Agriculture and the Rise of Meso-America

Essential Question: (groups)

How did agriculture change the lives of early people?

AGRICULTURE

8000 B.C.

1500 B.C.

600 B.C.

1200 A.D.

1325 A.D.

1521 A.D.TIMELINE OF

MESOAMERICA

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

OLMEC MAYA AZTEC INCA(South America)

Characteristics of a Civilization* Intensive agricultural techniques

* Specialization of labor

* Cities* A social hierarchy* Organized religion and education* Complex forms of economic exchange* New technologies* Development of the arts (to include writing)

Spotlight Video

Olmecs and Mayans

Appeared near modern day Veracruz around 1200 B.C.

“Olmec” was not what the people called themselvesIt means “rubber people” and

comes from the rubber trees that flourish in the region

Olmecs

Agricultural techniques The Olmecs built elaborate drainage systems to divert

waters that might otherwise have caused floods

Specialization of labor Jade craftsmen

Cities Built around ceremonial centers at San Lorenzo, La

Venta, and Tres ZapotesA social hierarchy

Society was probably authoritarian (one leader) Common people provided labor and gave tribute to the

elite (important, rich or powerful people)

Characteristics of Olmec Civilization

Religion and educationCeremonial centers, priests, temples, altars,

and human sacrificeEconomic exchange

Imported jade and obsidian and exported small jade, basalt, and ceramic works of art

New technologiesExcellent astronomers and mathematicians

who developed a calendarDevelopment of the arts. (This can include

writing.) Created colossal human heads sculpted from

basalt rock

Characteristics of Olmec Civilization

Olmec Head at La Venta

Olmecs systematically destroyed their ceremonial centers at both San Lorenzo and La Venta and then deserted the sitesStatues were broken and buried, monuments

defaced, and capitals burnedNo one knows why, but some speculate

reasons involving civil conflicts or mutiny against the ruling classes

By about 300 B.C., Olmec society had fallen on hard times and other societies soon eclipsed it.

Decline of the Olmec

The Mayan Civilization

Mayans

• Began to develop around 300 A.D. in what is now southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador

• Known as “The People of the Jaguar”

Olmec Influence on the Mayans

• Maize• Ceremonial centers with temple pyramids• Calendar based on the Olmec one• Ball games• Rituals involving human sacrifice

Agriculture

Maize Cacao

Agriculture

• Soil in Mesoamerican lowlands was thin and quickly lost fertility– Mayans built terraces to

retain the silt and therefore greatly improved agricultural production

• Raised maize, cotton, and cacao– Cacao was a precious

commodity consumed mostly by nobles and even used as money

Social Hierarchy

• King and ruling family• Priests• Hereditary nobility (from which came the

merchant class)• Warriors• Professionals and artisans• Peasants• Slaves

Social Hierarchy

A Mayan PriestA Mayan Warrior

I’m a primary source

Social Hierarchy - explained King and ruling family

Ruled from the city-kingdoms such as Tikal

Ruled by semi-divine right and believed their connection with the gods was maintained by ritual human sacrifice

Often had names associated with the jaguar

Priests Maintained an elaborate

calendar and transmitted knowledge of writing, astronomy, and mathematics A Mayan King

Social Hierarchy - explained Hereditary nobility (from which came the

merchant class) Owned most of the land and cooperated with

the kings and priests by organizing military forces and participating in religious rituals

Warriors Mayan kingdoms fought constantly with each

other and warriors won tremendous prestige by capturing high-ranking enemies

Captives were usually made slaves, humiliated, tortured, and ritually sacrificed

Social Hierarchy - explained Professionals and artisans

Architects and sculptors supervised construction of the large monuments and public buildings

Peasants Fed the entire society

Slaves Provided physical labor for the construction of

cities and monuments Often had been captured in battle

Specialization

Specialization

• Astronomers• Mathematicians• Warriors• Architects and sculptors• Potters• Tool manufacturers• Textile makers

Religion and Education

Human Sacrifice and Bloodletting Ritual

Religion: Importance of Agriculture

• Mayan religion reflected the fundamental role of agriculture in their society

• Popol Vuh, was the Mayan creation myth that taught that the gods had created human beings out of maize and water

• Gods kept the world in order and maintained the agricultural cycle in exchange for honors and sacrifices

Religion: Bloodletting Rituals

• Mayans believed the shedding of human blood would prompt the gods to send rain to water the maize

• Bloodletting involved both war captives and Mayan royals

Mayan queen holds a bowl filled with strips of paper used to collect blood.

Religion: Bloodletting

• A popular bloodletting ritual was for a Mayan to pierce his own tongue and thread a thin rope through the hole, thus letting the blood run down the rope

Religion: The Ball Game

• Mayans inherited a ball game from the Olmecs that was an important part of Mayan political and religious festivals

• High-ranking captives were forced to play the game for their very lives– The losers became sacrificial victims and faced torture and

execution immediately following the match• Object of the game was to propel an 8 inch ball of

solid baked rubber through a ring or onto a marker without using your hands

Mayan Ball Court

Economic Exchange

Mayan symbol for movement

ECONOMIC EXCHANGE Traveling merchants served not just as

traders but also as ambassadors to neighboring lands and allied people

Traded mainly in exotic and luxury goods such as rare animal skins, cacao beans, and finely crafted works of art which rulers coveted as signs of special status

Cacao used as money

NEW TECHNOLOGIES

Mayan Calendar Observatory at El Caracol

NEW TECHNOLOGIES Excelled in astronomy and

mathematics Could plot planetary cycles

and predict eclipses of the sun and moon

Invented the concept of zero and used a symbol to represent zero mathematically, which facilitated the manipulation of large numbers

By combining astronomy and mathematics, calculated the length of the solar year at 365.242 days– about 17 seconds shorter than the figure reached by modern astronomers

Mayan numerical

system

NEW TECHNOLOGIES: CALENDAR Mayan priests developed the most elaborate

calendar of the ancient Americas Interwove two kinds of year

A solar year of 365 days governed the agricultural cycle

A ritual year of 260 days governed daily affairs by organizing time into twenty “months” of thirteen days each

Believed each day derived certain characteristics from its position on both the solar and ritual calendars and carefully studied the combinations Lucky and unlucky days

NEW TECHNOLOGIES

Mayan Calendar Observatory at El Caracol

ART AND WRITING

Mayan writing

WRITING Expanded on Olmec tradition to create

the most flexible and sophisticated of all early American systems of writing

Contained both ideographic elements (glyphs) and symbols for syllables

Used to write works of history, poetry, and myth and keep genealogical, administrative, and astronomical records

Mayan Decline

• By about 900, most Mayan populations had begun to desert their cities– Full scale decline followed everywhere but in the northern

Yucatan• Possible causes include foreign invasion, internal

dissension and civil war, failure of the water control system leading to agricultural disaster, ecological problems caused by destruction of the forests, epidemic diseases, and natural disasters