Indigenous Americas, 1000 BCE–1980 CE

Indigenous artists responded to their neighbors, their landscape and, later, to Europeans. Mesa Verde's cliff dwellings and Machu Picchu are built into the land, Yaxchilán's carved lintels record Maya royal rituals, and the Lenape bandolier bag and Cotsiogo's painted elk hide show older traditions adapting to European trade beads and to life on reservations.

This topic is about skill with materials. You'll study Mexica featherwork in the headdress linked to Motecuhzoma II, Inka stonework in the walls of Cusco, metal maize cobs, the All-T'oqapu tunic woven from camelid fiber and cotton, and the polished blackware of Maria and Julian Martínez from San Ildefonso Pueblo.

Some works were made for specific rituals and viewers. The Templo Mayor stood at the sacred center of Tenochtitlan with twin shrines to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, and a Kwakwaka'wakw transformation mask opens during a dance at a potlatch to reveal another being inside.

Scholars still debate what some sites meant and who built them. Chavín de Huántar's dark passages and the carved Lanzón suggest a pilgrimage center with oracle-like rituals, and the Great Serpent Mound's date is argued over: the CED dates it to about 1070 CE, while some radiocarbon studies point to the much earlier Adena culture (around 300 BCE). On the exam, use the CED's date.