Mesoamerican Mother Culture

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Mesoamerican Mother Culture
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Olmec Area
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Olmecs The Mother Culture?

• The Discovery of the Big HeadsOnly Mayan?

This discovery in 1862 shocked many, but it was a
later discovery of a date symbol on the back of a
traditional Olmec artifact that really threw the
archeologists for a loop.
Significance?
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These pictures display the immense size of the
big heads.
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What do we know about the Olmecs?

• Two classes Olmec form of Feudalism?
• Elite who lived in towns and carried on business
  affairs and religious ceremonies
• Lower class of farmers who lived outside of the
  towns
• Religion Shamanism shapeshifting is suggested
  by the were-jaguars
• Sacrifices

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The Americas Mesoamerica and Andean South America

• Peoples and Civilizations of the Americas 200-1500

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Land Bridge, Island Hopping Less water, more
opportunities?
Maya
Aztec
Inca
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Classic-Era Culture and Society in Mesoamerica
200-900
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Classic and Post-Classic era commonalities

• Independence
• Human sacrifice
• Pyramid structures
• Warriors fought to retain prisoners for sacrifice
• Agriculturalists
• Role of Women

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The City of the Gods

• The Great City of Teotihuacan

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TeotihuacanThe City of the Gods
The Ceremonial City of Teotihuacan
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Teotihuacán 450-600 CE

• Demographics
• At height largest city in Mesoamerica ? 125,000
  to 200,000 inhabitants
• agricultural innovations including irrigation
  works and chinampas (floating gardens)
• Religion
• dominated by religious structures, including
  pyramids and temples where human sacrifice was
  carried out.
• Structures
• Apartment-like stone buildings housed commoners,
  including the artisans who made pottery and
  obsidian tools and weapons for export
• elite lived in separate residential compounds and
  controlled the state bureaucracy, tax collection,
  and commerce

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Teotihuacán

• Military?
• The military was used primarily to protect and
  expand long-distance trade and to ensure that
  farmers paid taxes or tribute to the elite.
• Commerce
• Pottery and Obsidian
• May have had a monopoly on obsidiana good that
  may have revolutionized warfare.
• Collapse
• Teotihuacan collapsed around 650 C.E.
• mismanagement of resources
• conflict within the elite
• or as a result of invasion.

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The City covered approx. 8 square miles
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Avenue of the Dead
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Pyramid of the Sun
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Pyramid of the Sun
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Pyramid of the Moon
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Feathered Serpent Pyramid
The Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent is at the
center of the Ciudadela, which is the geographic
center of the city. It could accommodate over
100,000 folks without much crowding. This area
may have been used for religious rituals
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Maya
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The Maya

• The Maya were a single culture living in modern
  Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and southern Mexico,
• never formed a politically unified state?Various
  Maya kingdoms fought each other for regional
  dominance.
• Agriculture
• Religion
• The Maya believed that the cosmos consisted of
  three layers the heavens, the human world, and
  the underworld
• Temple architecture reflected this cosmology, and
  the rulers and elites served as priests to
  communicate with the residents of the two
  supernatural worlds
• Maya military forces fought for captives, not for
  territory.

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The Maya

• Culture
• Maya elite women participated in bloodletting
  rituals and other ceremonies, but rarely held
  political power.
• Non-elite women probably played an essential role
  in agricultural and textile production.
• The most notable Maya technological developments
  are the Maya calendar, mathematics, and the Maya
  writing system
• Collapse
• Most Maya city-states were abandoned or destroyed
  between 800 and 900, environmental pressure
  caused by overpopulation

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Tikal
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Chichen Itza, Mexico Chichen Itza is a large
pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the
Maya civilization located in the northern center
of the Yucatán Peninsula, present-day Mexico
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The Post-classic Period in Mesoamerica 900-1500

• The Toltecs and Aztecs

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Engineering an Empire to 327
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Aztecs

• Early History
• The Aztecs were originally a northern people with
  a clan-based social organization.
• They migrated to the Lake Texcoco area,
  established the cities of Tenochtitlan and
  Tlatelolco around 1325, and then developed a
  monarchical system of government
• Social Stratification
• From clan based to a more typical imperial
  hierarchical system
• Agriculturalists
• The Aztecs increased agricultural production in
  the capital area by undertaking land reclamation
  projects and constructing irrigated fields and
  chinampas
• Nonetheless, grain and other food tribute met
  nearly one quarter of the capitals food
  requirements

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Aztecs

• Commerce
• Merchants who were distinct from and subordinate
  to the political elite who controlled
  long-distance trade
• The technology of trade was simple
• no wheeled vehicles, draft animals, or money was
  used
• Goods were carried by human porters and exchanged
  through barter
• Religion
• Polytheistic
• most important Huitzilopochtli, the Sun god
• Huitzilopochtli required a diet of human hearts
  that were supplied by sacrificing thousands of
  people every year

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Huitzilopochtli
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Sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli
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Aztec Warriors

1. Eagle Warriors
2. Jaguar Warriors

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Andean Civilizations

• Moche, Tiwanaku, Wari and the Inca

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Andean People

• Environment
• The harsh environment of the high-altitude Andes,
  the dry coastal plain, and the tropical
  headwaters of the Amazon forced the human
  inhabitants of these areas to organize labor
  efficiently in order to produce enough food to
  live.
• The Andean region is divided into four major
  ecological zones
• the coast, mountain valleys, higher elevations,
  and the Amazonian region.
• Each region produced different goods, and these
  goods were exchanged between the various regions
  through a network of trade routes.
• Social Structure
• Clans (ayllu)
• Clans held land collectively and clan members
  were obligated to assist each other in production
  and to supply goods and labor to the clan chief.
• mit'a ?required each ayllu to provide workers
  each year to provide labor for religious
  establishments, the royal court, or the
  aristocracy.

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Inca
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Inca

• The Inca were a small chiefdom in Cuzco until
  their leaders consolidated political authority
  and began a program of military expansion in the
  1430s. By 1525, the Inca had constructed a huge
  empire
• Military and Conquest
• developed a strong professional military
• At the central level, the Inca created an
  imperial bureaucracy led by a king. Each king was
  required to prove himself by conquering new
  territory.
• The Inca used the mita labor system to man their
  armies, to build their capital city, to maintain
  their religious institutions, and to provide for
  the weak.
• Cuzco
• The capital city of Cuzco was laid out in the
  shape of a puma and its buildings constructed of
  stone laid together without mortar.
• Cuzcos palaces and richly decorated temples were
  the scene of rituals, feasts, sacrifices of
  textiles, animals, other tribute goods, and the
  occasional human.

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Machu Picchu
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Cuzco was shaped like a puma
To aid in the creation of this shape some believe
the Incas used hot air balloons.
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Inca

• Culture
• astronomical observation,
• weaving,
• copper and bronze metallurgy, and gold and silver
  working
• frozen mummies
• puma
• Inca domination resulted in increased wealth, but
  also in reduced levels of local autonomy.
• When the elite fell into civil war in 1525, Inca
  control over its vast territories was weakened.

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Incan Frozen Mummies
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Incan Suspension Bridges and stone walls
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Comparing the Aztecs and Incas

• Political and Economic Comparisons
• Aztec and Inca Empires similarities
• powerful armies,
• strong economies based on large workforces,
• dependence on organized government
• religious practices that connected secular rulers
  to the gods
• Distinctions between the two empires were in
  their systems of distributing goods and in their
  management of the empire.
• The Aztec used local leaders, while the Inca
  created a strong central government administered
  by trained bureaucrats.
• Imperial Comparisons
• Both the Aztec and Inca were the last in a line
  of successive indigenous populations organized
  into strong empires from former collapsed
  civilizations.
• Other?
• Inca had no writing system