History Test Ch 5 10/19

The region that includes the southern two-thirds of modern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.

• Mesoamerica

• Olmec

• Chavin

• Popul Vuh

A complex society (1200–400 b.c.e.) that arose on the Gulf of Mexico coast from modern-day Veracruz to Tabasco. Known particularly for the massive colossal heads hewn from basalt.

• Maya

• Olmec

• Chavin

• Moai

A calendar that ran cumulatively, starting from a day equivalent to August 11, 3114 b.c.e., and continuing to the present. Came into use in the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e., when inscriptions of bars and dots showed different calendar units.

• Obscidian

• Popul Vuh

• Long Count

• Lapita

Indigenous people living in modern-day Yucatán, Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala. Their complex society reached its height during the classic period, when they used a fully developed written language.

• Moai

• Olmec

• Chavin

• Maya

A naturally occurring volcanic glass used by different peoples in the Americas to make fine art objects, dart tips, and knife blades sharper than modern scalpels. The most important good traded by the Maya.

• Obsidian

• Lapita

• Popul Vuh

• Chert

One of the few surviving sources in the Mayan language, this oral epic features a series of hip ballgames between the gods and humans. Originally written in Mayan glyphs, it was recorded in the Roman alphabet in the 1500s.

• Ulama

• Popul Vuh

• Chert

• Chimu

The first northern people (800–1450) to build large urban centers in the Mississippi River Valley.

• Cahokia

• Parkin

• Mississippian people

• Caral

Andean complex society (1200–200 b.c.e.) in modern-day Peru. Best known for its temples and large stone sculptures of animals.

• Etak

• The Anasazi

• Chert

• Chavin

Named for a site in Melanesia, a low-fired brown pottery with lines and geometric decorations made with a pointed instrument. In use between 1500 and 1000 b.c.e., it reveals the direction of migration into the Pacific.

• Lapita

• Kiva

• Cahokia

• Chimu

A sailing vessel made by connecting two canoes with rope to a wooden frame. Used by the ancestors of modern Polynesians for ocean voyages. Capable of speeds of 100–150 miles (160–240 km) per day.

• Double Canoe

• Etak

• Chavin

• Moai