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Mesoamerican societies essay
Mesoamerican societies essay
State and local government relations
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Teotihuacan
The ancient world of Mesoamerica entered a long period of change that soon led to the development a mammoth city that would serve as a regional center for more than 600 years. Beginning in about 1000 B.C. the majority of the people in the Valley of Mexico relocated to one of two primary sites, that of Cuicuilco in the southwest corner and Teotihuacan in the northeast. By about 300 B.C., Cuicuilco dominated the region, but its heyday would soon diminish. (Sabloff 2000, p 60)
For the next two hundred years the dominion would begin to shift towards the side of Teotihuacan, a city that would undergo rapid growth never seen before on such a large scale. This was in part due to final demise of Cuicuilco influence from the eruption of Xitli in 50B.C. (Weaver 1981, p 104) This smothered their fields and soon thereafter swallowed the entire site. This was catastrophic because it destroyed their means of survival by wiping out agricultural land, which not only served as a source of subsistence but also as an economic base. Eventually the entire city was covered over, thus ending its years of prestige and aiding the development of its major rival. (Sabloff 2000, p 61)
This event transformed Teotihuacan into the central city of the region, and soon masses began to flood in. Within a very short period the population was believed to consist of between 80-90% of the total population of the Valley of Mexico. This fluxuated but by the time of Christ, many were moving into the area again and soon began the construction of this great city. (Weaver 1981, p 189) The reasons for this immigration are unknown but surveys have proven that the city was populated as the countryside was depopulated.
This resettlement policy, whether forced or 'encouraged', soon provided the state with enough manpower to bring this center into it excellence. This let the state relocate some of the residents onto the most productive agricultural lands to provide a subsistence base for the community. (Sabloff 1981, p 221) The political advantage of this widespread influence if quite apparent. This would permit the state to have direct control over the urban population as well as those it chose to send out to work in best agricultural lands. Also, most important, this control minimized the threats to the state by eliminating any other strong centers that may rise up against it. The...
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...interesting finds, but these were primarily skeletal remains of fish, dogs, deer, waterfowl, and rabbit. The fish bones suggest that these people were exploiting the lakes to the south, as well as the remains of the fowl and turtles.
The excavations also uncovered many remains within numerous compounds that suggest a commercial relation as well. One of the most significant was that it had a nearby source of obsidian. (Sabloff 1997, p62) This volcanic rock, found only in the highland areas containing volcanoes, was used primarily to make tools and weapons. This was very valuable at the time and control over the sources would provide great power and source of a valuable trade item. There are two main kinds of obsidian, gray and green. Of the studies preformed on artifacts through modern techniques like trace analysis, numerous sources have been identified in Guatemala and Mexico. The gray was more common and came from more than 15 identified sources. Green obsidian was found to have only one source, Pachuca, Hidalgo, making it much more desirable and proved to be a sign of higher status individuals. (Weaver 1981, p 205)
Bibliography:
(Weaver 1981, p 205)(Sabloff 1997, p62)
The settlements in the complex show a multimodal distribution which means that there is an extensive use of shaped and faced stone walling. Out of the three sites there are, only one has produced stone walling and that is Lago de Handel. Obsidian flows were identified in the Amontillado region and their products ca...
...ts were labelled with the upper case letters which represented the material types and a numeric letter. The artifacts were placed in different boxes. The artifact analysis was then conducted and the characteristics such as tool type and material type of each artifact were recorded on the artifact catalog forms. The material samples of lithic tools, faunal remains, and ceramics remains were compare with existing artifacts to identify their material type. The Vernier scale was used for the measurements of each lithic tools.
The transition, however, was not so smooth. Men and women were attracted to the new cities because of the culture and conveniences that were unavailable to rural communities. Immigrants in particular were eager to get to cities like New York, Chicago, and Boston for these reasons, and to look for better jobs than the ones they had found at home. In fact, without the increase in immigration from 1850 to 1920 (where around 38 million came to America), cities would have expanded at lethargic rates – if at all – due to a decreasing fertility rate and a high rate of infant mortality. Death due to disease was also common. Yet the influx of immigrants managed to make up for these losses, and cities grew exponentially for nearly a century1.
Debate started to arise when an archaeologist by the name of Thomas D. Dillehay found artifacts of people existing 14,600 years ago, before Clovis, in Monte Verde, a site in southern Chile. These people slept in hide tents, had access to seafood and potatoes, and shared similar characteristics to other artifacts found in North Ame...
Provincial centers served as both the focal economic and administrative points of the Inca Empire. The impact the Inca Empire’s multiple uses, such as collecting and preserving, of their provincial centers will live on for all of eternity. The Incan pottery was not only manufactured by the Inca empire but traded among the “distant regions through state channels”(Gyarmati) as well. The discoveries regarding “Paria’s size and density of surface finds with the settlement sizes and the finds densities of the Late Intermediate Period”(Gyarmati) reveal the immense growth of demand for Incan pottery vessels.
Mexicans, as constructed by Menchaca, are a predominantly mestizo population whose mixed ancestry she traces to early Latin American civilizations. In 200 BC the largest city in the Americas, Teotihuacán, was founded. Teotihuacán would one day be the site of Mexico City, and by 650 AD there were between 120,000 and 250,000 inhabitants. (2) Groups that inhabited the region fro...
They helped Azcapotzlaco to conquer surrounding territory in the early fourteen hundreds. By fourteen twenty-eight they had Azcopotzlaco itself with the help of neighboring allies. Tenochtitlan, by the year fourteen thirty-one, with an alliance with the neighboring city-states of Texcoco and Tlacopan had become and independent city-state itself. This triple alliance of three city-states soon controlled all of Mexico's central valley. Tenochtitlan, as the dominate city-state in this alliance, became a base for a program of military expansion and conquest.
When the Spanish began to arrive in Mexico and in Central America in the early 15th century, one of the many civilizations they found was the Maya. The Maya, building upon the Olmec culture, were located in present-day Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, southern Mexico, and the Yucatan Peninsula. Even though they had many similarities, the Maya were separated by language differences. Because of that they were organized into city-states. Since there wasn’t a single city-state powerful enough to impose a political structure, the period from 200 A.D. to the arrival of the Spanish was characterized by the struggle of rival kingdoms for dominance.
There is also a theory that part of the people’s diet was fish even though fish tackle has not yet been found. It is the discovery of stone boxes, with water-proof linings that suggested they needed a tank for fish bait, such as limpets. “Limpets are effective fish bait but they need to be softened before fish find them tempting. Soaking achieves this” (Clarke and Maggiore, 2000)
The Olmec civilization ruled the land now known as Mexico from 1300bc to 400bc. The fertile soil on the gulf coast in what is Southern Mexico around the State of Veracruz was once home to these ancient forerunners to the Aztec, Mayan, and Incan tribes. The Olmec established their boundaries after migrating from Eastern Asia across the land-bridge that at one time existed between Asia and North America. “The Olmec called themselves the Xi, the same name that they used when they were in China.”
Around 1200 B. C. The Olmecs originated as a primitive people living and farming on the shores of Mexico (Stanton 91). Soon, however, they began to build cities such as San Lorenzo, La Venta, and Monte Alban. These “cities” were religious centers where people gathered to worship, and were not populated (Stanton 91). The first of these centers, San Lorenzo, was built c. 1150 B.C., on a flat topped, man-made mountain. It was mysteriously abandoned 200 years later (Stanton 92-93).
A farmer in the late 19th century, upon plowing his land near Carthage, Alabama, discovered an object buried in the earth. From the soil, he removed a large stone disk, polished and flawlessly round. The disk was about 12 inches in diameter with small-notched edges. One side displayed incised globular lines and the flip side was “a strange engraving showing an open hand with what looked like an eye peering from it. Encircling the hand-and-eye image were two entwined rattlesnakes with horns and long tongues.” The farmer had previously found tools pieces of pottery, but he had never seen an object such as this (Blitz 2008:1).
Before the 15th century, the Indians in the Americas were not connected with the world and would remain that way until Columbus's exploration. In the beginning of 15th century, the Aztecs were the dominant group in Mesoamerica leaded by Montezuma, the last leader, before the Spanish conquest. In 1519, Hernan Cortez led the Spanish mission to explore and conquer the New World. This paper will compare three primary sources about this event. First, an informing letter sent from Cortez to King Charles V, the king of Spain. Second, the Broken Spears which is an Indian recollection about the conquest of Mexico. Lastly, Bernal Diaz’s (one of Cortez’s men) account was written by him to share his experience with Aztec civilization. Moreover, this paper will show the credibility of Diaz’s account compared to the other sources because the objectivity of his tone, written after a while of the event, and the author’s great experience and his independent purpose of the source.
International Congress of Mexican History. Contemporary Mexico: Papers of the IV International Congress of Mexican History. Berkley, University of California Press, 1976
Seler, Eduard, Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann, Paul Schellhas, Karl Sapper, E. P. Dieseldorff, and Charles P. Bowditch. Mexican and Central American Antiquities, Calendar Systems, and History: Twenty-four Papers. Washington: G.P.O., 1904. Print.