Root Cultures: Americas and Oceania

I. Themes unraveling mysteries of lost pasts migrations and cultural identities Mesoamerica Polynesia creation stories Popol Vuh Kumulipo

Mayan maize god

II. Americas

• European Myths



• Mayan Archaeology
• map*
• Tikal
• ballcourts
• calendar and astronomy
• writing and iconography
• Environment and Development
• regions: map (online)
• migration
• Mesoamerica
• Olmec roots
• Mayan Society
• agriculture and urbanization
• political
• pyramids
• Mayan Religion

III. Oceania

• Polynesian legends and European myths
• oral histories
• Asian or American origins?
• navigation experiments
• archaeology and linguistics
• Lapita pottery
• Environment and Development
• migration *
  
• Polynesian Voyaging Society history
• Austronesian and Polynesian societies
• Pacific sense of place and identity
• seafaring `ohana
• agriculture: plants
• Beliefs and values

III. Comparisons

• assumptions versus discovery: how we know what we know
• migration and cultural identities
• creation stories (next time)
• review chapters in T&E Unit 1 and Encounters ch. 2