In 18,000 the civilizations had to worry about a lot more than we do today. In 18,000 people suffered diseases without medicine, draughts that left no crops to eat, natural disasters that changed the world they lived in, and invasions of others. Today we do not have to worry about much because have government that takes over a lot of things, and even though we have natural disasters they do not seem as tragic as they use to be such as wiping out complete civilizations. We cannot really predict when every single disaster is supposed to happen, we never actually really could. We do today have the extensive use of computers and such to help us research and figure it out more. It seems as though ancient civilizations, such as the Mayans, Cro-Magnons, Paleo-Indians, Celts, Romans, and Chaco-Indians, had trouble with themselves. They had a hard time adjusting to their new environments and climates, and they were unable to handle natural disasters. It seems as though the climate change, from cold to warm and vice versa really affected the ancient civilizations and droughts were extremely effective of their growth.
About 15,000 years ago, a strip of land called the Central Beringia once connected Siberia and Alaska. Due to global warming and the warming of the Earth, the bridge shrunk around the edges causing the sea to rise and the waters to rise. The Siberia people who lived near the bridge began to move to North America due to the bridge being shrunk. People believe that they were colonized by animals and hunting. This is because as the waters rose, they had to move along with it and they moved to the places where they knew that they could find food easily. The first settlement seemed to be sporadic with an untidy process, or even no p...
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...ps and less food for all of us. From the ancient civilizations we should learn that the environment and climate is always changing. We think it’s always the same but it could easily be changing everyday. In time, it could easily be completely different and we could have no idea where we are anymore. America is more vulnerable because of the increase of population growth, urbanization, and the Industrial Revolution (xv). As Fagan says, “In our efforts to cushion ourselves against smaller, more frequent climate stresses we have consistently made ourselves more vulnerable to rarer but larger catastrophes.” Fagan means that because we have made our cities and civilization so close together because of population growth, if a natural disaster hit then it would destroy a lot more than we think it would. We need to study our climate to prepare ourselves for these disasters.
There are so many theories out there as to how the Americas were first settled, but the Clovis First theory seems to be the most plausible. The Bering Strait and Bering Land Bridge, Beringia, play a major part in the Clovis First theory. Although most of present-day Canada and United States was covered in sheets of ice at the time of the Clovis people’s migration, Beringia was an “ice-free corridor,” which made it possible for them to travel through North America (The First Settlers Arrive in South America). The Clovis First theory was first developed because a numerous amount of distinctive spear points were discovered in Clovis, New Mexico in 1929.
Quinn, David B. North America From Earliest Discovery to First Settlements. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1977.
The Mayan, Aztec, and Incan civilizations were all advanced for their time. All of those civilizations had major accomplishments that impacted the technology and information we have today.
The ancient Mayans were a very well developed society with a very accurate calendar, skilled architects, artisans, extensive traders and hunters. They are known to have developed medicine and astronomy as well. All of this was developed while the Europeans were still in the Dark Ages.
The example of societal collapse in which I will be making reference to throughout this essay is the Maya civilization. The Maya civilization is, “probably the best known of all early American civilizations.” (Fagan, 1995) It was at its strongest point between AD 300 AND 900. Around AD 900 was the time of its collapse. This civilization was developed in a densely, tropical forest on either highlands or lowlands. Today to visit a Mayan site, people would go to the modern Mexican state, capital city of Merida. This site was once home to the “New World's most advanced Native American civilization before European arrival.” (Diamond, 2009) Over the years there has been many predictions on what had caused the Maya civilization to collapse. At the moment the most recent cause that geographers and scientists have come up with is that climate change may have had a major impact on this collapse. It is said that the rainfall received during the creation of the civilization was a key factor in the continuity of life for the Mayans. This and the addition of societal factors such as religious beliefs, ethnicity and education all had an affect on their way of life, an effect on their societal well-being. Art and architecture that was formed by the Mayans is the foundation for the archaeologists work today. They look at these features and the ruins of the buildings created to depict the kind of lifestyle they lived. Looking at the art and architecture of a specific civilization or community of the past is just one way that can help to inform future adaptations. Another way in which the Europeans received knowledge on the collapse was that they sent out geographers and researchers not long after the collapse to gather as much data and information ...
Mayan Indians The Mayan Indians lived mainly on or near the Yucatan Peninsula. This region had many volcanic mountains or Highlands in the south and the Lowlands in the central and northern regions. The southern part of the Lowlands was covered by a rain forest and the northern by much drier forests. You could also find savannas and swamps scattered throughout many of these regions. The fields that farmers would use to grow crops are cut and burned around February to May.
The Mayan, Aztecs, and Inca civilizations are all hierarchical societies. Due to them only having one person in charge, it could have affected their growth. There aren't as many places that have a dictatorship, are given too much power and it affects the whole civilization.
The Mayan civilization was a Mesoamerican civilization created by the Mayan people. Although this civilization no longer exists, the Mayan people made incredible contributions that still exist today. Let’s explore some of these contributions!
Just as empires rise to their pinnacle of power they fall to a new leader. We often see similar techniques and ideas that propel each empire into power and with these similar rises they experience the same fall. Throughout history civilizations expanded through the explanation of religion. Using religion as an explanation, civilizations were able to grow their warfare tactics and as a result their empire.
The “Clovis First” theory is extremely interesting. The “Clovis First” theory suggests that these people traveled from Siberia to the North America approximately 13,500-12,500 years ago. The sea levels were much lower during this time which exposed a stretch of land called the Bering land bridge. The Bering land bridge connects Siberia to Alaska. Once these people reached Alaska, they were nearly home free. During this time, geological evidence suggests that the Northern part of North America was cover in large glaciers. Possibly due to warm weather, this ice sheet receded creating the Cordilleran and the Laurentide ice sheets. This created a pathway for the Siberians to travel south and spread across North America. Clovis people were hunter-gatherers
It took 12,000 years for people to cross the Bering Strait, an 85 km long area from Serbia to Alaska (Hall D, 1997). The reason it took people 12,000 years to cross the Bering strait was mostly weather conditioned. The cold and unsurvivable conditions made it impossible for people to attempt crossing into Alaska. After crossing into Alaska though, it only took people 2000 years to travel down the west coast from Alaska to Chile. Other hypotheses may suggest that people came to North America to South America, however there is no particularly useful proof for this. An already discussed proof shows that people may have come across the Atlantic Ocean to the east coast and even if this did happen, there is no proof of survival there. The proof of migration from the Bering strait lies in the Haplogroups, skeletal proof, tools and disturbances in the environment of North America pre-native people. The Arlington Man, Prince of Wales Island Man and Kennewick Man are all examples of people who have been found while migrating across America. These examples, however are not the only examples of people who have been found during excavations. There have also been situations where human remains have not been found but instead, remains of animals and tampering with the natural balance of the environment are visible. An example of this would be the Cross Creek, which shows the use of marine life for survival, something that is also backed up by many other findings across the
This paper explores information gather from several articles that report on the Mayan Civilization throughout the years of their rise, their conquering, and their fall, as well as their interactions with other civilizations, specifically the Spanish. The Mayan civilization dates back before the 16th century, before they were conquered by the Spanish Conquistadors and the civilization diminished. During their reign, the Maya civilization thrived in what is now parts of Southern Mexico and Central America. However, their supremacy was struck down when the Spanish and their beliefs
Everywhere in the world many different societies had many different great achievements that stood out like the Chinese built the Great Wall and the Egyptians made pyramids. But, one society I doubt you’ve heard of or talk about a lot are the Maya. The Mayans lived in current day Central America, which used to be called Mesoamerica. They lived there for 3,000 years, until 500 years ago. They had many great achievements and did many great things that is still in use today.
The origins of the indigenous peoples of the Americas are still uncertain (Kleiner, 145). The first Americans presumedly crossed the now-submerged land bridge between 30,000 to 10,000 BCE. Christopher Columbus found the New World in 1492. He found the coasts of North and South America, but he didn't realize that. After it, the first Europeans arrived at the end of the 15th century. The Europeans came to the New World for the immigration, but they didn't have the enough place to live because of the Native Americans. There were three major Native American cultures, which were the Maya, the Inca, and the Aztec. The author heard about the two of the major cultures except the Aztec. In addition, the Inca is the most interesting culture to me. First,
The going theory of the First Americans is the ever-popular land bridge hypothesis, which connected Siberia and Alaska. This is believed to have happened at least twice during the ice ages between 32,000 and 36,000 years ago and, again between 13,000 and 28,000 years ago. This repeated connection took place where the eastern and western hemispheres come the closest to one another. The best illustration that I found explaining the land bridge was the analogy made to a seesaw. On one side being the glaciers and on the other side is sea level. When the glaciers get bigger or "go up" the sea level withdraws or "goes down". Basically when all the earth's water is in the form of snow or ice sea level is lowered. At least 180 feet lower to form that Siberian land connection. Direct proof of this...