Agriculture and the Rise of Meso -America

1. Agriculture and the Rise of Meso-America

2. Essential Question: (groups) How did agriculture change the lives of early people?

3. AGRICULTURE

4. 8000 B.C. 1500 B.C. 600 B.C. 1200 A.D. 1325 A.D. TIMELINE OF MESOAMERICA 1521 A.D.

5. ACCOMPLISHMENTS OLMEC MAYA AZTEC INCA (South America)

6. 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)

7. Spotlight Video

8. Olmecs and Mayans

9. Olmecs • Appeared near modern day Veracruz around 1200 B.C. • “Olmec” was not what the people called themselves • It means “rubber people” and comes from the rubber trees that flourish in the region

10. Characteristics of Olmec Civilization • 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 TresZapotes • A social hierarchy • Society was probably authoritarian (one leader) • Common people provided labor and gave tribute to the elite (important, rich or powerful people)

11. Characteristics of Olmec Civilization • Religion and education • Ceremonial centers, priests, temples, altars, and human sacrifice • Economic exchange • Imported jade and obsidian and exported small jade, basalt, and ceramic works of art • New technologies • Excellent astronomers and mathematicians who developed a calendar • Development of the arts. (This can include writing.) • Created colossal human heads sculpted from basalt rock

12. Olmec Head at La Venta

13. Decline of the Olmec • Olmecs systematically destroyed their ceremonial centers at both San Lorenzo and La Venta and then deserted the sites • Statues were broken and buried, monuments defaced, and capitals burned • No 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.

14. The Mayan Civilization

16. 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”

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

18. Agriculture Maize Cacao

19. 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

20. Social Hierarchy • King and ruling family • Priests • Hereditary nobility (from which came the merchant class) • Warriors • Professionals and artisans • Peasants • Slaves

21. I’m a primary source Social Hierarchy A Mayan Warrior A Mayan Priest

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. Specialization

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

27. Religion and Education Human Sacrifice and Bloodletting Ritual

28. 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

29. 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.

30. 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

31. 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

32. Mayan Ball Court

33. Economic Exchange Mayan symbol for movement

34. 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 Economic Exchange

35. New Technologies Mayan Calendar Observatory at El Caracol

36. 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

37. 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: Calendar

38. New Technologies Mayan Calendar Observatory at El Caracol

39. Art and Writing Mayan writing

40. 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 Writing

41. 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