Maya royal palace at Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico (600s-700s AD) When did they get started? When the Olmec rulers began to lose control of their country about 600 BC, new leaders came forward and [...]
The Andes mountains run down the Pacific side of South America People first came to Central and South America probably around 20,000 years ago. They were probably traveling south from North America, though [...]
Aztec brazier (about 1300 AD) Mexica people move to Mexico Beginning in the 1100s AD, the Medieval Warm Period seems to have made it too hard to live where the Mexica were in [...]
Aztec men sharing a meal What did early people eat? When people first came to Central and South America, perhaps about 15,000 BC, they hunted and gathered all of their food. They picked wild potatoes, [...]
Sapodilla tree - where chewing gum comes from Who invented chewing gum? Nobody knows when the first person began to chew gobs of sap from trees, but it was probably [...]
Olmec Pyramid, La Venta, Mexico (500 BC) The earliest big buildings from South America are in Ecuador and Peru, along the Pacific coast. The Norte Chico people and the Valdivia people built [...]
Mexican history: Tenochtitlan under attack (painted in the 1600s) The Aztecs in Mexico In 1500 AD, the Aztec controlled most of what is now Mexico. People also called them the Mexica. More [...]
South American history: Aztec doctor treating people with smallpox (1500s AD, Codex Mendoza) The Inca, Brazil, and Chile In 1500 AD, the Inca Empire dominated the east coast of South America. Further north, [...]
Atlatl history: this is an ancient atlatl What is an atlatl? An atlatl, or spear-thrower, is a wooden or bone stick with a hook on one end that you can [...]
History of turkeys: Wild turkeys When did turkeys evolve? Turkeys evolved from earlier birds. The ancestors of the turkey evolved about 100 million years ago, from the dinosaurs that were [...]
