Complex Societies in Mesoamerica

1. Complex Societies in Mesoamerica Chapter 24

2. Olmec Beginnings • Mexico’s southern Gulf coast was home to people called the Olmec, meaning “rubber people” • No clear evidence of continuity between the Olmec of the Formative (or Preclassic) period from 2000 B.C. to A.D. 250 and the Olmeca which inhabited the same region, during Aztec times • The Olmec of the Formative period created Mesoamerica’s first monumental architecture

3. Olmec Sites • San Lorenzo, earliest of large stone-working centers • This site revealed Olmec-style ceramics by 1150 B.C., a number of stone monuments, and workshop areas for manufacture and recycling of stone • Evidence of social stratification, long-distance and riverine trade • La Venta, economic center from 900-400 B.C. • Evidence for early occupation is limited • Presents evidence of monumental public architecture • By 600 to 400 B.C. La Venta had developed into a city, with a planned layout, administrative and ceremonial buildings, social stratification, local labor, trade networks

4. Early Urbanism in Oaxaca • Among the farming communities in the Oaxaca Valley around 1500 B.C., was a larger village of San José Mongote • Provided evidence of ritual activity and incipient leadership through architectural remains • Social, economic, and demographic changes occurred around 1150 B.C., which are common precursors to urbanization

5. Early Urbanism in Oaxaca • The regional capital of Monte Albán was founded around 500 B.C. • Developed as a political and military capital for the entire Valley • Evidence for tremendous population increase in and around Monte Albán, as well for the appearance of secondary administrative centers around the capital, by 200 B.C.

6. The Oaxaca Valley from Monte Albán

7. Teotihuacán and the Valley of Mexico • The Valley of Mexico is one of the most intensively studied archaeological regions • Development of urbanism and state formation parallels those in the Oaxaca Valley • Small, permanent villages are present by 1400 B.C. • The northern region of the Valley of Mexico, home to the site of Teotihuacán, was desirable for settlement due to a series of springs and proximity to obsidian deposits; the earliest settlement of Teotihuacán can be traced to 200 B.C.

8. Features of Teotihuacán • The main north-south street, the Avenue of the Dead, is lined with approximately 20 temples • The Avenue of the Dead is intersected by an east-west street, forming quadrants • An enclosed plaza, with a possibly occupation of nearly 100,000 people • The Great Compound, a major marketplace • Groups of multi-family compounds for 60 to 100 people, surrounding temples, forming neighborhoods (or barrios)

9. The Beginnings of the Classic Maya • The Preclassic (or Formative) period in the Maya begins with the initial appearance of pottery-using farmers (ca. 2000 B.C.) • Belizean site of Cuello is one of the earliest known villages in the Maya lowlands • Examination of the site’s burials indicates grave goods (pottery vessels) were placed in burials after 900 B.C. • The Late Preclassic (400 B.C. to A.D. 250) is the period in which emerging complex societies developed

10. Late Preclassic Maya Sites • El Mirador (Guatemala) • Includes two areas of monumental architecture, connected by a causeway; additional causeways extend outward from the urban center • Likely El Mirador controlled trade with the Yucatán and the highland Maya

11. Late Preclassic Maya Sites • Tikal (Guatemala) • Tombs reflect increasing social, political, and economic inequality • Unclear whether missing bones from tombs were the result of mutilation after battle or retained as keepsakes by grieving relatives • It is not clear that swidden farming could have sustained the inhabitants of the cities; more intensive methods must have been used

12. The Classic Maya • The appearance of dated monuments with written inscriptions, in the southern lowlands, marks the beginning of the Classic period (ca. A.D. 250 to 930) • Two calendar systems were employed by the Maya: the Calendar Round and the Long Count • Separated into three periods: Early Classic (ca. A.D. 250 to 600), Late Classic (ca. A.D. 600 to 830), and a recently defined Terminal Classic (ca. A.D. 830 to 930)

13. Archaeology and History: The Evidence from the Maya Inscriptions • The elaborate and well-developed writing system employed by the Maya differentiates them from most other complex societies in the Americas

14. Archaeology and History: The Evidence from the Maya Inscriptions • The decipherment of this script resulted in the realization that the inscriptions detailed political histories and the language used a logosyllabic form of written communication • It is estimated about 85% of the inscriptions can be read with some degree of certainty and they have allowed archaeologists to reconstruct the dynastic history and lineage of ruling families of the Maya cities

15. Tikal • Tikal (Guatemala) is one of the most well studied Maya cities • This research has revealed the city was densely population during the Classic period, and by the Late Classic period housed approximately 62,000 people (Culbert et al. 1991) • It is likely a few Maya urban centers, including Tikal, controlled the surrounding minor towns and cities to form competing states (Marcus 1993)

16. Temple at the great plaza of Tikal

17. The Collapse of the Classic Maya • After about A.D. 750, the large states appear to have broken into a series of smaller polities • The population in the southern lowlands Maya sites had declined by at least two-thirds • One possible factor is the increasing instability between a growing population and the available agricultural resources • A number of Maya urban centers appeared in the northern Yucatan during the Postclassic period (A.D. 930 to 1519), evidencing the survival of the Maya people

18. The Postclassical Period in Mesoamerica and the Rise of the Aztec Empire • The Aztecs, or Mexica, were a small group of people who migrated into the Valley of Mexico from the north, establishing Tenochtitlán as their capital around 1400 B.C. • This economy was supported by various craft specialists and surplus agricultural products from local farmers • The Aztec capital grew to become much larger than many of the contemporary cities of Europe

19. The Archaeology of Aztec Daily Life • The Aztec Empire in the Valley of Mexico was home to 800,000 to 1.25 million people in the sixteenth century (Nichols 2004) • Aztec city-states were incorporated into the empire as semiautonomous administrative units • Markets, plazas, temples, residences, and full-time craft specialists were a part of each city-state • Intensive agricultural systems supported the city-states, the surpluses of which supported the imperial expansion of the Aztecs

20. The End of the Aztec Empire • Aztec expansion grew to incorporate much of central and southern Mexico • Aztec policy was one of expansion, not consolidation (Conrad and Demarest 1984), making it nearly impossible to administer • It is at this point that Cortez and his followers arrived from Spain, carrying Old World diseases which decimated the population of Mesoamerica and allowed for its colonization

21. Conclusion • Complex, urban societies developed in a number of regions throughout Mesoamerica, during the first millennium B.C. and first millennium A.D. • The societies of Oaxaca Valley, the Valley of Mexico, and the Maya lowlands interacted through trade, warfare, and other forms of cultural contact – though remained separate entities • The Aztec, though military and commercial means, formed an enormous empire in the region • This empire was conquered two centuries later by the Spanish, carrying Old World disease to Mesoamerica