Unit 7: Africa and the Americas Before Contact
Nubian pyramids, Bantu migrations, and the Maya, Aztec, and Inca empires that rose in the Americas with no contact with the rest of the world.
9 topics · 38 questions
Each topic is a path, not a menu: work down it in order and every question builds on the one above. Click any of them to watch the answer draw itself.
The Kingdom of Kush
- How it worksHow does Kush's control of Nile trade in gold, ivory, and iron build an independent African power?
- Worked exampleShow me Kush's territory expanding north to actually rule Egypt as its 25th dynasty.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't Kush accurately described as a minor offshoot of Egyptian civilization?
- Going furtherWhat happens to Kush's capital and iron industry once the kingdom shifts south to Meroe?
Your turn1 of 2
Kush, the kingdom south of Egypt along the Nile, built more pyramids than Egypt itself, even though it was Egypt's smaller, less famous neighbor. Why did Kush end up building so many?The Kingdom of Axum
- How it worksShow me Axum's position on the Red Sea linking African, Roman, and Indian Ocean trade routes.
- Common mistakeWhy doesn't Axum's location in Africa mean it was cut off from the wider trading world?
- Going furtherWhat happens to Axum's trade once the rise of Islam redirects Red Sea commerce in the 600s?
Your turn1 of 2
Axum, on the Horn of Africa, minted its own gold coins and traded directly with both Rome and India. Why could a kingdom in this location manage that?Bantu Migrations Across Africa
- How it worksShow me Bantu-speaking peoples migrating from West Africa across the continent over roughly two thousand years.
- How it worksHow does knowledge of ironworking and farming let Bantu migrants outcompete the hunter-gatherers already living where they moved?
- Going furtherWhat changes about a region's language and farming once Bantu-speaking migrants settle there?
Your turn1 of 2
Languages descended from a single Bantu language, originally spoken by a relatively small group in West Africa, are now spoken across more than half of the African continent. Why did they spread so far?The Olmec: Mother Culture of Mesoamerica
- How it worksShow me Olmec ideas, like a sacred ballgame and a calendar system, reappearing centuries later in Maya and Aztec culture.
- How it worksHow did the Olmec move multi-ton basalt boulders for their colossal stone heads without wheels or draft animals?
- Worked exampleFind how many tons the largest Olmec colossal stone head weighs and how many miles it traveled from the nearest stone quarry.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't the Olmec civilization's isolation from Eurasia evidence that it was any less complex?
- Going furtherWhat happens to Olmec centers like San Lorenzo and La Venta as the civilization declines around 400 BCE?
Your turn1 of 2
Centuries after the Olmec civilization declined, later Mesoamerican cultures like the Maya and Aztec still played a sacred ballgame and used a calendar system tracing back to Olmec origins. Why do archaeologists call the Olmec the mother culture of Mesoamerica?The Maya: City-States, Astronomy, and the Calendar
- How it worksHow does Maya astronomy track Venus's cycle precisely enough to time wars and rituals around it?
- Worked exampleShow me the Maya Long Count calendar tracking time across thousands of years using a base-20 counting system.
- Common mistakeWhy doesn't Maya civilization's decline around 900 CE mean the Maya people disappeared?
- Going furtherWhat happens to the southern Maya lowland cities in the 800s and 900s that doesn't happen to the northern Yucatan cities?
Your turn1 of 2
Dozens of Maya city-states shared the same calendar system and writing system across the same broad region for centuries. Why did they never unite into one single Maya empire the way some other civilizations unified?Teotihuacan and Early Mesoamerican Cities
- How it worksShow me Teotihuacan's grid layout centered on the Pyramid of the Sun and the Avenue of the Dead.
- How it worksHow does Teotihuacan's control of obsidian trade route wealth into the city from across Mesoamerica?
- Worked exampleFind how Teotihuacan's population at its peak around 500 CE compares with Rome's population at the same time.
- Going furtherWhat happens to Teotihuacan's influence across Mesoamerica after the city collapses around 550 CE?
Your turn1 of 2
Teotihuacan grew into one of the largest cities in the ancient world, with a monumental grid layout and massive pyramids, yet historians still don't know for certain what language its people spoke or what they called themselves. Why does that identity remain a mystery?The Aztec Empire and Tenochtitlan
- How it worksShow me Tenochtitlan's chinampa farming plots turning a lake into some of the most productive farmland in Mesoamerica.
- How it worksHow does the Aztec Empire rule through a tribute system instead of directly governing every conquered city?
- Common mistakeWhy isn't the Aztec Empire accurately described as one unified nation rather than a network of tribute-paying city-states?
- Common mistakeWhy isn't it true that Moctezuma and the Aztecs mistook Hernan Cortes for a returning god?
- Going furtherWhat happens to the Aztec tribute system's stability once conquered peoples resent paying it?
Your turn1 of 2
The Aztecs built their capital city, Tenochtitlan, on a swampy island in the middle of Lake Texcoco rather than on more convenient dry land nearby. Why choose that site?The Inca Empire and Its Road System
- How it worksShow me the Inca road network running over 24,000 miles through some of the steepest terrain on Earth.
- How it worksHow do knotted quipu cords let Inca administrators record numbers and messages without a writing system?
- Common mistakeWhy doesn't the Inca lack of a writing system mean it lacked a way to keep records?
- Worked exampleFind how many miles of road the Inca network covers next to the roughly 50,000 miles of the Roman Empire's paved roads.
- Ties togetherHow does the Inca's roads-and-quipu administration solve the same problem of governing a huge empire that Rome solved a thousand years earlier?
Your turn1 of 2
The Inca Empire governed millions of people across thousands of miles of the Andes without wheeled vehicles or a written language, tools many other large empires relied on. How could it manage that?Cahokia and the North American Mound Builders
- How it worksShow me Cahokia's central plaza and its massive earthen Monks Mound built entirely from hand-carried basket loads of soil.
- How it worksHow does Cahokia's location where three rivers meet let it control trade across a huge part of North America?
- Common mistakeWhy isn't Cahokia's decline by the 1300s evidence that North America had no large pre-contact cities?
- Common mistakeWhy isn't it true that the earthen mounds across North America were built by a vanished race unrelated to Native Americans?
- Going furtherWhat happens to the mound-building tradition across the Mississippi valley after Cahokia's population disperses?
Your turn1 of 2
Around 1100 CE, Cahokia, near modern St. Louis, held a larger population than London did at the same time, centuries before any European colonists arrived in North America. Why did a city this large grow up along the Mississippi?