filled in valley floors,built and maintained irrigation works, and built storagefacilities and roads. Inca laborers constructed 13,000miles (20,930 kilometers) of road, facilitating militarytroop movements, administration, and trade (see Envi-ronment and Technology: Inca Roads).

Imperial administration was similarly superim-posed on existing political structures and establishedelite groups. The hereditary chiefs of ayllus carried outadministrative and judicial functions. As the Inca ex-panded, they generally left local rulers in place. By leav-ing the rulers of defeated societies in place, the Incarisked rebellion, but they controlled these risks bymeans of a thinly veiled system of hostage taking and theuse of military garrisons. The rulers of defeated regionswere required to send their heirs to live at the Inca royalcourt in Cuzco. Inca leaders even required that represen-tations of important local gods be brought to Cuzco andmade part of the imperial pantheon. These measurespromoted imperial integration while at the same timeproviding hostages to ensure the good behavior of sub-ject peoples.

Conquests magnified the authority of the Inca rulerand led to the creation of an imperial bureaucracy drawnfrom among his kinsmen. The royal family claimed de-scent from the Sun, the primary Inca god. Members ofthe royal family lived in palaces maintained by armies ofservants. The lives of the ruler and members of the royalfamily were dominated by political and religious ritualsthat helped legitimize their authority. Among the manyobligations associated with kingship was the require-ment to extend imperial boundaries by warfare. Thuseach new ruler began his reign with conquest.

Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, had a population ofabout 150,000 in 1520. At the height of Inca power in1530, Cuzco had a population of less than 30,000. Never-


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Inca Roads

From the time of Chavín (900–250 B.C.E.), Andean peoplesbuilt roads to facilitate trade across ecological boundaries

and to project political power over conquered peoples. In thefifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Inca extended and im-proved the networks of roads constructed in earlier eras. Roadswere crucially important to Inca efforts to collect and redis-tribute tribute paid in food, textiles, and chicha (corn liquor).

Two roads connected Cuzco, the Inca capital in southernPeru, to Quito, Ecudaor, in the north and to Chile farthersouth. One ran along the flat and arid coastal plain, the otherthrough the mountainous interior. Shorter east-west roadsconnected important coastal and interior cities. Evidencesuggests that administrative centers were sited along theseroutes to expedite rapid communication with the capital.Rest stops at convenient distances provided shelter and foodto traveling officials and runners who carried messages be-tween Cuzco and the empire’s cities and towns. Warehouseswere constructed along the roads to provide food and mili-tary supplies for passing Inca armies or to supply local labor-ers working on construction projects or cultivating theruler’s fields.

Because communication with regional administrativecenters and the movement of troops were the central objec-

tives of the Inca leadership, routes were selected to avoidnatural obstacles and to reduce travel time. Mit’a laborers re-cruited from nearby towns and villages built and maintainedthe roads. Roads were commonly paved with stone or packedearth and often were bordered by stone or adobe walls tokeep soldiers or pack trains of llamas from straying intofarmers’ fields. Whenever possible, roadbeds were made level.In mountainous terrain some roads were little more than im-proved paths, but in flat country three or four people couldwalk abreast. Care was always taken to repair damage causedby rain runoff or other drainage problems.

The achievement of Inca road builders is clearest in themountainous terrain of the interior. They built suspensionbridges across high gorges and cut roadbeds into the face ofcliffs. A Spanish priest living in Peru in the seventeenth cen-tury commented that the Inca roads “were magnificent con-structions, which could be compared favorably with themost superb roads of the Romans.”

Source: Quotation from Father Bernabe Cobo, History of the Inca Empire.An account of the Indians’ customs and origin together with a treatise onInca legends, history, and social institutions (Austin: University of TexasPress, 1983), 223.

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theless, Cuzco was a remarkable place. The Inca werehighly skilled stone craftsmen: their most impressivebuildings were constructed of carefully cut stones fittedtogether without mortar. The city was laid out in theshape of a giant puma (a mountain lion). At the centerwere the palaces that each ruler built when he ascendedto the throne, as well as the major temples. The richestwas the Temple of the Sun. Its interior was lined withsheets of gold, and its patio was decorated with goldenrepresentations of llamas and corn. The ruler madeevery effort to awe and intimidate visitors and residentsalike with a nearly continuous series of rituals, feasts,and sacrifices. Sacrifices of textiles, animals, and othergoods sent as tribute dominated the city’s calendar. Thedestruction of these valuable commodities, and a smallnumber of human sacrifices, helped give the impressionof splendor and sumptuous abundance that appeared todemonstrate the ruler’s claimed descent from the Sun.

Inca cultural achievement rested on the strongfoundation of earlier Andean civilizations. We know thatastronomical observation was a central concern of thepriestly class, as in Mesoamerica; the Inca calendar,however, is lost to us. All communication other than oralwas transmitted by the khipus borrowed from earlierAndean civilizations. In weaving and metallurgy, Incatechnology, building on earlier regional developments,was more advanced than in Mesoamerica. Inca crafts-men produced utilitarian tools and weapons of copperand bronze as well as decorative objects of gold and sil-ver. Inca women produced textiles of extraordinarybeauty from cotton and the wool of llamas and alpacas.

Although the Inca did not introduce new technolo-gies, they increased economic output and added to theregion’s prosperity. The conquest of large populationsin environmentally distinct regions allowed the Inca tomultiply the yields produced by the traditional ex-changes between distinct ecological niches. But the ex-pansion of imperial economic and political power waspurchased at the cost of reduced equality and dimin-ished local autonomy. The imperial elite, living in richlydecorated palaces in Cuzco and other urban centers,was increasingly cut off from the masses of Inca society.The royal court held members of the provincial nobilityat arm’s length, and commoners were subject to execu-tion if they dared to look directly at the ruler’s face.

After only a century of regional dominance, the IncaEmpire faced a crisis in 1525. The death of the Inca rulerHuayna Capac at the conclusion of the conquest ofEcuador initiated a bloody struggle for the throne. Pow-erful factions coalesced around two sons, whose rivalrycompelled both the professional military and the hered-itary Inca elite to choose sides. Civil war was the result.The Inca state controlled a vast territory spread overmore than 3,000 miles (4,830 kilometers) of mountain-ous terrain. Regionalism and ethnic diversity had alwaysposed a threat to the empire. Civil war weakened im-perial institutions and ignited the resentments of con-quered peoples. On the eve of the arrival of Europeans,the destructive consequences of this violent conflictundermined the institutions and economy of Andeancivilizations.

CONCLUSION

The indigenous societies of the Western Hemispheredeveloped unique technologies and cultural forms

in mountainous regions, tropical rain forests, deserts,woodlands, and arctic regions. In Mesoamerica, North


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America, and the Andean region, the natural environ-ment powerfully influenced cultural development. TheMaya of southern Mexico, for example, developed agri-cultural technologies that compensated for the tropicalcycle of heavy rains followed by long dry periods. On thecoast of Peru the Moche used systems of trade and mu-tual labor obligation to meet the challenge of an aridclimate and mountainous terrain, while the moundbuilders of North America expanded agricultural pro-duction by utilizing the rich floodplains of the Ohio andMississippi Rivers. Across the Americas, hunting andgathering peoples and urbanized agricultural societiesproduced rich religious and aesthetic traditions as wellas useful technologies and effective social institutions inresponse to local conditions. Once established, thesecultural traditions proved very durable.

The Aztec and Inca Empires represented the culmi-nation of a long developmental process that had begunbefore 1000 B.C.E. Each imperial state controlled exten-sive and diverse territories with populations that num-bered in the millions. The capital cities of Tenochtitlanand Cuzco were great cultural and political centers thatdisplayed some of the finest achievements of Amer-indian technology, art, and architecture. Both stateswere based on conquests and were ruled by powerfulhereditary elites who depended on the tribute of subjectpeoples. In both traditions religion met spiritual needswhile also organizing collective life and legitimizing po-litical authority.

The Aztec and Inca Empires were created militarily,their survival depending as much on the power of theirarmies as on the productivity of their economies or thewisdom of their rulers. Both empires were ethnically andenvironmentally diverse, but there were important dif-ferences. Elementary markets had been developed inMesoamerica to distribute specialized regional produc-tion, although the forced payment of goods as tributeremained important. In the Andes reciprocal labor obli-gations and managed exchange relationships were usedto allocate goods. The Aztecs used their military to forcedefeated peoples to provide food, textiles, and even sac-rificial captives as tribute, but they left local hereditaryelites in place. The Incas, in contrast, created a morecentralized administrative structure managed by atrained bureaucracy.

As the Western Hemisphere’s long isolation drew to aclose in the late fifteenth century, both empires werechallenged by powerful neighbors or internal revolts. Inearlier periods similar challenges had contributed to thedecline of great civilizations in both Mesoamerica andthe Andean region. In those cases, a long period of ad-justment and the creation of new indigenous institu-

tions followed the collapse of dominant powers such asthe Toltecs in Mesoamerica and Tiwanaku in the Andes.With the arrival of Europeans, this cycle of crisis andadjustment would be transformed, and the future ofAmerindian peoples would become linked to the cul-tures of the Old World.

■ Key TermsTeotihuacan

chinampas

Maya

Toltecs

Aztecs

Tenochtitlan

tribute system

Anasazi

chiefdom

khipu

ayllu

mit’a

Moche

Tiwanaku

Wari

Inca

■ Suggested ReadingIn Prehistory of the Americas (1987) Stuart Fiedel provides anexcellent summary of the early history of the Western Hemi-sphere. Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., in The Indian Heritage of America(1968), also provides a thorough introduction to the topic.Canada’s First Nations (1992) by Olive Patricia Dickason is awell-written survey that traces the history of Canada’s Amer-indian peoples to the modern era. Early Man in the New World,ed. Richard Shutler, Jr. (1983), provides a helpful addition tothese works. Atlas of Ancient America (1986) by Michael Coe,Elizabeth P. Benson, and Dean R. Snow is a useful compendiumof maps and information. George Kubler, The Art and Architec-ture of Ancient America (1962), is a valuable resource, thoughnow dated.

Eric Wolf provides an enduring synthesis of Mesoamerican his-tory in Sons of the Shaking Earth (1959). A good summary ofrecent research on Teotihuacan is found in Esther Pasztori,Teotihuacan (1997). Linda Schele and David Freidel summarizethe most recent research on the classic-period Maya in their ex-cellent A Forest of Kings (1990). See also David Drew, The LostChronicles of the Maya Kings (1999). The best summary of Aztechistory is Nigel Davies, The Aztec Empire: The Toltec Resurgence(1987). Jacques Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs, trans. PatrickO’Brian (1961), is a good introduction. Though controversial insome of its analysis, Inga Clendinnen’s Aztecs (1991) is also animportant contribution.

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Chaco and Hohokam (1991), ed. Patricia L. Crown and W. JamesJudge, is a good summary of research issues. Robert Silverberg,Mound Builders of Ancient America (1968), supplies a good in-troduction to this topic. See also Understanding Complexity inthe Prehistoric Southwest, ed. George J. Gumerman and MurrayGell-Mann (1994).

A helpful introduction to the scholarship on early Andean soci-eties is provided by Karen Olsen Bruhns, Ancient South America(1994). For the Moche see Garth Bawden, The Moche (1996).The History of the Incas (1970) by Alfred Metraux is dated butoffers a useful summary. The best recent modern synthesis isMaría Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, History of the Inca Realm,trans. by Harry B. Iceland (1999). John Murra, The Economic Or-ganization of the Inca State (1980), and Irene Silverblatt, Moon,Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colo-nial Peru (1987), are challenging, important works on Peru be-fore the arrival of Columbus in the Western Hemisphere.Frederich Katz, The Ancient Civilizations of the Americas (1972),offers a useful comparative perspective on ancient Americandevelopments.

■ Notes1. This summary closely follows the historical narrative and

translation of names offered by Linda Schele and DavidFreidel in A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the AncientMaya (New York: Morrow, 1990), 182–186.

2. From the Florentine Codex, quoted in Inga Clendinnen,Aztecs (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 213.

3. Quoted in Nigel Davies, The Toltec Heritage: From the Fallof Tula to the Rise of Tenochtitlán (Norman: University ofOklahoma Press, 1980), 3.

4. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Conquest of New Spain, trans.J. M. Cohen (London: Penguin Books, 1963), 217.

5. Hernando Cortés, Five Letters, 1519–1526, trans. J. BayardMorris (New York: Norton, 1991), 87.

6. Quoted in Irene Silverblatt, Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gen-der Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru (Prince-ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 10.

7. Quoted in Irene Silverblatt, Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gen-der Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru (Prince-ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987), 10.


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DOCUMENT 5Moche Portrait Vase (photo, p. 283)

DOCUMENT 6Burials Reveal Ancient Civilizations (Diversity andDominance, p. 285)

What special problems do historians face when theyhave to rely on such archaeological evidence toreconstruct the past? What additional types ofarchaeological evidence would help you understandthe importance of rituals in the public life ofMesoamerican and Andean societies?

Document-Based QuestionRituals in Mesoamerican and Andean Societies Using the following illustrations of art andarchaeological sites, evaluate the importance ofrituals in the public life of Mesoamerican andAndean societies.

DOCUMENT 1Maya Scribe (photo, p. 267)

DOCUMENT 2The Great Plaza at Tikal (photo, p. 272)

DOCUMENT 3The Mesoamerican Ball Game (photo, p. 273)

DOCUMENT 4Costumes of Aztec Warriors (photo, p. 276)

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Documents

ecologically

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princeton

modern mexico

earlier andean

coastal regions

toltec state

urban centers