US History #1: Pre-Columbian Americas

Summary

This video explores the history and civilizations of the Americas before European contact, beginning with theories of how people first arrived in North America at least 12,000 years ago via a land bridge from Asia during the Ice Age. The video revisits the Clovis model and its recent challenges due to new archaeological finds suggesting earlier settlements. It then explores the complex societies of the Maya, Aztecs, and Incas before discussing how European advantages in geography, technology, and immunity greatly impacted the indigenous populations during the conquests.

Highlights

• Explore the theories of how humans first arrived in the Americas 12,000 years ago. 🕰️
• Discover the debate over the Clovis model and the newer theories suggesting earlier migrations. 🧭
• Dive into the history of the Maya with their advanced writing systems and architectural developments in Mesoamerica. 🏺
• See how the Aztecs and their grand capital in what is today Mexico City showcased their engineering prowess. 🌆
• Understand the vast expanse of the Incan Empire and their adaptation to mountain farming. 🏔️
• Learn how European diseases and technology altered the course of history for indigenous peoples. 🛡️

Key Takeaways

• The pre-Columbian Americas were rich in diverse cultures and civilizations, challenging the outdated view of an uninhabited land! 🌎
• The Clovis model, once the dominant theory of initial human migration into North America, is being re-evaluated in light of new findings. 🕵️‍♂️
• The Maya, Aztec, and Inca empires were advanced civilizations with unique cultures and impressive technological feats. 🏛️
• Europeans had advantages in technology and immunity which played significant roles in their conquests of the Americas. ⚔️
• Diseases brought by Europeans devastated native populations, causing a dramatic decline in numbers. 🤒

Overview

The Americas before Columbus were a tapestry of cultures and peoples, with the Clovis model initially thought to explain how humans first arrived via a land bridge from Asia. However, recent archaeological discoveries hint at perhaps even earlier settlements, shaking the foundation of this long-held theory. The video takes us through the fascinating research that paints a much more diverse picture of pre-Columbian migration.

The Maya, Aztec, and Inca civilizations flourished with elaborate cities, advanced technology, and intricate cultures long before European explorers arrived. The Maya's sophisticated writing system and the vast Incan agricultural terraces in the Andes demonstrated the ingenious adaptations of these civilizations to their environments. The grandeur of Aztec cities like Tenochtitlan is a testament to their architectural brilliance and societal complexity.

European conquests of these vibrant civilizations were devastating, largely due to their technological superiority and the diseases they unwittingly carried with them. These illnesses decimated indigenous populations, paving the way for European dominance. This exploration of pre-Columbian history reveals the depth and sophistication of American civilizations before the disruptive European contact.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction to Pre-Columbian Americas The chapter provides an introduction to the pre-Columbian Americas, specifically focusing on North America before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. It notes that even after Columbus, the interactions with early Europeans provide insights into what Native American societies were like prior to their arrival. The discussion begins with prehistory and how people migrated to the Americas.
• 01:00 - 03:30: Migration Theories and the Clovis Model This chapter explores migration theories related to the Clovis Model and examines civilizations in the Americas prior to Columbus. It discusses early research that suggested people crossed a land bridge, now known as the Bering Strait, between modern-day Alaska and Russia.
• 03:30 - 06:00: Challenges to the Clovis Model The chapter discusses challenges to the traditional Clovis model of human migration into North America. According to new research, people entered North America around 12,000 years ago and gradually spread throughout the continent, eventually reaching South America. The chapter references a map to provide a visual representation of the migration paths, indicating a connection between North America and Asia.
• 06:00 - 09:30: Rise of Civilizations in the Americas The chapter 'Rise of Civilizations in the Americas' discusses the migratory patterns during the Ice Age, highlighting the exposure of land bridges due to lowered sea levels. This allowed early humans to travel from Asia into Alaska and spread throughout North America, aiding the development and diffusion of civilizations in the region.
• 09:30 - 15:30: The Aztec Civilization The chapter titled 'The Aztec Civilization' begins with discussing significant archaeological theories about settlement patterns in the Americas. The Clovis model, named after the site in Clovis, New Mexico, is highlighted for its importance in tracing the early human settlements in what is now modern-day America and down into South America. This theory postulates that these settlements have been dated back to approximately 11,000 to 12,000 years ago, or possibly even earlier, highlighting the ancient presence and movement of early peoples across the continent.
• 15:30 - 20:30: The Inca Empire The chapter discusses the migration of people of Asian descent, referred to as Mongoloids, into the Americas, where they dispersed and became the founding population of modern Native Americans. A map illustrating the number of discovered Clovis sites is referenced as evidence of this early and unique culture's existence.
• 20:30 - 28:00: European Conquest and Its Impacts The chapter discusses the historical context of European immigration into North America. It questions whether this was truly the first wave of human migration, challenging traditional theories with new research. The content also covers geological aspects, noting the existence of extensive ice coverage during the last Ice Age, approximately 12,000 to 13,000 years ago, which would have affected migration patterns.
• 28:00 - 29:00: The Maya Civilization The chapter explores the early settlements associated with the Maya Civilization, particularly highlighting both Clovis and pre-Clovis groups. Recent research and discoveries are revealing new insights into these settlements, indicating their widespread existence across the country and prompting further investigation into the formation and expansion of the Maya Civilization.

US History #1: Pre-Columbian Americas Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 so this video is going to be about the pre-colombian north Americas and what that really means is the Americas before Christopher Columbus and honestly even a little bit after because even after Columbus when you start getting Europeans initial meetings of these groups you still kind of have a snapshot of what they were like before their arrival so it's going to start kind of prehistory and how people had come to the Americas
• 00:30 - 01:00 and the speculation and the new research going on there but it's also going to discuss the civilizations and the groups in the Americas before Columbus and really kind of right at the time of the European arrival so early research indicated that a number of people came across what's known as the landbridge ultimately between really where today is the bearing straight between modern Alaska and Russia in this land bridge
• 01:00 - 01:30 really kind of you can see the tracing right here um between North America and what is Asia so the research showed that you have these people kind of come into North America around 12,000 years ago and ultimately slowly diffuse across the continent and down into South America so this right here is where I'm talking about in the modern world um this map is obviously you know just a
• 01:30 - 02:00 world map but I wanted to just kind of show it in relation to really how close they are together so that during this Ice Age what had happened is most of the a lot of this seawat was anyway locked up into ice and also it it had exposed uh a a section here where ultimately you had you know this ability to travel across that's the kind of the reason why I wanted to show you this map and as I said you know they would come across into Alaska and then ultimately work their way down into North America kind of diffusing across the North American
• 02:00 - 02:30 what's modern day America and ultimately down into South America so this theory is ultimately known as this Clovis model and the reason for that is that the initial discovery of the of these settlements was at a place at a site in Clovis New Mexico and these you know spear points are dating anywhere between 11,000 12,000 maybe even a little bit further um in our timeline here and
• 02:30 - 03:00 ultimately the story is that these mongoloids or people of Asian descent crossed into the Americas and began to disperse as I was just kind of mentioning and this group is ultimately going to become the founding population of today's modern Native Americans this map here is just a map of the number of Clovis sites that had been discovered that have been discovered uh using this model and this is really probably what you can consider the first kind of unique culture that had come
• 03:00 - 03:30 through into North America and you know this this wave of immigration here absolutely happened the question really becomes is was this the first or were there more and as we're going to get into you know more research that it's going to show that there really this is going to qu this is this theory is going to be questioned so you know I would just want to show you right up here you know this is this white area and gray area is ultimately where you know we're pretty sure that the ice from this Ice Age you know was around this time Peri period so 12,000 to 13,000 years ago uh
• 03:30 - 04:00 and you can see the kind of the opening that allowed and you can see the early settlements here and ultimately these larger groups of these settlements and findings for this Clovis um group are all really all around the country so that new research and new discoveries we talked about obviously we read the article in class that kind talked about some of these settlements dating you know pre-clovis and you know what's happening is now all of the sudden
• 04:00 - 04:30 people are finding things that are disrupting this original Clovis Theory and there when when these things are dated they're actually finding that some of these things are as much as 15,000 or even more you know years ago and this is thousands of years before what was known as a clovis model so the fact that this predates the glacial recession in the Melt that allowed people kind of really to be able to get down into North America and this was a really big deal and what's happening is you know as more
• 04:30 - 05:00 evidence is found these things really people couldn't really ignore this anymore and ultimately it allowed them to begin digging deeper into some of these Clovis sites and realizing that when they dug deeper they actually found other artifacts that dated even you know long longer before this Clovis model so when you throw in DNA evidence and things like that it it actually became evident that there were there's a much
• 05:00 - 05:30 more diverse population in the Americas at this time period so the article we read talks about three distinct populations and we're not 100% sure where they came from but some of the leading theories anyway and again this is speculation at this point we're not really 100% sure and that's the problem with prehistory you know a lot of it is speculation based off of what we can find and these are just thoughts and these can easily be debunked you know 20 years 30 years down the line with more research but as of right now now you
• 05:30 - 06:00 know there is some thought that you actually have potential groups of Europeans that had made it over uh you know along a similar kind of ice along the ice um in the North Atlantic following potential walruses uh you also have a theory where you have these Pacific island type people um Polynesians and Pap Papa n guini and Australian type people that had had made their way down into there kind of hopping their way across the Pacific and ultimately into South America and that's
• 06:00 - 06:30 evident by some DNA that we have found in some relatives some ancestors of these people that have some of this DNA in them so it really becomes interesting and we're really when it comes down to it we're not really 100% sure where the first people came from uh we're pretty sure of where some people have come from but we're it's just it's going to require a lot more research and a lot more hopeful you know AR findings archaeological findings and things like that
• 06:30 - 07:00 so we're going to be skipping quite a bit in time at this point and we're going to be talking about you know the Civil civilizations of the Americas and really some of you know the groups that were here on the eve of the European Discovery so you know just I wanted to kind of give you the heads up of some of these groups that that are for for sure were here and had you know a play and they were a larger group than this idea that the the Americas were kind of largely uninhabited and also that we the humans here had little kind of effect on
• 07:00 - 07:30 their actual surroundings so you know the first is these ancient mexu which were a group that had you know grown up in in in Mexico and and come along in Mexico and from there you have the Maya which were around um you know early BC and even into ad and they would be even be around during uh the Cortez and the conquest of Mexico at least culturally anyway uh next you get the Aztecs which were a major large civilization in as in
• 07:30 - 08:00 Mexico uh when Cortez and the Spanish showed up in Mexico and the Incas as well which were an even larger civilization uh that had that were in South America when pizaro uh would come in and ultimately conquer for the Spanish Additionally you had other North American tribes that were in in the Americas in North America that especially you know modern day America and these people were not just sitting you know around in in small bands like what had previously once been thought
• 08:00 - 08:30 this is a map of what's known as meso America so really this is Mexico and Central America and the groups that had existed here you know before the European arrival so if you can see you know in this Orange right here where my pointer is kind of highlighting uh this is kind of where what would be considered MCH populations had had existed and ultimately you know thech would kind of in influence what would
• 08:30 - 09:00 become modern or not modern but Mayan civilization uh and the Mayans would be kind of take up shop right here on the Yucatan and we're going to go more into the Mayans and you obviously went into them in class as well but uh this is a group that had developed their own writing system they had you know very specific farming practices and cultural practices um quite good Builders chichin ITA which you're going to see in a second here uh came from you know these
• 09:00 - 09:30 Mayan populations as well uh so you know this is a a group that is it's again not this this picture that had once kind of existed of the Native Americans that were here and then you also get the Aztec which we're going to get into just again in a second uh which were a much more advanced civilization uh creating beautiful major cities that in many cases were more populated and some cases even more advanced than certain European uh cities
• 09:30 - 10:00 and they were had their own distinct culture obviously and and they were a major major group with millions of people and that millions of people uh is a big deal because you have now you know estimates in the Americas of 50 60 and even at the upper estimates of like a 100 million people here so again this this idea of largely uninhabited uh North America with Native Americans just kind of living off of land and community living off the land is is we're kind of
• 10:00 - 10:30 departing from that that and and we're moving forward to a more Forward Thinking where these people had a significantly larger impact on their environment the Aztecs again which were located in central Mexico were a large hegemonic group uh and they were an extremely Advanced group as I was kind of just mentioning uh you know their estimated population was around 15 million people and their capital city is really really a beautiful example of the
• 10:30 - 11:00 type of technological Feast that these people were actually capable of uh it's currently Mexico City today but you know the story goes and there's a video here uh from the PowerPoint that when you go to it explains the story of how this city was created and and really quickly ultimately they had found an island in the middle of this pretty big lake lake texoco in Mexico and they started building on it and ultimately when they needed more room to build they actually
• 11:00 - 11:30 expanded this island they would basically Drive in stakes and rocks and things like that around the perimeter of the island and fill that in with Earth and they lash these stakes and things together to get make a barrier that they could put more Earth in and ultimately they kind of slowly expanded the island until it was a bit larger a lot larger really where they could then build significantly larger on another really really cool thing and you're going to see that in a second
• 11:30 - 12:00 was that they had created these kind of canals through the city similar to what you might see in Venice where they would be able to travel through kind of main areas of the city using typically canoes uh the Aztecs were ultimately conquered by a man named Hernan Cortez who was a Spanish kisor in 1519 and you know we talked about him a little bit more in class and you did a homework on him but you know these Aztecs were really quite an incredible people people so this is an artist
• 12:00 - 12:30 rendering of this capital of T Naan on lake texoco in sex in central Mexico so you can see you know here where my pointers are going you have these kind of canals going through the city where these canoes could come you had these giant causeways they're called basically bridges that would allow you to get into you know onto the city via land if you needed to and you had these big you know elaborate temples and pyramid type structures uh you know
• 12:30 - 13:00 in the city as well so these people were really proficient Builders they you know were good engineers and they were really quite an incredible group just that their practices you know in comparison to some of the European practices at the time were considered a little barbaric you had things like human sacrifices from their religions and such so their government the Aztec government was ultimately broken down into tributary city states so what would
• 13:00 - 13:30 happen is you would had groups of these Aztecs ultimately conquer these nearby cities and cities which were city states essentially in a very similar fashion to what you had with the Greeks uh and they were known as alip pedal and each of these city states had their own dynastic rulers dynasties uh which is a family ruled and their own Kings and essentially what would happen is these this group this Aztec Triple Alliance
• 13:30 - 14:00 came together and they would take control of these city states and they would more or less leave them with autonomy they could kind of operate how they wanted to as long as they paid tribute to the Aztecs and you know to the emperor of the Aztec and you know and to the Aztec state so they were left alone largely which which really didn't it was they were okay with you know it didn't really Foster too much resentment if this the states were allowed to
• 14:00 - 14:30 practice you know their own rituals and beliefs in certain cases which were mostly the similar um but you know if a group comes in and conquers and allows the people to operate more or less the same then you know they're not going to be so so upset with it typically it's when the groups come in and change everything up and change all their ways that they get really really upset so this map is a map of the pro provinces really around the Aztecs and you know as you can see this is kind of the main M Capital Area you have the
• 14:30 - 15:00 tacha tan texoco um and and such around Lake texoco and this is where the people kind of expanded outwards and you can see all these little kind of city states around in in the area highlighted in red uh you can see this and these are the groups that were ultimately being conquered and forced to pay tribute and and such to the Aztec this we're moving on to the Incas now uh the rest of the stuff that you would need to know about the Aztecs
• 15:00 - 15:30 and the conquest we ultimately you know looked at in that web Quest we did for class but um moving on to the Incas this is a map of the Incan Empire at the time of the Spanish Conquest in 1532 so their empire extended really a large distance this is the long largest territorial Empire you know prior to the conquests and this was people's you know a number of people they're not 100% sure
• 15:30 - 16:00 but anywhere you know I've seen estimates between 4 and 30 million or so here it says um 12 if you look down over on the little text there uh you know this is a group where you have lots of different languages kind of lots of different cultures again kind of had been conquered and brought into this this what's you know what we're calling the Inca Empire uh it's a large empire it extends about 2500 miles between modern day Ecuador uh through Peru down into the andies mountains and ultimately
• 16:00 - 16:30 in modern day Chile and it's it's a really big group and they have their own technological Feats as well in comparison to the Aztecs and one of the reasons for their Conquest is ultimately going to be the seclusion of the mountains if you look closely here I can zoom in you can see kind of the the mountains and the mountain structure here really at the tip uh you know of of Central America going into South America you know in the mountains the andies mountains here which is modern day um Panama down into
• 16:30 - 17:00 Colombia you know you can see all these mountains and this group is ultimately going to evolve their way of life around living high up in the mountains so as I had just mentioned uh you know the ENA Empire stretched roughly 25 200 miles between modern-day Ecuador Peru and through modern day Chile so the Empire was was mostly in
• 17:00 - 17:30 the highlands of the Andes mountains and these people ultimately needed to adapt to that those mountains geographical features to be able to develop their farming and ultimately irrigation to help feed the farming and the way they did that is they ultimately cut Terraces into the mountains which you're going to see just in a second here and those Terraces allowed them to plant their crops
• 17:30 - 18:00 so here you can actually see those Terraces um and any of these pictures you can look at this one first where I'm kind of circling with my mouse so you can see how these flat little sections ultimately are where they planted the crops and these were carved into the mountain and and what's really interesting about this is that these people didn't have the beasts of Burden that the Europeans and the eurasians did have there were no cattle or anything
• 18:00 - 18:30 like that to be able to pull a plow or horses or anything like that so all of the work for this was done by hand by these people uh using hand tools and such and that's really what makes this so much more impressive because even today this would be you know quite an impressive feat and you know this was done thousands of years ago by people and just their hands uh you know you can see other examples U just of these Terraces here and then ultimately this picture on the right is ma a picture of Machu Picchu which was ultimately
• 18:30 - 19:00 believed to be an agricultural hub for the Incas you know a long long time ago too so the Incas were also conquered by the Spanish and it was done by a man named Francisco pizaro and he took one kind of out of the book of Cortez and his Conquest was kind of similar to Cortez's in a way uh luckily for pizaro as I kind of mentioned you know the the
• 19:00 - 19:30 Incas were geographically isolated in these in these mountains so they were left largely naive of the conquest in Mexico by the Spanish and if they had known about it it's very likely this would have gone a very different way but the fact they didn't know uh and the fact that a small group of Spaniards came in you know this this group uh this the Incas that were large a large empire that had a large military and such weren't really scared of them it allowed the Spanish to kind of get the upper
• 19:30 - 20:00 hand and and surprise them and ultimately capture uh the emperor at Alpa at kahara and we watched the video Guns Germs and Steel you know in in class and it kind of really highlights this but ultimately you have this group of 160 or so Spaniards you know coming into into this region and again very similar to Cortez they are able to kind of gather some support of of loal that weren't so
• 20:00 - 20:30 happy with the Incas but you know when they came into uh to meet the emperor ultimately they you know they were pretty much by themselves and they were brought to this this town known as kahara and ultimately at the meeting with the emperor you know you have the Spanish ultimately trying to convert these people to Christianity and at least show them the way and there The Story Goes you know that the they show
• 20:30 - 21:00 a Alpa the the Bible and there were insults possibly due to language barriers he potentially threw the book uh you know as you kind of saw drama dramatized in the video anyway and from there the Spanish took this as a major you know major upsetting is majorly upsetting to them and you get this attack by the Spanish in a sort of surprise way against this group of of Incas that were not really ready for it and the shock and awe of their their muskets with the the attack of the the
• 21:00 - 21:30 horse charge um really led to a major route where where you have you know a only a couple you know 160 or so of these Spaniards killing a very large number of these Incas uh in a full out attack uh basically as they're running away in you know in fear the Spanish just kind of run them down on the horses and just keep slaughtering and slaughtering kids uh women you know men uh with very little resistance and it's not that there wasn't any resistance because you would like to think that you know when you have that much of a number
• 21:30 - 22:00 superiority that they could possibly do something against it but you know again fear takes over in situations like that and because of the Spanish Technologies where you have you know the guns the really sharp sores the the iron and such you really have potentially no Spanish casualties but there are some sources that do say you know a few Spanish casualties as well so we're not really 100% sure um because the records are you know are what they are but um so when it comes down to it a small band of
• 22:00 - 22:30 Spaniards ultimately came and and and conquered uh this you know this group and captured the emperor very similarly to Cortez and were able to use the emperor to kind of then you know take control of of the state as well and also you know continue fighting with the Allies that they had had had they they had gotten from you know on their way up to to these higher areas in the Incas Empire so the question becomes you know why did did the Europeans have such a
• 22:30 - 23:00 tremendous advantage in comparison to the Native Americans you know at the time of conquest and Jared Diamond the man who you know wrote the book Guns Germs and Steel he has a he has postulated ultimately that it really comes down to a geographical advantage that was enjoyed by the the Europeans and the eurasians ultimately uh because if you look I'm going to zoom in the Fertile Crescent of and really the cradle of civilization in ancient
• 23:00 - 23:30 Mesopotamia which is you know Iraq and Iran along the Tigris and Euphrates River over here um if you look at you know the difference between Eurasia here where I'm circling and then North America Eurasia runs along a latitudinal axis here um of roughly similar latitudes and latitude the way latitude works is you know the equator roughly where I'm kind of on right now with my mouse is
• 23:30 - 24:00 ultimately it's 0 degrees latitude and as you go north or south the degrees increase and in the farther away you get from the equator you obviously get different climate zones so really when you're looking at EUR Asia ultimately the climate zones are are fairly similar uh especially around you know this area where I'm cing this Eurasian area uh and because those climate zones are similar the domesticated Farm far domesticated
• 24:00 - 24:30 crops and domesticated farm animals that came out of of the Bread Basket here the Fertile Crescent they could ultimately spread to you know Europe and also Northern Africa and even into Asia itself and because of that you know these the farming spread very well and then you know that spread civilization and it wasn't just the farming it was other all ideas and Technologies and things you know it was very easily easy
• 24:30 - 25:00 to move around this area through you know the Mediterranean Sea whereas in contrast in the Americas you have a very different you have a north to south continent here or you know group of two continents and this really had very different climate zones so for example you know a a Norther North American group in Alaska you know which may have developed around fishing and salmon and things like that in Alaska ultimately
• 25:00 - 25:30 what they've discovered and how they they choose to live isn't going to really have much of an effect for them down in central Mexico uh you know there's no salmon down in central Mexico so these climate zones developed very distinctly different peoples uh that really couldn't build and work off of each other too much and those climate zones also really led to some major natural barriers as well that just didn't allow this easily spread and
• 25:30 - 26:00 diffusion of ideas that you got in in Eurasia going even further into the topic um the Europeans by living amongst those farm animals we were just talking about they were around these animals where many of the many diseases and such came from they would kind of originate in these animals and then they would mutate to be able to spread to humans so
• 26:00 - 26:30 you know humans evolved in in these areas around these diseases and ultimately they they weren't really as affected by them they had developed immunities and when you know this this Ice broke and you know this this was now isolated these people in the Americas were isolated from from Europe and Asia and such uh you know they had very different experience when the people came in to the Americas um there were
• 26:30 - 27:00 some large mammals that were potentially you know domesticable but supposedly what happened is these people were so quick and so good such good Hunters that they actually are are responsible for really an Extinction event of these animals and that before they would have developed and been able to domesticate these animals these animals were more or less extinct so there were very few domesticable animals in the Americas and as a result of that they didn't
• 27:00 - 27:30 necessarily live in close proximity to these animals and didn't develop their own diseases that might have gone the opposite direction uh you know to Europe and to Eurasia once once there had been contact made and those diseases that came over with the initial Europeans are actually responsible for killing a really 90% or more of the estimated you know Native American population in the America um after that initial contact we're
• 27:30 - 28:00 talking you know millions and millions of people being dead between the initial contact and when the next major wave of of English colonies and such in the new world our last little stop here uh for this little unit is dealing with the Maya and you know we really did something in class that goes a lot more in detail into them that I'm going to go here but the Maya you know were before the Aztec and the Incas I probably should have put this before but they were you know centered in really Central
• 28:00 - 28:30 America and in the Yucatan and they were in these tropical lowlands here and they reached their Peak you know around 600 AD uh of you know you can see right down here chichin itsa um which is you know one of these beautiful temples and beautiful pyramids that they were able to build um you know they excelled at agriculture growing corn and things like that they had their own uh religion they had they actually were they actually had written language which was you know a big thing back then especially for this
• 28:30 - 29:00 and it developed independently uh of you know any any influence of from elsewhere in the world which is really interesting as well you know and this culture would kind of ultimately carry on until the Spanish Conquest in fact you know some of the people that Cortez met when he was coming into the Yucatan were you probably could still consider them some of my influence but the peak of this group you know ended a lot earlier than that so the other extra details for you know Maya make sure to check out the jigsaw activity that we did in class