Comparing The Four Civilizations

Throughout history there have been many significant and unique groups/ empires. Some of these groups were considered to be savages even though they were able to accomplish some stellar tasks. There are four different civilizations that really catch your eyes once you begin to learn about the astonishing things they accomplished. The reason we wouldn’t really know much about how extraordinary things they did is because they were considered to be groups of lesser significance. The four civilizations that will be discussed are all from about the same time period, which is right around when colonization began. Those four civilizations are North America, Maya, Aztec, and lastly Inca. The North Americans had a very unique culture, and even though …show more content…
For the Mayans they were able to develop a unique lifestyle using agriculture, architecture, and their social structure. One of the diverse things they did for agriculture was that they farmed maize, beans, and squash. The reason this is so unique is because there were a few different methods they used when farming. The first method they used was slash and burn, this was when they would cut down the growth in an area and then burn it, and then use the resulting field to plant their next crop. This method seems pretty interesting for one because for one the ashes left over could be used as added soil nutrition, and when they used this method it was more common in forested areas. The next type of farming was terrace farming, and all they did for this was cut terraces in the side of hillsides to make usable plots, and this method is used in more mountainous areas. The last type of farming they used is raised field farming, and this method is very interesting, so what they would do is they dug the mud up around the water canals that surrounded them and shaped it into a raised field that rose anywhere between 2-4 feet above the water. Something that is interesting, but weird about this is since there were fish in the water surrounding these fields their droppings helped fertilize the soil, and this type of farming method …show more content…
For me this civilization is probably the most interesting especially with their way of life as well as the type of society they were. The Aztecs were a very astonishing empire based on some of the things they did, especially once they reached the peak of their empire around 500. One of the things that really helped the Aztecs keep their empire strong for a long time was the fact that where it was located it wasn’t all that difficult to defend. The reason it was so easy to defend was because of the geography surrounding them such as various land barriers. The most interesting part in my opinion about this society is they were warlike people who ruled by conquest. Since they ruled by conquest you can now see another reason as well that they were able to stay around as long as they did. Eventually the Aztecs did move to Central America in the 1200’s as soldiers which allowed for a much easier takeover, as well as demonstrating the amount of intelligence they had. They were also able to maintain control over the areas they conquered because they had a class system in place which helped keep order and let them have complete control. Their class systems were, the noble class which included military leaders, officials, priests, then it was the commoners and in this group there were merchants, artisans, soldiers, and farmers, and the last group at the bottom which was the