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"What thoughts must crowd on the mind of the traveler as he treads over the ashes of generations who reared these colossal fabrics, which take us...into the very depths of time! But who were these builders? Was it the shadowy Olmecs. whose history, like that of the ancient Titans, is lost in the mists of fable? Or, as commonly reported, the peaceful and industrious Toltecs, of whom all that can glean rests on traditions hardly more secure? What has become of the races who built them? Did they remain on the soil, and mingle and become incorporated with the fierce Aztecs who succeeded them? Or did they pass to the South, and find a wider field for the expansion of their civilization, as shown by the higher character of the architectural remains in the distant regions of Central America and Yucatan?-William Prescott pondering the ruins of Teotihuacan in the early 1800s

THE NEW WORLD

When exactly did civilization come to the Americas? Where did the first Americans come from? We really don't know because evidence of

human habitation goes back tens of thousands of years, before the last ice age. How old are the cultures of the Americas? Again we don'

know because until the Maya, none seemed to have developed a formal written language. This has baffled historians as many of these civilizations

were of the highest order. It was originally thought that civilization in the new World began around 1500 B.C. in the Andes around Lake Titicaca.

However recent excavations have unearthed an urban center with temples and other structures that dates back to the building of the great

pyramid at Giza around 2500 B.C. How many lost peoples and civilizations there were in South and Central America might never be known.

Even in more recent times advanced civilizations existed as far north as present day East Saint Louis where the once inhabited city of Cahokia

was the largest city in North America until 1820 Philadelphia..

In Central America, the first civilization we are aware of are the mysterious Olmec. Their main monuments were huge stone heads that

mysteriously have strong African features. However, the greatest of all the civilization were the Maya who were master astronomers who

developed one of the five original written languages in the world. To their north, the great culture of the Teotihuacans, America's first metropolis.

Who the Teotihuacans were is a great mystery. This urban center of 250,000 left no written record so we don't know what they called themselves,

where they came from or the source of their knowledge. What they did leave behind was a city of the great pyramids that rival those at Giza in Egypt.

For some unknown reason both the Maya and the Teotihuacans disappeared taking with them many of their mysteries. Other great civilizations such as

the Toltecs followed, but the last great civilization, and the best known, were the Aztecs. The civilizations of Central America accomplished

many great works and established a high culture. It would be their religion that called for gruesome human sacrifice that also became a part of their

legacy. In the end the Europeans conquered these civilizations and the diseases they brought with them would wipe out 80 to 90% of their population.

The Civilizations of South America were even more mysterious and numerous than their neighbors to the north.

People such as the Nazca, Moche, Chavin and numerous others built great works such as the Moche pyramid to the Sun which might have been the largest pyramid in the world. Just before the coming of the Spanish, the Inca would become the political leaders of the Andes region. Their "lost city" of Machu Picchu stands as a silent testimony to their greatness.

All these civilizations would come to be forgotten with the coming of the European. Today we are rediscovering the

magnificent past of the Americas.

Read chapter 6 and briefly answer the questions below.

Question 1. How does the Mayan creation story compare with other creation stories, such as those of ancient Mesopotamia and of Judaism and Christianity?

Question 2. Why do we know so little of the many great civilizations of South America?

Question 3. What were the most important accomplishments of the Maya?