Deck 15: Cities and Empires in the Americas, 900-1500

Question 1

What food stuff, due to its higher caloric value, allowed populations that lived in the Mississippi and numerous other river valleys to significantly expand?

A) rice
B) beans
C) squash
D) maize

Answer 1

maize

Question 2

The slight rise in global temperature between the ninth and thirteenth centuries is known as the

A) North American Warm Period.
B) El Ni-o Southern Oscillation.
C) La Ni-a Warming Period.
D) First Millennial Climate Adjustment.

Answer 2

North American Warm Period.

Question 3

What settlement was founded at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers sometime between 800 and 1000 C.E.?

A) Wichita
B) Tullahoma
C) Cahokia
D) Natchez

Answer 3

Cahokia

Question 4

What native peoples established a settlement at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers sometime between 800 and 1000 C.E.?

A) Miami
B) Mississippian
C) Tamaroa
D) Patawatomi

Question 5

Most of the settlements of the Pueblo peoples lay

A) on the Colorado Plateau.
B) along the river valleys of the Mississippi River drainage.
C) in the deserts of what is now known as Arizona.
D) in the Sonora Desert.

Question 6

A ________ was a large, round, covered pit that served as a meeting place and ceremonial center of a pueblo.

A) shira
B) kiva
C) carbonum
D) stade

Question 7

Which Maya group attempted to dominate both the canoe trade and the production of salt during the tenth century?

A) Oaxaca
B) Toltec
C) Itzá
D) Mixtec

Question 8

What was the name of the empire that Eight Deer Jaguar Claw attempted to create?

A) Oaxaca
B) Toltec
C) Itzá
D) Mixtec

Question 9

What was the primary reason people migrated during the ninth and tenth centuries from northern Mexico and the American Southwest to the highlands of central Mexico?

A) wars between various native groups
B) the discovery of gold
C) drought conditions
D) the rise of a new empire

Question 10

Where did the Toltecs settle in the ninth century?

A) Mexico City
B) Tula
C) Tialpan
D) Cuautla

Question 11

What is obsidian?

A) a volcanic glass
B) a mineral similar to turquoise
C) the Toltec word for a slave
D) a precious metal

Question 12

Which of the following statements about the Toltecs is the most accurate?

A) Tula became a large imperial state.
B) After abandoning their capital in the mid-twelfth century, the Toltecs settled in Teotihuacán.
C) The Toltecs did not engage in cultural exchange with other states.
D) The Toltecs developed regular trade relations with the Maya state of Chichén Itzá.

Question 13

Which of the following is NOT in the Uto-Aztecan language family?

A) Hopi
B) Shoshoni
C) Comanche
D) Apache

Question 14

In Nahua communities, the majority of slaves were

A) "volunteers."
B) debtors.
C) criminals.
D) war captives.

Question 15

Where is the Magdalena River valley located?

A) Colombia
B) Panama
C) Venezuela
D) Peru

Question 16

Columbus made contact with the ________ on Hispaniola and learned that they had been repeatedly raided by the ________.

A) Tainos; Caribes
B) Caribes; Garifuna
C) Garifuna; Arawaks
D) Arawaks; Tainos

Question 17

In the sixth century, two new states began to emerge along the Pacific coastal plains and Andean slopes: the Tiwanaku and the

A) Chav'n de Huántar.
B) Moche.
C) Wari.
D) Nazca.

Question 18

Which of the following altitude-tolerant crop did the Tiwanaku depend upon?

A) maize
B) quinoa
C) squash
D) coffee

Question 19

While most of the Tiwanaku population lived in meager houses, their ruling class lived and worked

A) in a gated portion of the city.
B) in grand residences along the shores of lake Titicaca.
C) atop two great platforms.
D) in a warren of two- or three-story compounds.

Question 20

The Wari state was in the central highlands of

A) Ecuador.
B) Peru.
C) Bolivia.
D) Chile.

Question 21

How did the Wari state acquire laborers for public building projects?

A) drafted labor
B) volunteers
C) paid compensation
D) slave labor

Question 22

The Chimu farmers of the arid coastal plains of ________ suffered less from the dry cycles than from El Ni-o events.

A) Ecuador
B) Peru
C) Bolivia
D) Chile

Question 23

Where was the Chimu capital located?

A) the Moche River valley
B) high in the Andes
C) on the shores of the Pacific
D) on Lake Texcoco

Question 24

Which of the following was a result of the practice of split inheritance in Chimu?

A) acquisition by one heir of all of a deceased ruler's possessions and royal title
B) militaristic expansion to acquire new tributaries
C) territorial expansion into the mountain valleys
D) complete destruction of the empire by the fifteenth century

Question 25

How were the Aztec and Inca empires similar to the ancient Roman empire?

A) They credited their success to the favor of the gods.
B) They were governed by a "Senate."
C) The military was not allowed to quarter in the capital city.
D) Initially only citizens could serve in the military.

Question 26

Who founded the Aztec state but did not call themselves Aztecs?

A) the Chinampa
B) the Texcoco
C) the Aztlán
D) the Mexica

Question 27

The floating garden used by the Nahua is known as a

A) chinampa.
B) causeway.
C) spoil island.
D) texcoco.

Question 28

Which of the following was NOT a member of the Triple Alliance?

A) Mexica
B) Azcapotzalco
C) Texcoco
D) Tlacopan

Question 29

The subordinate city-states of the Triple Alliance were governed by

A) the Aztec emperor.
B) regional garrison commanders.
C) native rulers.
D) special tax collectors.

Question 30

Which city was the leading commercial center of the Triple Alliance?

A) Tablon de Tamara
B) Tenochtitlán
C) Tlaloc
D) Tlatelolco

Question 31

Who was the patron deity of the Mexica?

A) Tlaloc
B) Huitzilopochtli
C) Quetzalcoatl
D) Nanahuatzin

Question 32

According to Nahua mythology, the gods created the world and the human race by

A) sacrificing themselves.
B) divine will.
C) self immolation.
D) practicing ritual human sacrifice.

Question 33

Cities of the Triple Alliance sometimes fought pre-arranged battles to

A) mark high holy days.
B) pay tribute to the Triple Alliance.
C) trade captives for ritual killing.
D) settle political disputes.

Question 34

When did the Incas begin their century-long ascendancy to empire?

A) 1330s
B) 1430s
C) 1530s
D) 1630s

Question 35

The Incas traced their origins to

A) a lost northern village.
B) the sun god Manqu Qhapaq.
C) the kinship group called ayllu.
D) an island in Lake Titicaca.

Question 36

To ensure the purity of the royal bloodline, the Incas practiced

A) sibling marriage.
B) ritual bloodletting.
C) maternal monarchy.
D) split inheritance.

Question 37

By the start of the sixteenth century, the Inca empire stretched from the middle of modern Chile to the mountains of modern

A) Colombia.
B) Peru.
C) Ecuador.
D) Bolivia.

Question 38

The royal Inca name Pachakuti translates as

A) Child of the Sun.
B) World Shaker.
C) Warrior King.
D) The Chosen.

Question 39

Why did Pachakuti hoard food stores taken as spoils in the war with the Chanka?

A) to keep them for himself and the royal family
B) because of the harsh and unpredictable Andean weather
C) as a demonstration of his power
D) because he had a hoarding compulsion

Question 40

Awkaypata was the great public plaza at the center of what city?

A) Cuzco
B) Chimu
C) Chan Chan
D) Guarco

Question 41

In the Incan state, the primary tribute paid by conquered societies was

A) gold.
B) the production and storage of maize for the elite.
C) labor.
D) slaves and concubines.

Question 42

Which of the following was NOT a main component of the Incan communication system?

A) record-keeping
B) pony riders
C) roads
D) relay runners

Question 43

How many main roads stretched the length of the Inca empire?

A) one
B) two
C) three
D) four

Question 44

Every division of Inca society recorded goods and services on a device called a(n)

A) wak'a.
B) ayllu.
C) mit'a.
D) quipu.

Question 45

How did Inca rulers turn religion into a source of power?

A) by banning all local cults
B) by discouraging the worship of ancestors
C) by outlawing local deities
D) by connecting holy sites to Cuzco's central temple

Question 46

According to Inca tradition, King Pachakuti redesigned Cuzco, a project that took twenty years and thirty thousand labor conscripts known as

A) quipu.
B) wak'a.
C) ayllu.
D) mit'a.

Question 47

Which of the following was considered the supreme religion in the Inca empire?

A) various provincial deities
B) ancestor worship
C) the sun cult
D) local cults

Question 48

Which of the following had to learn Quechua?

A) farmers
B) aristocratic families
C) stone masons
D) herders

Question 49

What set off a civil war between the two sons of King Wayna Qhapaq?

A) the arrival of Francisco Pizarro
B) the death of the king
C) attempts to curry favor with the Spanish
D) the great famine of 1528

Question 50

Discuss the effects environmental change had on American societies during the tenth to twelfth centuries. Include changes in population, cultivation, and socialization.

Question 51

Why did the Mississippian peoples establish the settlement of Cahokia where they did? What advantages did the site have?

Question 52

Describe the inhabitants of Pueblo Bonito and the unique division of labor among them that help the community survive. Why was this system needed?

Question 53

Discuss the Tiwanaku people. Where did they live and how did they live? What event(s) drove them into larger settlements?

Question 54

Compare and contrast the co-emergent empires of the Aztecs and the Incas. In what ways were they similar? How were they different?

Question 55

List the members of the Triple Alliance. Describe the system of taxation that allowed the Triple Alliance to become wealthy.

Question 56

Describe the lives of Inca rulers. In your answer, include marriage traditions, visitor etiquette, and dining requirements