| A | B |
|---|
| Beringia | an ancient land bridge over which the earliest Americans are believed to have migrated from Asia into the Americas |
| Ice Age | a cold period in which huge ice sheets spread outward from the polar regions, the last one of which lasted from about 1,600,000 to 10,000 B.C. |
| maize | a cultivated cereal grain that bears its kernels on large ears- usually called corn in the US |
| Mesoamerica | an area extending from central Mexico to Honduras, where several of the ancient complex societies of the Americas developed |
| Olmec | the earliest known Mesoamerican cililization, which flourished around 1200 B.C. and influenced later societies throughout the region |
| Zapotec | an early Mesoamerican civilization that was in the Oaxaca Valley of what is now Mexico |
| Monte Alban | first real urban center in the Americas |
| Chavin | the first major South American civilization, which flourished in the highlands of what is now Peru from about 900 to 200 B.C. |
| Nazca | a civilization that flourished on what is now the southern coast of Peru from about 200 B.C. to A.D. 600 |
| Moche | a civilization that flourished on what is now the northern coast of Peru from about A.D. 100 to 700 |
