Unfamiliar terms/names/events:
c. = circa = approximately
Sedentism
Mississippian
Cahokia
Chiefdom
The Bubonic Plague/Black Death
I) Introduction:
1) America, 1500: not yet a new world
A) Reasons:
1) Course of European exploration
2) "World" implies culture, society; not just a physical place
3) A familiar place for millions of American Indians
2) America, 1500: where old worlds were beginning to meet
II) The Indians' Old World
1) A continuous Indian history
A) Problems arising from pre-history/history divide
1) Lack of context for Indian actions after 1492
2) "Historic" Indians not seen as 'real' Indians
2) Four key themes in pre-1492 Indian history
A) Diversity
1) Across space and over time
B) Cross-cultural contact
1) Exchange
2) Warfare
3) Migration
C) Centralization
1) Factors encouraging sedentism
2) Mississippian society
a) Characteristics
b) Example: Cahokia, 1050-1200
1) A cultural empire, not a political/military one
D) Decentralization
1) Unstable chiefdoms
A) Break-up of Cahokia
1) Ecological, social strains
2) The importance of the local
A) Nature of village life
B) Centrality of kinship
III) The Europeans' Old World
1) Primed for expansion, late 1400s and 1500s
A) Ambitions flowed from continent's recent history
2) Europe, c.1300
A) Harsh life
B) Hierarchy and chaos
1) Importance of tradition
3) The Black Death, 1347
A) Extremely destructive, disruptive
B) Long-term effects mixed
1) Higher standards of living
2) Disrupted sense of an unchangeable world
4) Europe in the 15th century
A) Population rebound and economic expansion
B) Technological innovation
C) Political centralization
IV) Conclusion
1) Columbus as the child of his era and culture