The Olmec civilization formed around 1200 BCE and developed sophisticated religious traditions, a calendar system, and a ritual ball game. The Olmec influenced Mesoamerican cultures that followed, including the Zapotecs of Oaxaca, the Teotihuacanos of the Valley of Mexico, and the Maya of southern Mexico and Guatemala. By 300 BCE, Teotihuacán was among the largest cities in the world and controlled a vast trading network. By that time, a handful of powerful Maya city-states like Tikal, Calakmul, and El Mirador had grown to large urban centers and were using their own sophisticated writing and calendar system.

In the Andes region of South America, Chavín culture began expanding around 900 BCE, spreading its distinctive artistic and religious traditions. In the wake of the Chavín collapse in 200 BCE, new states like the Moche, the Nazca, and the Tiwanaku emerged and thrived in the Andes.

In North America, the complex societies of the Adena tradition emerged in the Ohio River valley around 1000 BCE and built a number of earthen burial mounds. This tradition was followed by other mound-building cultures like the Hopewell tradition. Very different traditions developed in the Southwest, where maize agriculture was incorporated into a largely hunter-gatherer existence as early as the third millennium BCE. But in this dry environment, settled and entirely agricultural communities did not begin to emerge until around 200 CE.

All images referenced in this podcast can be found at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/8-2-early-cultures-and-civilizations-in-the-americas

Welcome to A Journey into Human History.

This podcast will attempt to tell the whole human story.

The content contained in this podcast was produced by OpenStax and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/1-introduction

Podcast produced by Miranda Casturo as a Creative Common Sense production.