History Discussion Question – Pre-Columbian Cultures in the Americas
NAME: Rohit B K DATE: 24th Jan 2018
Think about what you have read in the textbook and what you know from other sources. After
discussion within your group, answer the following questions.
1. Compare and contrast the Native American societies that grew up in Mesoamerica
and South America with those that developed in northern Mexico and the rest of
North America. How do you account for some of the pronounced differences? Were
there some similarities?
The societies started grewing up about 9000 years ago, when an agricultural
revolution was incited in the western Hemisphere. Farming allowed people to settle
in one place. This made them began to build complex and large urban cultures
covered with art, marketplaces, schools, and suburbs for the common people.
Mesoamerican crops and farming techniques began making their way north to the
American Southwest by 1000 B.C.E. at first the most successful farmers in the
region were the Mogollon and Hohokam peoples, two cultures that flourished in
Mexico and southern Arizona during the first millennium. Soon, they adopt the
irrigation system and maize cultivation started. Hohokam became the one to support
one of the largest populations in precontact North America. Olmec’s became the
first builders but were outdone by Mayans who developed sophisticated system of
mathematics. They started disappearing by 950 C.E. Yet Mesoamerican influence is
clearly visible in the peoples of southwest.
Some similarities;
