Ancient Americas Word Search Puzzle

Find 15 ancient Americas words in one grid, from Olmec and Maya to Cahokia and Kiva, with an answer key.

Name Date

Ancient Americas Word Search

Find every word hidden in the grid. Words go across and down.

0 of 15 words found

FYSBLLGQBLBHOHW

MHLTNSNFEFNNTAS

NMAIZEOOCEDAHGI

RINLSIITLSIMRHT

OMDHHTNMOIWPEFO

IMBAOECAVYBUVSL

RORPYRAMIDYEEEM

DUIFFRPMSAIBZPE

RNDPAAWODNGLTMC

DDGHBCITNSROENA

IAESNEWHPETESTH

OENACKIVAQMEBXO

WNLDASJTRBMDAUK

ALMDDDFNRIAIAEI

GNAZCAZTECCMAYA

This grid is wider and taller than its box. Slide it to see every letter.To drag, hold the first letter for a moment, then slide.Keyboard: Tab to the grid, arrow keys to move, Enter on the first and last letter.

Land BridgeLAND BRIDGE
ClovisCLOVIS
MammothMAMMOTH
OlmecOLMEC
MayaMAYA
AztecAZTEC
PyramidPYRAMID
MaizeMAIZE
IncaINCA
TerraceTERRACE
NazcaNAZCA
CahokiaCAHOKIA
MoundMOUND
PuebloPUEBLO
KivaKIVA

15 words from the Ancient Americas list.

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Word list

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Answer key: Ancient Americas Word Search

FYSBLLGQBLBHOHW

MHLTNSNFEFNNTAS

NMAIZEOOCEDAHGI

RINLSIITLSIMRHT

OMDHHTNMOIWPEFO

IMBAOECAVYBUVSL

RORPYRAMIDYEEEM

DUIFFRPMSAIBZPE

RNDPAAWODNGLTMC

DDGHBCITNSROENA

IAESNEWHPETESTH

OENACKIVAQMEBXO

WNLDASJTRBMDAUK

ALMDDDFNRIAIAEI

GNAZCAZTECCMAYA

LAND BRIDGE, CLOVIS, MAMMOTH, OLMEC, MAYA, AZTEC, PYRAMID, MAIZE, INCA, TERRACE, NAZCA, CAHOKIA, MOUND, PUEBLO, KIVA

Next step Make a puzzle from your own early Americas unit Scramble these ancient Americas words

All 88 words

First Americans 17

Alaska The American state at the eastern end of the old link between the continents.
Atlatl A stick used as a lever to throw a spear with more force.
Beringia The name scientists give the old link between Siberia and Alaska and the region around it.
Bison A large, shaggy wild ox. A steppe kind grazed the far north in the ice ages.
Clovis The New Mexico town that gave its name to a toolmaking culture of about 13,000 years ago.
Extinct No longer living anywhere. Most of the large ice-age animals of the Americas became this.
Gatherer Someone who collects wild plants, nuts and berries to eat.
Glacier A slow-moving mass of ice that forms where snow piles up year after year.
Herd A large group of animals that travel and feed together.
Hunter Someone who tracks animals for food. The first Americans followed herds of large mammals.
Ice Age A long cold period when ice sheets spread and the sea stood lower than today.
Land Bridge Dry ground that once joined Asia and North America. People crossed it more than 10,000 years ago.
Mammoth A huge ice-age relative of the elephant, now extinct. Stone tools were found beside its bones in 1929.
Mastodon An extinct ice-age animal built like an elephant. It once lived on the Bering link between the continents.
Migration A move by a people or a herd from one region to another.
Siberia The part of Asia at the western end of the old link between the continents.
Spear Point A sharpened stone tip for a hunting spear. The Clovis kind is large, with a groove called a flute.

Show all 88 words (71 more)

Ancient Mesoamerica 23

Aztec The civilization of central Mexico between about 1300 and 1521.
Ballgame A sport played across Mesoamerica with a solid ball that players struck with their hips.
Basalt A dark volcanic rock. The Olmec carved their giant heads from boulders of it.
City-state A city that governs itself and the land around it.
Colossal Gigantic. It is the word for the Olmec stone heads, of which seventeen are known.
Gulf Coast The shore of the Gulf of Mexico, where the Olmec heartland lay.
La Venta An Olmec center in today's Mexican state of Tabasco. It was at its height after 900 BC.
Maize The grain also called corn, first farmed in Mesoamerica.
Maya A civilization of southeastern Mexico and Central America with the most developed writing in the ancient Americas.
Mesoamerica The cultural region of Mexico and Central America where the Olmec, Maya and Aztec lived.
Monte Alban The Zapotec capital, on a low mountain range above the Valley of Oaxaca.
Oaxaca The southern Mexican state whose central valley was the Zapotec homeland.
Olmec The earliest known major civilization of Mesoamerica, on Mexico's Gulf coast from about 1200 to 400 BC.
Plaza An open public square in the middle of a town or city.
Pyramid A huge monument with sloping or stepped sides. The one named for the Sun stands at Teotihuacan.
Rubber A stretchy material made from tree sap. Olmec means "people" of it in the Nahuatl language.
Teotihuacan An ancient city northeast of today's Mexico City. At its height it was the largest in the Americas.
Toltec A civilization of central Mexico, at its height from about AD 950 to 1150, before the Aztec.
Tula The Toltec capital, in today's Mexican state of Hidalgo.
Vanilla A flavoring from the pod of an orchid; one of the plants first grown in Mesoamerica.
Writing Marks that record language. Mesoamerica is one of the few places in the world where it was invented independently.
Yucatan The peninsula of southeastern Mexico that was part of the Maya region.
Zapotec The civilization of the Valley of Oaxaca. Monte Alban was its leading center for nearly a thousand years.

Ancient Andes 22

Adobe Earth mixed with plant matter and shaped into bricks and walls. In Spanish the word means mudbrick.
Andes The long mountain chain of western South America.
Bolivia The South American country where Tiwanaku stands.
Caral A site in Peru about 5,000 years old, considered the oldest city in the Americas.
Chan Chan Capital of the kingdom of Chimor on Peru's coast, and the largest adobe city in the Americas.
Chavin A civilization of Peru's northern highlands from about 900 to 250 BC.
Chimu The culture of Peru's coast from about AD 900. Its kingdom was taken into the Inca Empire in 1470.
Desert A very dry land with little rain.
Empire A group of lands and peoples that one ruler or state controls.
Geoglyph A large design made on the ground, best seen from above.
Highlands High mountain country. The Inca rose from Peru's in the early 1200s.
Hummingbird A tiny bird that hovers at flowers; one of more than 70 animal designs on the Nazca desert floor.
Inca The largest empire in the Americas before Columbus, ruled from Cusco between 1438 and 1533.
Irrigation Bringing water to fields through ditches and channels.
Moche A culture of Peru's north coast, AD 100 to 800, noted for painted pottery, gold work and irrigation.
Monkey A tree-climbing animal with a long tail; one of the animal designs on the Nazca desert floor.
Nazca The desert in southern Peru where huge designs were made on the ground between 500 BC and AD 500.
Peru The South American country of Caral, the Nazca designs and Chan Chan.
Pottery Pots, bowls and jars shaped from clay and baked hard.
Terrace A flat step cut into a hillside for farming. The Inca covered whole mountainsides with them.
Textiles Woven cloth. The Inca were noted for very fine ones.
Tiwanaku An ancient site in western Bolivia near Lake Titicaca, one of the largest in South America.

Mounds and Pueblos 26

Adena A mound-building culture of the Ohio region, about 500 BC to AD 100.
Cahokia A Native American city of about 1050 to 1350, across the Mississippi River from today's St. Louis.
Canal A channel dug to carry water. Desert farmers in what is now Arizona built wide networks of them.
Casa Grande Spanish for "great house": an earthen building in Arizona, one of the largest ancient structures in North America.
Chaco The canyon in New Mexico that was the center of a thriving Ancestral Pueblo culture a thousand years ago.
Chunkey A game played at Cahokia: a stone disc was rolled and players threw spears at where it would stop.
Cliff Dwelling A home built in a rock alcove. Ancestral Pueblo people built most of Mesa Verde's between 1180 and 1300.
Copper A reddish metal; one of the materials Hopewell peoples gathered through their far-reaching contacts.
Earthworks Walls, ditches and mounds shaped from soil, often laid out in geometric patterns.
Effigy A mound built in the shape of an animal, such as the 1,348-foot serpent in Ohio.
Four Corners The region where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado meet, home of the Ancestral Pueblo people.
Granary A storeroom for dried food. Narrow ones were built into the cliff dwellings.
Great House A massive planned stone building of several stories and hundreds of rooms, such as Pueblo Bonito.
Hopewell A name for mound-building peoples of eastern North America whose contacts reached from the Atlantic to the Rockies.
Illinois The state where Cahokia stands.
Kiva A room that Pueblo people use for ceremonies and meetings.
Masonry Building with fitted stones, or the stonework itself.
Mesa Verde The Colorado park with 600 cliff dwellings. Its Spanish name means green table.
Mica A mineral that splits into thin, shiny sheets; one of the materials Hopewell peoples gathered from far away.
Mississippian The maize-farming culture of the central and southeastern United States whose largest city was Cahokia.
Mound A hill of earth built by people. About 80 survive at Cahokia.
Ohio The state of the great serpent-shaped mound.
Poverty Point A Louisiana site of earthen ridges and mounds built between 1700 and 1100 BC.
Pueblo Spanish for town or village; the name for the permanent towns of the Southwest and the peoples who built them.
Sandstone A rock made of sand grains pressed together; canyons and overhangs form in it.
Three Sisters Maize, beans and squash, three crops that Native farmers planted together.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the 88 words and every clue were written for this page. Dates and places were checked on October 9, 2026 against the National Park Service history pages for Bering Land Bridge (https://www.nps.gov/bela/learn/historyculture/index.htm), Mesa Verde (https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/historyculture/cliff_dwellings_home.htm), Chaco Culture, Hopewell Culture and Casa Grande Ruins, and against the English Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA 4.0) on each culture and site, among them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmecs, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Empire, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_lines. Licence: own work

How it works

This ancient Americas word search puzzle hides 15 words, among them Maya, Inca, Aztec, Olmec, Pyramid, Maize and Terrace. Four more lists cross both continents, from the first hunters of the ice age to the mound and pueblo builders.

Read the full guide

Two continents in four lists

Start from a list splits the 88 words: First Americans (17) has Beringia, Clovis and Atlatl; Ancient Mesoamerica (23) has Teotihuacan, Zapotec and Toltec; Ancient Andes (22) has Caral, Nazca and Chan Chan; Mounds and Pueblos (26) has Cahokia, Mesa Verde and Chaco.

More than the Aztec, Maya and Inca

The three best-known names are in the opening grid. The other lists hold the cultures before and beside them: "An ancient city northeast of today's Mexico City. At its height it was the largest in the Americas." is Teotihuacan; "A Native American city of about 1050 to 1350, across the Mississippi River from today's St. Louis." is Cahokia.

Easy Ancient Americas keeps to 23 words of 4 or 5 letters, such as Maya, Inca, Kiva, Mound and Peru.
The grid drops spaces and accents, so look for LANDBRIDGE, MONTEALBAN, CHANCHAN and MESAVERDE.
Under More options, tick Show clues, not words: "A room that Pueblo people use for ceremonies and meetings." leads to Kiva.

Questions and answers

What were the ancient civilizations of the Americas?

Among the best known are the Olmec, Maya and Aztec of Mesoamerica, the Inca and earlier Andean cultures such as the Chavin, Nazca and Moche, and in North America the builders of Cahokia and the Ancestral Pueblo people.

What is the oldest civilization in the Americas?

Caral, in Peru, is about 5,000 years old and is thought to be the Americas' oldest city. In Mesoamerica the earliest known major civilization is the Olmec, from about 1200 to 400 BC.

How did the first people get to the Americas?

More than 10,000 years ago people crossed from East Asia into North America over the Bering Land Bridge, following herds of large mammals, according to the National Park Service. The First Americans list has Beringia, Clovis and Mammoth.

Is there a word search for the Aztec, Maya and Inca only?

Yes. The Aztec word search has a list for each of the three, with their cities and gods. This page holds their forerunners and neighbors, from the Olmec to Cahokia.

All 88 words

First Americans 17

Ancient Mesoamerica 23

Ancient Andes 22

Mounds and Pueblos 26

How it works

Two continents in four lists

More than the Aztec, Maya and Inca

Questions and answers

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