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Major Themes, THE AMERICAS

THE AMERICAS
 

The peoples in North America lived in tribal groups, including the Hohokam, the Mogollon (Zuni), and  Anasazi  in the Southwest, the Algonquian and  Iroquoian in the East, and  the Hopewell  and Cahokia in the Mississippi  and  Ohio  Rivers region.  Very advanced  cultures  developed  in regions from modern  Mexico to southern America, including the Teotihuacán northwest of the Mexico Valley (ended c. 650), the Mayan  city-states in southern Mexico and Central  America, and in the highlands of Peru. In general, as the states became more advanced and expanded, they also became more hierarchic,  and greater social distinctions prevailed. In Mesoamerica and the Andes, the exceedingly elaborate social and  class distinctions were based  on birth,  lineage, and  occupation. A hereditary ruler and the nobility  topped  the class structure, followed  by a priestly class, a warrior class, merchants and traders,  farmers,  servants,  and slaves at the bottom. The rulers claimed divine sanction and jealously guarded  astronomical and calendrical  knowledge,  aided by priests who served them. On the other hand,  there was less stratification among  the less urbanized and developed peoples in the Amazon basin and in the grasslands  of southeast South America.
 
No overall trend characterized social and class relationships on any continent. Within each society, class distinctions ranged  from  the extremely  hierarchic  in medieval Europe,  feudal Japan,  and Hindu  India to the gradually  more open one in China.  Two factors  instigated  dramatic upsets and lasting  changes  in social and  class relationships in many  societies during  these centuries.  One  was internal—the result  of economic  and  technological changes  that  eroded  feudalism  in Europe  and made  Chinese  society relatively  more  egalitarian. The other  was war  that  brought a new religion: Islam introduced a new way of life to much of Asia and northern Africa. Invasions—Mongol, Viking, and others—disrupted and forced the reorganization of societies in much of Europe and Asia.

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