Fuller Middle School: Grade 6

• History of ancient Mexico, Mesoamerica Toltec, Maya, Aztec, Olmec, Zapotec history
• The Aztecs for Kids
• The Incas
• Ancient Mayan Facts for Kids
• The Olmecs (Olmec Culture of Ancient Mexico)
• Christopher Columbus and the Taino People

Image Bank

A picture of Mesoamerica

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Native Americans of Middle and South America

After settling down in farming communities, the Native Americans of Middle America (southern Mexico and Central America) built some of the world’s great civilizations. The massive sculptures of the Olmec date from about 1000 bce. More than 1,000 years later the Central American Maya built stone temples and huge monuments, carved with images of gods and sacred animals. They also created a calendar and an advanced system of mathematics. They preserved what they knew in books written in hieroglyphics (picture symbols). In what is now Mexico, the great early Native American nations included the Toltec, Zapotec and Aztec. The Aztec are known for their beautiful art and the great buildings of their capital city, Tenochtitlán.

In South America, as in North America, American Indians developed different ways of living depending on their environment. The hunters of the southern plains of South America used clubs and bows and arrows to hunt the guanaco, an animal related to the llama, for both meat and skin. They also hunted the rhea, a large flightless bird related to the ostrich. Native Americans of the south-western coast built big canoes from beech bark to sail on the sea. They fished, hunted seals and sea otters and gathered shellfish and wild plants. In the forested, northern tropical lowlands, women tended fields while men hunted with blowguns, fished and made war.

In the soils of the Andes Mountains, American Indians built large villages. Farmers grew potatoes, which were native to the region. They also grew corn, beans, and squash in irrigated fields. They used llamas and alpacas to carry heavy loads. Wool from the llamas and alpacas was made into beautiful weavings. The Andean people were also skilled in making pottery and working with metal. The Inca, the most powerful Native Americans in the Andes, once ruled a large area from northern Ecuador to northern Chile.

"Native Americans, or American Indians." Britannica School, Encyclopædia Britannica, 13 Nov. 2021. school.eb.com/levels/elementary/article/Native-Americans-or-American-Indians/353288. Accessed 25 Jan. 2022.