Question | Answer |
When did they live? | 800 BCE - 1500 |
How many calendars did they have? | 2 |
What did they study? | math and astronomy |
How did they get food? | agriculture |
Where were they located? | in Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America) |
How did they disappear? | it is a mystery |
What did the men do? | Study stars, farm and build |
What did the women do? | housekeeping, wove clothes, took care of children |
What did they use to work? | Simple machines instead of complex ones, and they used man power |
What was the class structure like? | King
Nobles and Priests
Merchants and Artisans
Peasants
Slaves |
What did they do to make life better, or impress the Gods, for rain, crops and health? | They made human sacrifice |
How many gods did they have? | They were POLYTHEISTIC. |
What were stars? | Each star was a God |
Where did they bury their Kings? | In pyramids |
What did they think was beautiful? | Being cross eyed
having tattoos |
They made a calendar on what? | wheel |
What is Pok-ta-Pok? | A game in a field, they have to hit the ball with their hips |
What did they use instead of money? | chocolate |
Did they use letters for writing? | They used picture writing - Glyphs |
Who does their king descend from? | God |
What were 2 ways people came to the Americas? | By the Bering Land Bridge or by boat |
Who did the Mayans learn from? | Olmecs |
•had hundreds of buildings, including temples, stone pyramids, and palaces
•large, paved plazas were gathering places
•most Mayans lived in farming villages surrounding a city | Maya cities |
•3 main groups: nobles, a middle class, and commoners | Maya society |
•People born into powerful families (king, high officials, and priests) | Maya Society (nobles) |
•Lower ranking lords and higher ranking commoners (minor officials, soldiers, scribes, craft workers) made up the middle class | Maya Society (middle class) |
•Most Mayans raised crops | Maya Society (commoners) |
Extended family
•included an older couple, their children, and their grandchildren
•lived in a group of simple houses around a central patio | Maya social unit |
•maya region= dozens of independent city-states
•each city-state had its own king
•nobles helped run the government
•kings increased power by warfare
•fought over control of trade routes and land | Maya Government |
Developed the number 0 | Mayan mathematicians |
365 days long, based on rotation of earth around the sun | Mayan calendar |
built to honor the gods | Mayan pyramids |
crop cultivated by the Maya | maize (corn) |
highlands with warm temperatures year round and rain April to October and highland volcanoes produced rich soil | south |
lowlands with hot, wet climate and heavy rainfall supported dense rainforests with poor soil | north |
a farming technique in which trees are cut down and burned to clear and fertilize the land | slash and burn agriculture |