visuals on mesoamerica i
TRANSCRIPT
Early Civiliza+ons in Mesoamerica
Henry Lesperance Alvarez
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Major Mesoamerican Civiliza+ons
• The Olmec 1200 B.C. to 400 B.C. • Teo+huacan 100 A.D. to 650 A.D. • The Mayan 250 A.D. to 900 A.D.
• The Toltec 900 A.D. to 1200 A.D. • The Aztec 1300 A.D. to 1521 A.D.
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Mesoamerica
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CRITERIA MANIFISTATION PERIOD DATE
PaNern of Subsistence
Sedentary Agricultural
PRECLASSIC EARLY 2500 B.C.
Produc+on Rela+on Social Stra+fica+on PRECLASSIC MIDDLE 1200 B.C.
Regional Economic & Poli+cal Rela+ons
Powerful Capitals PRECLASSIC LATE 400 B.C.
Dis+nc+on between City and Fields
Urbanism CLASSIC EARLY 150/200 A.D.
Intraregional Economic and Poli+cal Rela+ons
Decline of Large Hegemonic States and Prolifera+on of Regional Capitals
CLASSIC LATE 650 A.D.
Hegemonic Poli+cal Rela+ons
Forma+on of Alliances Among States
POSTCLASSIC EARLY 900 A.D.
Poli+cal Rela+ons of Central Control
End of Alliances POSTCLASSIC LATE 1200 A.D.
End of Mesoamerica Conquist COLONIAL 1521 A.D.
Na+ve Language Groups of Mexico at the +me of the Spanish Conquest
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Prehispanic Trading Routes
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Casas Grandes and the Northern Trade Route
• Central to any interac+on with the southwest during this period would have been Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, not far south of the border with New Mexico.
Casas Grandes, (Chihuahua)
• Warehouses filled with rare Southwestern minerals, such as turquoise, were found at the site. A substan+al amount of these must have found its way south, where turquoise grow in importance for the Tarascans and other Mesoamericans.
What Traveled North?
• The Pueblo Indians have a deep ritual need for feathers from tropical birds like parrots and macaws, since they symbolize fer+lity and the heat of the summer sun.
Codex Mendoza
The World System in 1519
• Mesoamerica was an interconnected world that was integrated and in which events taking place in one social unit affected those in another over an extended region.
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Olmec Archeological Sites
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The Olmec 1200 B.C. to 400 B.C.
• The mysterious “rubber people” describe by the Aztec informants as inhabi+ng jungle country of the Gulf Coast; Thus the name became established.
• All later civiliza+ons in Mesoamerica, whether Mexican or Maya, ul+mately rest on the Olmec base
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• While linguis+c diversity and regional varia+ons persisted, common cultural elements can be traced back to the Olmec civiliza+on.
• They include polytheis+c religions in which dei+es had dual (male/female) natures,
• Rulers who exercised both secular and religious roles,
• Use of warfare for obtaining sacrificial vic+ms,
• And the belief that bloodlehng was necessary for a society’s survival and prosperity.
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• The use of ritual as well as solar calendars,
• The construc+on of monumental architecture including pyramids,
• The employment of a numerical system that used twenty as its base,
• Emphasis on a Jaguar deity,
• And the ubiquity of ball courts in which a game using a solid rubber ball was played were addi+onal characteris+cs of complex Mesoamerican socie+es.
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Ball Game
• In el Mana+, rubber balls found confirm that the ball game is at least as old as the Olmec civiliza+on
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Olmec Were-‐Jaguar
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La Venta
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Stela C, Tres Zapotes
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San Lorenzo
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Teo+huacan 100 A.D. to 650 A.D.
• It may have housed more than 150,000 inhabitants, making it the largest city in the world-‐-‐outside of China.
• Following the decline of the Olmecs the city of Teo+huacan exercised enormous influence in the development and spread of Mesoamerican culture.
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Teo+huacán “City of the Gods”
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Piramide del Sol
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Piramide de La Luna
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Templo de Quetzalcoatl
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Palacio de Te+tla
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Decora+on Found in the Palace
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Teo+huacano Worrier
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Vaso Ceremonial Teo+huacan
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