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| hunting and gathering groups dispersed over the Americas by 9000 B.C.E. |
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| a staple crop of sedentary agriculturists in the Americas; domesticated by 4000 B.C.E. in central Mexico. |
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| another staple of sedentary agriculturists in the Americas; principal crop in the lowlands of South America and the Caribbean islands. |
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| widely diffused pattern of social organization in the Americas; featured chieftains who ruled from central towns over a large territory including small towns that paid tribute; predominant town often featured temples and priest class. |
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| cultural tradition that arose at San Lorenzo and La Venta in Mexico ca. 1200 B.C.E.; featured irrigated agriculture, urbanism, elaborate religion, beginnings calendrical and writing systems. |
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| site of classic culture in central Mexico; urban center with important religious functions; supported by intensive agriculture in surrounding regions; population up to 200,000. |
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| classical culture of southern Mexico and Central America contemporary with Teotihuacan; extended over broad region; featured monumental architecture, written language, calendrical and mathematical system; highly developed religion. |
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| large memorial pillars to commemorate triumphs and events in the lives of Maya rulers. |
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| Mayan system of dating from a fixed date in the past; 3114 B.C.E. marked the beginning of a great cycle of 5200 years; allowed precision dating of events in Mayan history. |
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| successors of Teotihuacan culture in central Mexico; established political control over large territory after 1000 C.E.; declined after 1200 C.E. |
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| 1st of the mound building cultures; originated in southern Ohio; lasted in some regions until 700 C.E. |
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| second of the mound building cultures; lasted from 200 to 500 C.E.; more complex than Adena culture. |
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| last of the mound-building cultures; flourished between 800 and 1300 C.E.; had large towns and ceremonial centers. |
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| culture of the southwestern United States; flourished from 200 to 1200 C.E.; had large multi-story adobe and stone buildings built in protected canyons or cliffs. |
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| circular pits in Anasazi communities used by men for religious meetings. |
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| high valleys and steppes lying between the two major chains of the Andes; site of South American agricultural origins; also only location of pastoralism in the Americas. |
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| one of the principal means for establishing a calendar; based on cycles of the moon; failed to provide an accurate guide to the round of the seasons. |
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| calendrical based on the solar year; variations in Western civilization are the Julian and Gregorian calendars; the Maya had a solar calendar. |
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| appeared in the highlands of the Andes between 1800 and 1200 B.C.E.; had ceremonial centers with large stone buildings; the greatest center was Chavín de Huantar. |
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| flourished in the Andes north of Chavín culture in the Moche valley between 200 and 700 C.E.; had great clay-brick temples; created a military chiefdom supported by extensive irrigated culture. |
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| large centers for regional chiefdoms between 300 and 900 C.E. located in southern Peru; had large ceremonial centers supported by extensive irrigated agriculture; center for the spread of religious and artistic symbols all over Andean zone. |
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| regional Andean chiefdom that flourished from 800 to 1465 C.E.; fell to the Incas. |
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| households in Andean societies based on kinship; traced descent from a common, sometimes mythical, ancestor. |
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