Here is the story of America's oldest - and oddest - civilization, the Olmecs of the southern Mexican jungles. Virtually unknown to archaeologists until the early twentieth century, their true importance is only now being realized and shedding new light on how the Indian peoples of the Americas came to be here.

In ancient North and South America extraordinary civilizations rose, flourished, and fell. The Mayan pyramids and the ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru and Teotihuacan in Mexico remain a testament to these cultures. Ancient Civilizations of the Americas tells this remarkable story-beginning when humans first ventured from Asia to Alaska more than 13,000 years ago and ending with the Indian Wars of the nineteenth century. The book traces the migration of people across North and South America, and investigates the impressive artistic and architectural achievements that followed. Civilizations emerged with well-established religions and economies, proven agricultural methods and trade routes, and craftsmen capable of producing gold, silver, and pottery artifacts of sublime beauty. By 500 BC sophisticated societies had developed as far south as Peru and by AD 500 these cultures, including the Maya of modern Mexico and Guatemala, had reached an age of maturity. The late fourteenth century saw the rise of the great imperial powers of the Aztecs in Mexico and the Inca in the Andes -- both highly organized societies with efficient bureaucracies, capable of casting the net of imperial rule over huge swathes of territory. In the end, however, the civilizations of the Americas faced a challenge different from any they had met before: the arrival of European colonists, starting with the Spanish conquistadors in the sixteenth century. Much was swept away in the often brutal encounters that followed. Yet much also survived -- ancient crafts and customs and the remains of engineering and architectural marvels, all speaking unforgettably of these cultures' astonishing skills and organization.

The cultural and intellectual achievements of Old World civilizations—ancient Greece or Egypt, for instance—can be glimpsed in present-day societies the world over. Unfortunately, accomplishments of the ancient civilizations of the New World have often been obscured by the colonial forces that eventually eradicated much of their populations. One glance at the imposing architecture left behind by the Inca or the mathematical strides made by the Maya reveals that the early peoples of the Americas were equally as enterprising as their Old World counterparts. This exciting volume introduces readers to the magnificent kingdoms and empires of early South, Middle, and North America and the rich heritage of the peoples who made them.

The Instant New York Times Bestseller! Was an advanced civilization lost to history in the global cataclysm that ended the last Ice Age? Graham Hancock, the internationally bestselling author, has made it his life's work to find out--and in America Before, he draws on the latest archaeological and DNA evidence to bring his quest to a stunning conclusion. We’ve been taught that North and South America were empty of humans until around 13,000 years ago – amongst the last great landmasses on earth to have been settled by our ancestors. But new discoveries have radically reshaped this long-established picture and we know now that the Americas were first peopled more than 130,000 years ago – many tens of thousands of years before human settlements became established elsewhere. Hancock's research takes us on a series of journeys and encounters with the scientists responsible for the recent extraordinary breakthroughs. In the process, from the Mississippi Valley to the Amazon rainforest, he reveals that ancient "New World" cultures share a legacy of advanced scientific knowledge and sophisticated spiritual beliefs with supposedly unconnected "Old World" cultures. Have archaeologists focused for too long only on the "Old World" in their search for the origins of civilization while failing to consider the revolutionary possibility that those origins might in fact be found in the "New World"? America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization is the culmination of everything that millions of readers have loved in Hancock's body of work over the past decades, namely a mind-dilating exploration of the mysteries of the past, amazing archaeological discoveries and profound implications for how we lead our lives today.

Individual books for each unit build important social studies concepts through on-level text and strong visual images. May be purchased as a single copy or in packs of six copies of the same title.The Student Package includes 1 copy of all 8 Student BookThe Teacher Package includes 1 copy of all 8 Teacher Guides plus a FREE Teacher Binder

Volume II of The Cambridge History of War covers what in Europe is commonly called 'the Middle Ages'. It includes all of the well-known themes of European warfare, from the migrations of the Germanic peoples and the Vikings through the Reconquista, the Crusades and the age of chivalry, to the development of state-controlled gunpowder-wielding armies and the urban militias of the later middle ages; yet its scope is world-wide, ranging across Eurasia and the Americas to trace the interregional connections formed by the great Arab conquests and the expansion of Islam, the migrations of horse nomads such as the Avars and the Turks, the formation of the vast Mongol Empire, and the spread of new technologies – including gunpowder and the earliest firearms – by land and sea.

The examination of four great civilizations that existed before Columbus’s arrival in North America offers evidence of sustained contact between the Old and New Worlds • Describes the cultural splendor, political might, and incredibly advanced technology of these precursors to our modern age • Shows that North America’s first civilization, the Adena, was sparked by ancient Kelts from Western Europe and explores links between Hopewell Mound Builders and prehistoric Japanese seafarers Before Rome ruled the Classical World, gleaming stone pyramids stood amid smoking iron foundries from North America’s Atlantic seaboard to the Mississippi River. On its east bank, across from today’s St. Louis, Missouri, flourished a walled city more populous than London was one thousand years ago, with a pyramid larger--at its base--than Egypt’s Great Pyramid. During the 12th century, hydraulic engineers laid out a massive irrigation network spanning the American Southwest that, if laid end to end, would stretch from Phoenix, Arizona, to the Canadian border. On a scale to match, they built a five-mile-wide dam from ten million cubic yards of rock. While Europe stumbled through the Dark Ages, a metropolis of weirdly shaped, multistory superstructures, precisely aligned to the sun and moon, sprawled across the New Mexico Desert. Who was responsible for such colossal achievements? Where did their mysterious builders come from, and what became of them? These are some of the questions investigated by Frank Joseph in his examination of ancient influences at work on our continent. He reveals that modern civilization is not the first to arise in North America but was preceded instead by four high cultures that rose and fell over the past three thousand years: the Adena, Hopewell, Mississippian, and Anasazi-Hohokam. How they achieved greatness and why they vanished so completely are the intriguing enigmas explored by this unconventional prehistory of our country, Advanced Civilizations of Prehistoric America.