AFRICA

BANTU MIGRATIONS

BANTU MIGRATIONS http://www.eduplace.com/kids/socsci/ca/books/bkf3/imaps/AC_06_206_bantu/AC_06_206_bantu.html

Bantu is used as a general label for 300-600 ethnic groups in Africa who speak Bantu languages

Cameroon east across Central Africa and Eastern Africa to Southern Africa

The Bantu family is fragmented into hundreds of individual groups, the largest being the Zulu with some 10 million.

The Bantu language Swahili with its 5-10 million native speakers is of super-regional importance as tens of millions fluently command it as a second language.

CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA CIVILIZATION IN CENTRAL AND

SOUTH AMERICA WHAT IS KNOWN?

MESOAMERICA Mesoamerica (Spanish: Mesoamérica) is a

region and cultural area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries.

OLMEC MAYAN AZTEC INCA

OLMEC

The Olmec were the first major civilization in Mexico.

They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco.

1500 BCE to about 400 BCE. the Olmec appeared to practice

ritual bloodletting and played the Mesoamerican ballgame, hallmarks of nearly all subsequent Mesoamerican societies.

familiar aspect of the Olmecs is their artwork, particularly the aptly named colossal heads

Olmec elites had access to an extensive trading network

depopulation was likely the result of very serious environmental changes that rendered the region unsuited for large groups of farmers, in particular changes to the riverine environment that the Olmec depended upon for agriculture, hunting and gathering, and transportation.

Archaeologists propose that these changes were triggered by tectonic upheavals or subsidence, or the silting up of rivers due to agricultural practices

MAYA

MAYA 2000 BC to AD 250 AD 250 to 900 cities of Tikal, Palenque, Copán COLLAPSE PROBABLY DUE TO

CLIMATE CHANGE AND DROUGHT

AZTEC From the 13th century -1521

The Aztec empire was a tribute empire based in Tenochtitlan, which extended its power throughout Mesoamerica

In 1521 Hernán Cortés, along with a large number of Nahuatl speaking indigenous allies, conquered Tenochtitlan and defeated the Aztec Triple Alliance under the leadership of Moctezuma II.

the Spanish founded the new settlement of Mexico City on the site of the ruined Aztec capital, from where they proceeded with the process of colonizing Central America.

INCA The Inca Empire, largest empire in

pre-Columbian America 1438–1533 Cusco , Peru From 1438 to 1533, the Incas used a variety of

methods, from conquest to peaceful assimilation, to incorporate a large portion of western South America, centered on the Andean mountain ranges, including, besides Peru, large parts of modern Ecuador, western and south central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, north and central Chile, and southern Colombia

official language of the empire was Quechua

Machu Picchu

TRADE AND EXPANSION CONQUERED BY FRANCISCO PIZARRO

OF SPAIN LAST EMPEROR, ATAHAULPA