Native American Societies BEFORE 1492 [APUSH Unit 1 Topic 2] 1.2

hey there and welcome to a new year at heimler's history this year we're going to be working our way through the ap u.s history curriculum one topic at a time and i'm glad to have you along in this video we're going to begin with unit 1 topic 2 which is all about the americas before the europeans arrive so we've got no time to waste get them brain cows ready i'm about to milk them let's get to it all right let me begin by telling you why we're starting with unit one topic two and not unit

one topic one in every unit of the ap u.s history curriculum the first and the last topics basically just review the whole unit and i've got videos reviewing the whole unit so we're just gonna skip those good good good so we begin our study of united states history before there even was a united states namely in native america now the big idea that you need to take away from this video is that before the europeans arrived on the american shores native american peoples organized themselves into diverse cultures depending on where they live and it's the

diverse cultures part that i need to emphasize commonly when we think of native americans we think of guys on horses killing buffalo and retiring to their teepees at night we just sort of paced that idea over the whole continent but that is patently untrue some native americans lived in fishing villages others roamed the land as nomadic hunters and gatherers some settled down and got their farm on while others congregated in giant city-based empires so you have to realize that when we encounter the americas before the european arrival we're dealing with a very diverse set of

folks so let's just take a jaunt around the american continents and see what's going on first let's talk about central and south america there three major civilizations emerged all of them boasting large urban centers complex political systems and well-formed religions let's start with our friends the aztecs in central america or mesoamerica now you may hear these people referred to as the mexica which is what they call themselves so don't get confused azdek's mexica semiconductor they had a magnificent capital city called tenochtitlan which at its height was home to 300 000 people they had a written

language they employed complex systems of irrigation priests upheld a cult of fertility both for the land and for the people and such fertility was only upheld by human sacrifice all right people the crops are looking a little peaked population is down i think you know where this is headed kevin you about to get sacrificed hey kevin is back and if you're here for ap world you might remember kevin he's always getting sacrificed by the aztecs anyway let's move along to the second civilization in this region the maya now they established themselves on the yucatan peninsula

and the maya also developed large cities they made use of complex irrigation and water storage systems they built giant stone temples and palaces for rulers whom they believed were descended from the gods and then going even further south into south america we've got the inca people they established their civilization in the andes mountains along the pacific coast in what is today peru and this empire was massive at its height it ruled 16 million people and covered something like 350 000 square miles that's a lot of land tony now the key to the success of the

inca people was the cultivation of fertile mountain valleys where they grew potatoes and other crops which were watered by elaborate systems of irrigation now one thing all three of these civilizations had in common was the cultivation of maize which is a corn like crop and you know what if you never tasted it trust me it's amazing you know no matter how many times i recycle that joke it's always funny but the cultivation of maize is important because it was a nutritious crop and as it spread north into the present day american southwest the establishment of

this crop supported economic development the settlement of peoples advanced irrigation and social diversification among societies so the point is maize is a big deal and i'm not going to make any more corny jokes about it sorry anyway as i said maize cultivation spread north and so we ought to spread our learning a little bit north too so on the north american continent we also meet a diversity of native peoples and just for poops and giggles let's start with the southwest let me introduce you to the pueblo people who lived in present-day new mexico and arizona

they were a sedentary population which means they kind of stayed in one place and didn't move around there were farmers of maize and other crops and they built adobe and masonry homes both in the open and right into the sides of cliffs they were a highly organized society with administrative offices religious centers and craft shops and then if we move a little bit north to the great plains and the great basin regions we find not sedentary folks but nomadic peoples and these regions were populated with hunter-gatherer-type people who needed a lot of land to do

said hunting and gathering because of the aridity of the region a good example of this kind of people was the ute people who lived out this lifestyle in small egalitarian kinship based bands and then if we head over to the pacific northwest we meet a different kind of people all together the folks who lived over here lived by the sea and settled themselves into fishing villages and they also relied on elk which they found in abundance in their forests a good example is the chinook people and they made use of the great cedar trees around

them to construct giant plank houses which could house up to 70 members of the same kinship band the chumash people lived on the coast but further south in present-day california and they were actually still hunters and gatherers but they did live in permanent settlements which they constructed in places where there was enough game and vegetation to support all their hunting and gathering all right now let's head over to the mississippi river valley where we're going to find much larger and more complex societies chiefly because the fertile soil surrounding the rivers meant that societies could stay

put and farm and develop i'll introduce you to two of them first the hopewell people they lived in towns of about four thousand to six thousand people and they traded extensively with other regions as far away as florida and the rocky mountain also in that region we have the cahokia people who boasted the largest settlement in that region and at its height the settlement counted somewhere between 10 and 30 000 people the government was led by powerful chieftains who centralized the government and engaged in extensive trade networks from the great lakes all the way down

to the gulf of mexico and finally let me introduce you to some folks living in the northeast of america namely the iroquois they lived in villages made up of several hundred people where they grew crops like maize and squash and beans also like their pacific northwest counterparts they built and lived in longhouses where they lived with anywhere between 30 and 50 of their family members all right that's what you need to know about unit one topic two of ap us history if you need any help getting an a in at heimler's history then go ahead

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