The+Americas+and+Oceania


 * ====There were many societies and empires throughout the Americas during the Post-Classical Era.The larger of these societies included the Aztec Empire, Maya people, and the Inca Empire.====


 * ====The Mexica people (Aztec) adopted many of the local religious beliefs and traditions.====
 * One of their adopted dieties was Tezcatlipoca (the giver and taker of life).
 * The Mexica people followed the societies before them through traditions such as ritual bloodletting as individual sacrifice to their dieties. They viewed ritual sacrafices as essential to the World's survival.

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 * The Inca Empire started in the late 1400s.
 * [[image:postclassicaleraapworld/incan_empire.jpg width="308" height="351"]]
 * Eventually formed to be one of the largest civilizations in Pre-Columbian America.
 * The heart of the Inca people was in Cusco. (modern day Peru)
 * The Inca Empire lasted from 1438 to 1533, within that short amount of time, they advanced in many forms of technology
 * The Maya People was a civilization made up of many city states based mainley in Southern Mexico and Central America [[image:http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS4t3-750tulIv-T2Fy8iY_Y0XsSimBhd4oEm1q9eIxUlFYAEbECg width="257" height="196"]]
 * The Maya were the earliest heirs of the Olmec People
 * They prefered the highlands of Guatemala for their fert9ile soils and excilent conditions for agriculture.
 * Began establishing permanent vilates around 200 BCE
 * Mayan society flourished in the mesoamerican lowlands, to make this possible they aftifucally reatined the rich soils by building terraces to contain them.
 * Agriculture was an extremely large part of their society. They harvested large amounts of Maize and Cocao.
 * The Mayans built many (about 80) large ceremonial centers that included pyramids, palaces, and temples.
 * Some of these larger centers eventually developed in to larger cities with large populations.
 * Many factors contrubuted to the decline of Maya society, including invasion by Mexican peoples, internal wars, and failure of water control.


 * Oceania is a region of the world that has been independent from the rest of the world at this time period.
 * The individual island societies traded with eachother, these trades also served as economic and politcal functions.
 * Long distance trade was made all but impossible simply due to the vast amount of distance between the islands of Oceania and other civilizations of the time.
 * Societies were largely agricultural and fishing economies.
 * Civilizations of Oceania domesticated pigs and dogs for the use of food, as well as fish and numerous other crops.
 * as societies grew, they developed complex political and social orde