Latin Americ Latin American Cultures - 2513 Words

Jonathan Timothy Su Professor Patricio Navia Latin American Cultures, Sect. 001 20 October 2014 Latin American Cultures Midterm Section 1 – Question 1 Throughout the pre-Columbus era in Latin America, The Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas built unique civilizations, each with its own distinctive achievements, creating distinctive cultures to unite their individual societies. The Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas not only shared many similarities in the ways they built their civilizations, but also had differing characteristics that made each people its own. Civilization in the Americas originated as early as 7000 B.C. as a result of a land bridge between Asia and the Americas, formed when the Bering Strait—connecting current day Russia with Alaska—united the two continents during the Ice Age. The humans who crossed the land bridge, mostly hunter-gatherers, eventually developed advanced civilizations throughout North and South America. By around 900 B.C., the Olmec civilization—one of the first advanced civilizations in the Americas—populated parts of Mexico and Central America, where they dev eloped advancements such as building the first pyramids. About 200 years later, descendants of the Olmecs emerged—the Maya, Zapotec, Totonac, and Teotihuacà ¡n civilizations. Over time, the Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas emerged as subsequent descendants of the first humans who populated the Americas. The Mayan civilization emerged as early as 2000 B.C. in â€Å"Mesoamerica,† Southern Mexico extending throughout