page_title: 1340s
section_title: The Americas
hierarchical_section_title: 1340s / The Americas
caption_attribution_description: English: The Kincaid Site in Massac County, Illinois. Oil on canvas painting.
context_page_description: The 1340s were a Julian calendar decade in the 14th century, in the midst of a period in world history often referred to as the Late Middle Ages in the Old World and the pre-Columbian era in the New World.
  In Asia, the successors of the old Mongol Empire were in a state of gradual decline. The Ilkhanate had already fragmented into several political territories and factions struggling to place their puppet leaders over the shell of an old state; the Chagatai Khanate was undermined by religious unrest and fell to rebellion. The Black Plague swept through the Kipchak Khanate in 1346, and also affected the Genoese colonies under Mongol siege, thence spreading into Europe. The Yuan dynasty in China was struck by a series of disasters, including frequent flooding, widespread banditry, fires in urban areas, declining grain harvest, increased civil unrest and local rebellion – the seeds of resistance that would lead to its downfall. Southeast Asia remained free from Mongol power, with several small kingdoms struggling for survival.
  In Europe, the decade continued the period of gradual economic decline, often mistitled the "depression" of the 1340s.
context_section_description: Very little is known of the Americas in this period, save what can be determined from archaeology.  In North America, the Mississippian culture was in a continued state of decline.  The city of Cahokia had experienced gradual decline since the 1200s, possibly due to contributory factors such as depletion of resources, climatic change, war, disease, social unrest and declining political and economic power.  The final abandonment of the city may have taken place some time between this decade and 1400.  Radiocarbon dating of wash material from Mound 55 give a date of around 1350, which can be taken as the time the mound was last used.
  Other Mississippian sites which went into decline after this decade, from about 1350 on, include the Kincaid Mounds and the Moundville site.  In the case of the latter, the decline was marked by a loss of the appearance of a town and a decrease in the importation of goods.  Although the site retained its ceremonial and political functions, some of the mounds were abandoned while others lost their religious importance altogether.
  In Central America, the Mayans, who centuries earlier had suffered a serious decline, were ruled from a capital in the Yucatan Peninsula called Mayapan.  Other pre-Columbian civilisations, however, were on the rise.  The precursors to the Aztecs, the Mexicas, had recently founded their capital city of Tenochtitlan. They also had occasional skirmishes with the nearby Mixtec civilization.
caption: The decline of the Mississippian culture accelerated from the 1340s on.
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