Mackenzie Caron

3­19­15

Maya & Aztec Civilization DBQ

Period 4

Throughout history each civilization has adapted to their environment in many different ways. The changes each person made, had a negative and a positive effect on themselves and their environment. An example is in the Mayan civilization they built elevated fields near river to protect their crops from annual flood. Also they used their resources of the river for watering.
Another example of this is the way that the Aztecs transformed their swampy marsh of an island into a functionable island. They drained the water and inserted pilings into the ground to support their city. During the time of 250 C.E. to about 900 C.E. the Maya civilization existed, this civilization arose in present day southern Mexico and northern Central America. It consisted of large city­states including the the largest and most powerful cities were Tikal and Calakmul. The tallest structure in the americas until the 1900s was the temple at Tikal (Document 1). This temple was built between 600 and 900 C.E., they had a very simple but complex way of building. They carried the stones with head straps, the head straps were the modern mechanism they had, it was a strap against the forehead going down to about the waist where the object being carried was placed. they would place each stone with a lot of thought and then sealed it with a plaster that was similar to concrete. This temple is located in modern day Guatemala.
Within the era of the Maya civilization they had many achievement besides their advanced agricultural skill another major advancement was their complex writing system called

Hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphic writing is used to record history, data, and events (Document 2).
The Mayans used glyphs which were symbols to represent words and phrases, these symbols made up their very advanced calendars. There were two calendars, the 365­day solar calendar and a 260­day ritual calendar. Everything that happened ended up leading the the weakening and eventually the fall and the conquering of the Maya civilization. Unlike the Maya civilization the Aztec civilization was an Empire, they were around in
1200 C.E. until about 1523 C.E.. The valley of Mexico is a mountainous valley more than a mile above sea level. It is a good place for people to settle because it has lakes and fertile soil. An early city called Teotihuacan, also know as the “City of the gods” arose in this area in the 1st century C.E. This city has many square where markets are held and trading is carried on, there is one square where over 60,000 souls, buying and selling, this is the most populated square in the entire city (Document 3). The Aztec developed many achievements throughout their ruling but one of their major achievements