Faculty of Humanity and Social Sciences

University of Split

PRE-COLUMBIAN CIVILIZATIONS:
ANCIENT MESOAMERICA

Student:
Melani Grubi Mikuli

Split, 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction...........................................................................................................................3
2. The Landscape and its Peoples............................................................................................4
3. The Spread of Agriculture and the Rise of Complex Socities in Preclassic
Mesoamerica.............................................................................................................................6
3.1. The First Agricultural Communities........................................................................6
3.2. Paso de la Amada and the Emergence of Social Complexity..................................7
4. The Olmecs............................................................................................................................8
4.1. San Lorenzo and La Venta.......................................................................................8
4.2. The Olmecs as ''Mother Culture''.............................................................................9
5. Late Preclassic Mesoamerica.............................................................................................10
5.1. The Mesoamerican Calendar..................................................................................10
5.2. Writing...................................................................................................................11
6. The Classic Maya................................................................................................................12
6.1. The Maya Society...................................................................................................12
6.2. The Collapse of Maya Civilization........................................................................12
7. Conclusion............................................................................................................................14
8. References............................................................................................................................15

1. Introduction
Long before Cristopher Columbus discovered America, the Western Hemisphere was
uninhabited place. At least that was the case for the North America. While the first settlers
from the Old World spread across North and South America, the Mayas, Aztecs and Incas
dominated the Central America with great empires and architecture, agriculture and
commerce. This Middle American region, commonly called Mesoamerica, reached its peak
around A.D. 300-900 with religious centres, enormous pyramids, temples and courts, all
surrounded by villages. Beside these three most notable civilizations, less known, but not less
important were the Olmecs, who were believed to be the first civilization on that territory. In
this essay, I will present the customs of the ancient civilizations, their rich culture and
agriculture and analyze the controversy of the Mesoamerican calendar, widely popularized
back in 2012, since it predicted the end of the world.

2. The Landscape and its Peoples

The Imperial Aztecs and the other Nahua-speaking peoples dominated the Basin of Mexico
and nearby highlands. The Maya speakers, on the other hand were located in the northern part
of the Yucatn Peninsula and in the highlands of southern Mexico and Guatemala. Very
interesting feature of the Mesoamerican cultural tradition is that by 1519 there were no
hunter-gatherer societies, even though farmers enhanced their diets by hunting, fishing or
foraging. After the Spanish conquest, the introduction of the new livestock caused rapid and
dramatic ecosystem changes, and drastically affected social and economic behavior. Old
World livestock allowed humans to exploit zones marginal or unsuitable for agriculture, thus
enlarging their effective niches. Neither at the north nor the south was Mesoamerica delimited
by sharp natural topographic or climatic boundaries and wherever Mesoamericans were
positioned, they were certainly not isolated. On the north of Mesoamerica, today's
southewestern United States, the people of Hokoham region built ball courts and possessed
copper bells. A semiprecious stone, turquiose, was imported into Tenochititln, the Aztec
capital from northern Mexico, while gold came from distant Colombia and Panama.
Moreover, the first people sighted by European settlers were probably Maya traders.
In spite of all there external contacts, Mesoamerica was as coherent and distinctive as
civilization of the Old World, such as Egypt, China or Mesopotamia. Not to mention that
Mesoamerica was the only part of the ancient New World which developed true writing
systems, and in that way contributing to our understanding of their past. Although
Mesoamerican societies were very diverse in some ways, marked technological simplicity
was what they had in common. They used gold, silver, copper and bronze-like alloys to make
ritual or social displays, but very seldom to make tools or weapons. Basic tasks were done
with the help of stone, wood and fiber tools, which by Old World standards were completely

ineffective. Also lacking were devices that augmented human effort, such as pulleys, wheeled
vehicles, sails, or complicated machines of any kind. (Hassig 1985). However, the further in
the essay, the anaylsis of their construction methods will show how they were actually ahead
of their time. (Webster-Evans, 595-598)

3. The Spread of Agriculture and the Rise of Complex Socities in Preclassic

Mesoamerica
First of the two major evolutionary trends that dominated the long Preclassic era, 2500
years to be precise, was the spread of agriculture, followed by its social, political, economic,
and ideological complexity. By AD 250 these people had developed cities with temples and
palaces. The symbolic accounterments of Mesoamerican civilization, including calendars and
monumental arts, were firmly in place. On the other hand, the writing was still uncommon,
leaving us with very little inscriptions dating from that era.
More than 100 domestic plant species were eventually grown in Mesoamerixa, but only
few contributed to the diet, and the most important plant was maize. Maize was not just a
basic vegetable, but also a plant which had a spiritual significance, like rice in parts of eastern
Asia. The Mesoamericans believed that the surface of the world was similar to the maize field
and that the gods partly created humans from maize. Sacred rituals, such as beheading, are
considered to be metaphors for harvesting ears of maize. Interesting is the fact that the
families which were not able to grow own maize, were not quite respectable, and that attitude
is still very popular in many parts of today's Mesoamerica.
3.1. The First Agricultural Communities
The first widespread and reasonably permanent agricultural communities date to around
1600 BC. Early agricultural settlements usually consisted of small clusters of simple houses
with earthen floors, walls of wattle and daub, and roofs of thatch. The spaces between houses
were used for gardens, the produce from which supplemented deer, rabbits, quail, and other
wild resources. Big villages like San Jos Mogote might have had about 200 inhabitants in
1400-1300 BC while other communities in Oaxaca at the time were smaller, but politically
autonomous. The ethno-linguistic affilations of various early Preclassic peoples remain
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unclear and controversial, partly due to many population movements. (Webster-Evans, 598601)
3.2. Paso de la Amada and the Emergence of Social Complexity
Paso de la Amada, located on the Pacific coastal plain near the modern border between
Mexico and Guatemala, seems to have been the largest among the numerous villages in the
region during the Early Preclassic, and it could be considered as a kind of central place for
people living in nearby communities. Even though the ornate serving bowls and dishes found
on that territory suggest frequent feasting, the numerous burials were all given simple
mortuarty treatment, which shows that there were few social distinctions based on wealth.
This example is very strange, considering the fact that Paso de la Amada was a long-lived
community with strong architecture which hints at emergent elites or political leaders. What is
more, Paso de la Amada somewhat predates the Olmec culture, which left one of the most
ornate archaeological records of any ancient Mesoamerican people.

4. The Olmecs
The Olmecs, known for their huge monolithic sculptures of a stone head, were situtated at
Tres Zapotes on the Mexican Gulf Coast. Surveys and excavations began in the first half of
the twentieth century and they confirmed that the style was closely connected with sites such
as La Venta and San Lorenzo. However, the origin of Olmecs, what language they spoke and
their relationships with other Mesoamerican cultures are still debatable. The main question
that archaeologists still haven't answered is who was a the so-called ''Mother Culture'' of the
Mesoamerican civilization. Some claim that the Classic Maya take the title, while others
strongly disagree believing the Olmecs predated the Maya, and that they were much older.
Olmec influences during the Middle Preclassic (1000-400 BC) created Mesoamerica's Early
Horizon the period of art, symbols and the ideologies widely shared.
4.1. San Lorenzo and La Venta
San Lorenzo was one of the earliest places inhabited by Olmecs, where they leveled the top
of a natural plateau standing about 50 m higher than the surrounding countryside. They also
erected an impressive building called the Red Palace, an elite residence, and created an
elaborate system of ceremonial ponds and drains. Water had a great ritual significance, with
amazing offerings which included carved wooden effigies and large rubber balls. However, it
is unclear the number of people who lived on San Lorenzo plateau, because the Olmec levels
are covered by accumulated debris from much later occupations. Archaeologists have found
scores of large basalt monuments at San Lorenzo, including ten of the trademark colossal
stone heads, probably originally set up in public places on the plateau top. Olmec artisans also
polished exotic iron minerals brought from the Mexican highlands into mirrors, which were
used in shamanistic displays and also as objects of wealth and status. The rise of La Venta
happened around 1000-900 BC, another large Olmec center about 88 kilometers to the
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northeast. The most notable feature of La Venta is an earthen pyramid over 33 meters high,
surrounded by many lower earth structures and associated courtyards.
4.2. The Olmecs as ''Mother Culture''
Some archaeologists believe that heartland Olmec polities had all the institutional and
symbolic trappings of true civilizations, such as those found later in Mesoamerica, and that
centers like La Venta were complex urban places. However, others assert that Olmec social
and political organization were on the simpler, chiefdom level, and that places like La Venta
mostly served as elite residences and ritual centers. The famous colossal heads are generally
interpreted as portraits of individual chiefs or kings, representing the beginnings of a long
Mesoamerican tradition of monumental ruler depiction. No Olmec ball courts are known, but
some figures display elements of the ballplayer's costume. Much Olmec art is not strictly in
the Olmec heartland, but is scattered throughout Mesoamerica, particularly during Middle
Preclassic times and this period coincides with the previously mentioned Early Horizon.
All of these evidences suggest the great influence of the Olmecs, convincing some scholars
like Diehl that the Olmecs were innovators who not only invented many of the basic elements
and institutions of Mesoamerican civilization, but also transmitted them to less developed
societies through trade. Still, the alternative view, and more likely to be true, is that the
Olmecs were only one of many regional societies in Mesoamerica that were constantly
evolving new and more complex social and political institutions during the Early and Middle
Preclassic. Some sites, such as Paso de la Amada, show evidence of considerable social
complexity, along with special features like ball courts, centuries before they appeared in the
Olmec heartland. (Webster-Evans, 601-605)

5. Late Preclassic Mesoamerica

Late Preclassic period was marked by rapid regional demographic growth. Large polities
with impressive centers became much more common thanks to such demographic changes.
The regal-ritual capitals of kings, Monte Albn in Oaxaca and Teotihuacn in the Basin of
Mexico, later developed into the earliest true cities in Mesoamerica. However, probably the
most interesting changes in this period are the evolution of Mesoamrican calendar, writing,
and art, all emerging rapidly during the several centuries.
5.1. The Mesoamerican Calendar
The most widely shared of all Mesoamerican calendars tracked cycles of 260 days and 365
days. While the latter period closely approximates to the solar year, the former does not
correspond directly to any particular astronomical cycle. Although close to the human
gestation period, it is probably just result from permutation of the number 20.
A common feature of almost all Mesoamerican calendars was twenty signs, but their
particular origins are still in part obscure. They manifest many mythic forces and elements
such as Wind, Death, Water, Snake, Dog, Rainstorm and so on. More important is the
consistency that the twenty signs display as a sequence of meanings, in various cultures and
languages. The temporal logic of the signs was exploited in various ways. Among Aztecs, for
example, they identified the succession of epochs or 'suns' of the world, past and present.
Their commonest function was together with numbers, from 1 to 13, to produce 260 moments
or distinct combinations, generally called the 'Sacred Round' (Brotherston, 12-13). A third
calendar, the Long Count, tracked such a very long cycle that for all practical purposes it
functioned as a linear count of time. Each day had a unique date, not one repeated itself
cyclically as in the other calendars.

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5.2 Writing
Various Olmec objects are embellished with signs that seem to prefigure mathematical,
calendrical, or written symbols. Writing seems to have originated more than once in
Mesoamerica. We know that its origins and spread were associated with a few major groups
of languages ancestral to those still spoken today Nahua, Maya, Mixe-Zoque, Mixtec and
Zapotec. A problem in tracing the beginnings of their scripts is that all Mesoamerican writing
systems made use of pictorial signs or glyphs. All Mesoamerican scripts were recorded in
three basic media, carved or painted on stone stelae, altars, thrones, tombs and other
architectural elements. The Cascajal monument, which dates back in 900 BC, is carved with
glyph-like signs. These signs cannot at the moment be deciphered, but some epigraphists
consider this to be Mesoamerica's oldest known inscription, contemporary with the Olmecs.
Although many historians, linguists, and anthropologists see an almost inevitable association
between writing and the evolution of complex societies, patterns of adoption, spread and
obsolence of writing systems are actually quite variable. (Webster-Evans, 607-609)

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6. The Classic Maya

The best known of all Mesoamerican cultures is that of the lowland Maya, because they
attracted a great amount of archaeological attention and attributed to our understanding of
their complex calendars and texts. After a widespread Late Preclassic crisis, the distinctive
markers of the Classic Maya tradition spread very widely, enabling epigraphists and
archaeologists to chart a network of interacting kingdoms. Early Classic (AD 250-600)
inscriptions and art are less abundant and informative than those of the Late Classic, but many
of the latter are retrospective, helping us to understand the political dynamics of earlier times
and the evolving institution of kingship. The Late Classic phase of Maya culture began just
about the time that Teotihuacn declined, around AD 600, and Teotihuacn's misfortunes did
not disrupt the general course of Maya culture history. The Maya were a warlike people who
had built many pyramids, most notable for devising a overexploited the rain forest upon
whose ecosystem they depended for survival. However, the main cause of collapse was a civil
war between the Maya themselves. In the end, the Maya succumbed to the Toltees who took
control over most of the region in the 10th century. (Tindall,Shi,Emory; 11)
6.1. Maya Society
The Maya society was very well organized and hierarchically divided in four classes. On the
top was the royalty, king in general, followed by lords and officials. The lower class,
commoners, made the major part of the Maya, and were mostly farmers who cultivated maize.
Royalty Maya social and political organization was hierarchical, and in the center was the
institution of kingship. Maya kings were sacrosanct, hedged about with ritual and sacred
duties. Kings impersonated gods at royal ceremonies and were custodians of mysterious ''god
bundles''. Day-to-day activities were focused on royal courts, which were places of elegance,
indulgence, and conspicuous display.

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Lords and Officials They were just one step below the royalty, some of which had titles like
sajal or aj k'uhuun, meaning a kind of subordinate ruler and close associate and ''provisioner''
of the king. Living in their own palatial residences, they attended on the courts of their royal
masters. Although rulers and elites were leaders in war, diplomacy and construction projects,
it is still unknown if they had bureaucracy in modern sense.
Commoners The commoners were mostly farmers who made the majority of the population,
paid taxes in kind or labor, probably served in war, and are known mainly from the remains of
their modest households. Due to the lack of technology (metal tools, wheeled vehicles), each
farming household could cultivate only limited amounts of land.
Warfare Warfare is now known to have been virtually constant among the Classic Maya,
who not long ago were envisiond as a uniquely peaceful civilization, as Webster stated in his
work. Wars were fought to capture sacrificial victims, but no particular polity or coalition ever
became powerful enoguh to unite for long any appreciable part of the Maya lowlands.
6.2. The Collapse of Maya Civilization
The collapse was not a sudden catastrophe, as it is believed, nor did it affect all ancient
Maya people. The decline began about AD 760 in the western kingdoms and accelerated
during the next century. Fewer and fewer royal construction projects were completed, and
some were left unfinished, and no more kings were buried in elaborate tombs. One of the
main evidences of their collapse is failure of the Maya royal institution. For a long period of
time it was believed that lords and commoners disappeared at the same time as kings, making
the collapse more mysterious. This was partly true, but some polities, such as the one at
Copn, were still occupied as much as 200 years after the royal dynasty fell. (Webster-Evans,
622-631)

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7. Conclusion
In conclusion, it could be said that the Mesoamerican civilizations were very innovative in
their time, and have contributed to today's society more than we are aware of. Although their
story is not as popular as that of Old World civilizations, the tradition of Mesoamerican
culture was every bit as complex and impressive. Some of the questions about their culture
are still unresolved, like their ability of being prosperous without machines or metal tools.
Despite these controversies, the ancient Mesoamericans created a tradition of culture that still
strikes us both familiar and strange.

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8. References
1. David Webster, Susan Toby Evans: Mesoamerican Civilzation (Chapter 16); The
Pennsylvania State University.
http://anth.la.psu.edu/documents/Webster_Evans_MesoAmerican.pdf
2. Gordon Brotherston: Time and Script in Ancient Mesoamerica
http://www.iai.spkberlin.de/fileadmin/dokumentenbibliothek/Indiana/Indiana_3/IND_03_Brotherston.pdf
3. Brown Tindall, George & Shi, David Emory, America: A Narrative History. New York and
London: W.W. Norton & Company. 2000

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