History of Pre-Columbian America (20069)

Degree/study:Degree in Humanities
Year: 3rd-4th
Term: 3rd
Number of ECTS credits: 5 credits
Hours of studi dedication: 125 hours
Teaching language or languages: spanish
Teaching Staff: M. Eugènia Aubet

1. Presentation of the subject

 

2. Competences to be attained

 

3. Contents

 

1. The origins of the America's settlement. Paleoanthropology and Geography of the first settlers. The climatic and environmental changes during the Holocene and the extinction of the quaternary megafauna. Regional variables and linguistic groups.

 

2. The cultures of hunters-pickers-fishermen and the first adaptations to the environment: forest, high plains, prairies, plains, northwest coast and semi-desert areas. The Clovis, Folsom and Cueva de Fell cultures (18.000-7.000 B.C).

 

3. The origins of the agriculture in America (7.000-2.000 B.C): the high lands and the different regional developments in Mesoamerica: Tehuacán and Oaxaca. The first farmers of the Andean zone: Ayacucho and Valdivia.

 

4. First complex societies on the Mesoamerica lowlands: the olmecs (1500-500 B.C). The formation of the state in the dry high lands: the Zapotecs, Monte Albán and the theocratic state of Teotihuacán (1.000 B.C. - 700 A.C).

 

5. The formation of the state in the irrigated low lands: Yucatán Peninsula and the origins of the Mayan civilization (300-1.000 A.C). The first Mayan politic centres and their land organisation.

 

6. The height of the Mayan civilisation: ideology, ritual and power among Mayan people. The collapse of the Mayan civilisation and its socio-politic and ecological causes.

 

7. First complex societies of the Andean area (2.000 B.C. - 1.200 A.C): the high land and the Chavín, Tiahuanaco and Chimú groups.

 

8. First states in Peru (200-1.000 A.C): the irrigated lowlands and the Nazca and Mochica groups. Theoretical models about the formation of the state in Peru: from the chiefdoms to the state.

 

9. Mesoamerica, the epilogue: the militarist empires of Toltecs and the Aztecs (1.000-1519). Tenochtitlan.

 

10. Andean zone, the epilogue: Inca empire (1400-1525). Society, economy and land organisation. First "socialist" state ever?

 

*The full version with the sections: 4. Assessment, 5. Bibliography and teaching resources, 6. Methodology, and 7. Planning of activities is available in the original version.

 

4. Assessment

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5. Bibliography and teaching resources

5.1. Basic bibliography

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5.2. Complementary bibliography

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5.3. Teaching resources

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6. Metodology

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7. Planning of activities

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