Cities of the Americas Before 1500
Tenochtitlan was larger than any city in Europe when the Spanish first saw it, and the Inca ran a mountain state of millions without wheels, money or writing as Europe knew it. Maya astronomers had a calendar more accurate than the one Spain arrived with.
What a learner can do afterwards
- Name two American civilisations before 1500 and say roughly where each was
- Give one engineering or record-keeping method they used, such as terraces, causeways or the quipu
- Say one thing that is often assumed about the Americas before 1500 and why the evidence contradicts it
1 · Read
Long before 1500, great cities rose in the Americas. Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztecs, held more people than any city in Europe when Spanish ships first arrived.
High in the Andes, the Inca ran a mountain state of millions. They cut terraces for crops, built stone roads, and kept records with knotted cords called quipu, all without wheels or coins.
In the south, the Maya read the sky and kept a calendar more exact than the one Spain brought. Teotihuacan, older still, housed some 200,000 people in a planned grid of streets and pyramids.
Many picture the Americas as empty before 1500. The proof says otherwise: count the people, the roads, and the books of the sky.
Big planned cities, terraced farms, and exact calendars prove the Americas thrived long before 1500.
2 · Watch
Take it off screen
Where it sits
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.