Figure 1.-- |
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Many Native Americans never evolved beyond the hunter-gather stage. Others civilizations developed sedentary agricultre. The first evidence of settled habitation is first noted in modern Mexico during the Archaic period 5000-1500 BC. Here we note corn cultivation, pottery and stone tools. The first sophisticated civilization in Meso-America was the rise of the Olmecs around 1500 BC - 300 AD during what is known as the Pre-Classical period. The Olmecs settled on the Gulf of Mexico Coast of central Mexico. Very little information has, however, been learned about them as is the case of other early Meso-American civilizatons. Many archeologists believe that it is the Olmecs that developed many of the characteristics features of Meso-American cultures, including sophisticated calendars and hieroglyphic writing. Archeologists have not definitively developed the relationship between the Olmec culture and the Maya and other Meso-American peoples. Notably high civilization in the Americas is not associatyed with major river valleys as was the case in Asia and Africa. It was in the Andean and Meso American culltural areas that agriculture, weaving, metal working, painted pottery, and other technological developments occurred and spread to other areas. The three best known of these agricultural civilizations (Maya, Aztec, and Inca) were contemperaneous with Medieval Europe. These civilizations are well known because they are the civilizations that the Spanish encountered. The three great civilizations were brought to am abrupt end in the early 15th century by Spanish Conquistadores. While we can admire the achievements of these advanced Native American civilizations. it must be remembered that cut off from Europe and Asia that they were still essentially stone age peoples, in part explaining why they fell so easily to small European military forces.
Civilization in the Old World developed in the great river valleys. This was the case in each of the great early civilizations: the Middle East (Mesopotamia and Egypt), India, and China. The reason for this was simply that the technology for rover valley cultivation was less complicated than the cultivation of more arid land. Mesopotamia was the first such civilization and Egypt was in contact with Mesopotamia and benefitted from the advances there. Ancient India was more isolated, but not completely so. China developed in complete isolation, but like the other early civilizations in a river valley. This pattern seems so basic that one would have expected civilization in the Americas to have developed along the same pattern. It did not and the reasons for this are not entirely clear. The great American rivers ate the Mississippi, The Columbia, the Colorado, the Rio Grande, the Magdalena, Guayas, the Orionoco, the Amazon, the Sao Francico, and the Parana-Paraguay. These river valley systems are not where agriculture (the neolithic Revolution) meaning civilization developed in the Americas. Rather it developed in two rather improbable places--Meso-America and the Andean Highlands.
The New World Neolithic Revolution occurred first in Meso-America. The term Mesp-America is a cultural-geographic construct. The geographic area extends from central Mexico south to approximately the middle of Central America (Honduras/Nicaragua). Culturally it is defined as the area in which the great pre-Columbian societies of North America developed. These civilizations share important cultural traits, a corn-based agricultural economy with productive units centered on agricultural villages. In sharp contrast to the rural villages are the large ceremonial and politico-religious capitals. Mesoamerica means "mid America" in Greek. It was a term coined by Paul Kirchhoff, a German ethnolocist. Kirchhoff first noted the similarities among the major pre-Columbian cultures within the region. What is not entirely clear is why this fairly resrictive geopgraphic region proved such a fertile ground for cultural advance. But it was here that corn was domesticated--a technological of enormous consequences.
Teoteouacan was the first great civilization in the Americas. The civilization was a vast commercial empire that dominated central Mexico. Thec ruins of the city just north of Mexico City still impress modern visitors. The Pyramid of the Sun was the largest structure built in pre-colonial America. The fall of the civilization is not well understood. It is gebnerally thought to have been an enviromental collapse. The city may have grown too large for the surrounding agricultural area to support. Some historians believe drought may have weakened the civilization. This may explain the success of barbaric northern tribes who moved south into the central valley of Mexico.
The classic civilization of Mesoamerica were the Toltecs. The peoples of Mesoamerica distinguished between two major cultures. There were the Toltec (which meant "craftsman"). These were the civilized people who built urban culture and advanced skills. The other peoples were the Chichimec, or uncivikized war-like wild people who migrated into Mesoamerica from the north. The Toltecs were a northern tribe that conquered the once dominate Teoteaouacanos.
The Maya appear to have originated as an offshoot at the Olmec people. For many years archeologistzs studying Ntive American civilizations saw the Maya as the "mother culture" of Mexican pre-Colomvian civilizations. Gradually scholars armed with improved dating techniques and improved archeoligical methods have come to see the Olmecs as much more important than had earlier been believed. The Olmecs are best known for their huge carved stone heads. For years little more was known about the Olmec. Recent work has uncovered some information about this enigmatic early people. The basic conclusion is that the Olmec pre-dated the Maya. They developed a complex society centuries before the Maya and appear to have influenced the Maya and other later Native American civilizations. The relationship between the Olmec and Maya as well as the Olmec's relationship with other early Native American civilizations is still not fully understood and much discussed among Native American scholars.
The Maya are one of the best studied of the major pre-Colombian native American civilizations. Unlike the Aztecs and Incas, the Maya were a much older civilization which had passed its peak by the time of the encounter with the Europeans. The Maya first appear in the Yucatan Peninsula about 2600 B.C. They became a civiization of major importance about 250 AD in what is now southern Mexico, Guatemala, western Honduras, El Salvador, and northern Belize. Unlike the Inda and Aztecs, the Maya were not a centralized imperial state. There virtually independent city states were connected by extensive trade routes. The Maya show evidence of assimilating the technology and culture of previous civilizations which had developed to the north in moden Mexic, especially the Olmecs. The Maya are especially noteworthy for their achievements in astronomy, mathematics, accurate calendars, hieroglyphics, and archectecture. Mayan hieroglyphics,probably of Olmec origins, was the most sophisticated writing system in Meso-America. The Mayan archetectural heritage is especially impressive. Many sites in the Yucantan and northerm Central America include temple-pyramids, palaces, and observatories. The Maya especially venerated the jaguar and built temple-pyramids to the being they saw as the Lord of the Underworld. As with the other Meso-American civilizations, these edifaces were built without metal tools, beasts of burden, or even the wheel. Mayan agriculture was especially impressive as methods such as storing rainwater in underground reservoirs dealt with the limited available groundwater. The Maya were also accomplished weavers and potters. The Spanish encountered the Maya centuries after their classical era, unlike the Aztec and Inca who were in their acendancy. The decline of the Maya is one of the great mysteries in archeology. There are numerous theories. Increasingly archelogists are coming to believe that the decline was a more gradual process than was once believed. The process appears to have involved expanding populations which required overcultivation of available land resulting in decling yields that could not support dense populations.
The Aztec were a war-like people located in the central valley of Mexico and dominated much of southern Mexico during the 15th and early 16th centuries until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores. The Aztecs were a Nahua-speaking peoples. The Aztecs known to history and which the Spanish encountered were a tribe of the Mexica peoples--the Tenochca. The Mexica migrated south into the Valley of Mexico about the 12th century AD. They were a small group that eked out a meager existence in some of the least desirable land in the Central Valley. They gradually adopted the more advanced culture (Mixteca-Pueblo) that dominated the Central Valley and originated in the culture of Teotihuacán. The Tenocha who built Tenochititlan were at first a small tribal group surrounded by more powerful neighbors, but gradually developed more effective civil and military organizations. The Mexica by the 15th century had organized a military alliance with neighboring Nahua tribes known as the Aztec Confederation. The Confederation through wars of conquest came to dominate vitually all of the tribes of southern Mexico, from Rio Fuerte south to Guatemala. The Aztec Empire was not a centralized state, but rather composed of allies and tributary states that were not forced to adopt Aztec culture. Within the Aztec domains were tribes that resisted their rule, especially the Tlaxcalan tribe which was more than willing to fight with the Spanish. The Aztecs were notable archetects and astronomers. Their religion was, however, barabaric and involved mass human scarifices. A major goal in Aztec wars was the acquisition of victims for human sacrifice. Human sacrifice was practiced by many Native American cultures, but the Azztec are notable for the large numbers of sacrificial victims.
In South America it was the Andes that proved the most fertile ground for the rise of high culture. Here corn-based agriculture was suplemented by the addition of the potato, a crop which was also of enormous consequence. Again it is not entirely clear why the most advnced civilzations developed in the Andes rather than the rover valleys. An exception was some of the coastal civilizations in Peru. Here the prodigious bounty of Peruvian waters as a result of upwelling was an important factor.
Tiwanaku was one of the first two great Native American civilizations in South America. The Neolithic Revolution occurred here centuries after it did in Meso-America, but apparently independently. The city state of Tiwanaku was settled on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca (about 800 BC). It was one of many such settlements. It begins to emerge as the most important (about 400 BX), Thus the cradel of civilization in South America was the cold waters of Lake Titicaca. While this does not seem the most ideal place for civilization to develop., the lake waters was not frigid and the Titicaca Basin warmer than the the High Andes and Altiplano. Tiwanaku itself had a great advantage. Not only could they benefit from the bountt of the Lake, but they were situated so as to command tradebetween the Altiplano and Pacific coast. This helped finance the growth of great civilization. The city was the first great metroplis in South america. There were many terraced platform pyramids, courts, and domiciles spreading over 2.3 square miles. [Richardon, p. 122] The fact that Tiwanaku is virtually unknown today is an indiction of the limited archeological work done in South America. Archeologists have found carefully carved stones perfectly fitted together to form walls and pyramids. Estimates suggest 30,000-40,000 people may have lived at Tiwanaku. Very little, however, is known about the Tiwanaku culture. They practiced raised field agriculture.
Tiwanaku was not a great empire, but came to dominate not only the souther valley, but both shores of the Lake (400-500 AD). Their entire economic network and culture much of the souther Andes (700 AD). [Richardson, p 130] Tiwanaku was weakened by a climatic catastrophe, perhapa a mega-El Niño. There is of course no written records, but ampel evidence in glacial ice cores and tree rings. [Mann, p. 25.] Tiwanaku is seen as the classical culture upon which the great Inca Empire was founded.
The Wari are the second of the two great early Native American civilizations in South America. The Wari or Huari Empire dominated the coast and foothills of what is now Peru (700-1000 AD). The War were not a vast trading network like Tiwanaku, but the first great warrior people of South America. Their armies conquered neigboring states and imposed their culture on the subject people. Thus these cultures disappeared as Wari culture spread over a large area. Their capital was the modern city of Ayachuco, but Wari outposts and cities have been found throughout Peru. Wari cities were meticulosly contructed in a grid patter, rather like American cities. To unite their far-flung empire, they built an extensive road system. This is a characteristic of large far flung empires, in the same way as the Persians and Romans were also noted for their roads. The War road network was eventually incorporated into the Inca road network. The War built imposing stone buildings that were earhquake resistant. Archologists have begun to explore the ancient city of Wari in southern Peru. The Wari economy was an agricultural and fishing one. The War harvested the boufiful fishing resources of coastl Peru, based on coastal upwelling. The Wari collapsed at about the same time as Tiwanaku adding credence to environmental catastrophe theories. The Wari were the classical civivilzation on which Chimu culture was founded and also influenced the Inca who conquered the Chimu.
The Chimu or Chimor Empire dominated the coast of Peru after the coastal people began to recover from the enviroment disater that undermined the Wari. The Chimu, like the Wari, were a war-like people. They began the conquests building their empire (about 1100 AD). The Chimu eventually controlled much of the coast of northern Peru. The Chimu Empire was much smaller than the Wari Empire at its height and more dependant on the sea. The Chimu were masters of irrigation. They constructed laborate irrigation works which fed water from the Indians to irrigate the arid coastal lowlands. The center of the Chimu state was Chan Chan along the coast north of Lima. A 20-mile canal carried water from the Chicama Valley to Chan Chan which was thus able to support a population of 70,000 people. Minchancamon was the last Chimu emperor. He conquuered the Sican in the north. Then war broke out with the Inca in the south (1462). It is unclear as to wjo attacked who, but war between the two military statesxwas inevitable once they vame into contact. The war with the Inca lasted over a decade. The Inca developed the strategy of diverting canal waters from besiged cities. The Inca eventually conquered the Chimu (1475-76). The Inca absorbed the entire Chimu Empire, their largest single conquest. Thus the coast of Peru becme part of the Tawantinsuyu community which until the fall of the Chimu had been a basically Andean empire. It is at this time that the Inca move their capital to Cuzco.
Native Americans in the Amazonian Basin are a very complicated topic which in recent years have become a matter of intence scholarly debate. It has been common to think of the Amazonian Native Americans as primitive people lot in time and providing a window to the stone age. Anthropolgists visting these people provided portraits suggesting this view. And respected anthropolgists proposed a theory explaining why this has occurred--the inherent ecological limitations of the tropical rain forest. This was the widely accepted view of the Amazon for many years. There is now considerable scholarly reassessment of this view. The major cultural groups of the Amazon are the Arawak and Tupi speaking people. Guaraní-speaking people were located to the south in the Paraguay-Paraní basin. Rather than timeless, the Amazon has been the scene of major cultural chnge. About 2,000 years ago, Arawak-speaking people began to migrate north and east into the Amazon and drive Tupí-speaking people to the north and east. The major issue today is the pre-Conquest population and culural level of the Amazonian peoples. The earliest repots suggest a very dence population practing settled agriculture. This was how Gaspar de Carvajal described the Amazon (1540s). His account has been dismissed becaused he included an account od women warriors. Researchers today are not as dimissive and some archeologists have found evidence suggesting highly profutive settled agriculture. Some now believe that the primitive tribes in the Amazon today are the descendents of people forced to abandon setteled agriculture by European diseases and Portuguese slave raiders.
The Inca until the early 15th century were but one of a large number of tribes situated in the Andes and narrow coastal plain from Chile north to Colombia. The tribes shared many common cultural cahracteristoics. The Inca were possessed with a messianic creed which taught that they were destined to dominate the world. They proceeded to conquer and assimilate neighboring tribes in southern Peru around Lake Titicaca. at the beginning of the 15th entury the Inca was just one of large number of Andean and costal tribes. Then there was an amazing explosioin out of their mountain domain and within 100 years carved out an emense empire. Theh absorbed conquered peoples relatively beningly as long as thy accepted the Inca Sun God. The Inca had a genius for public administration, enineering, as well as military strategy. One of their mostal notable inovations was the construction of a road network allowing the rapid movement of armies. Runners operating rather like pony express riders moved messages with great rapidity from th most remote imperial outposts to the capital at Cuzco. Eventually this network streached the length of South America from cebtral Chile to southern Colombia--over 2,500 miles. Terraces were carved out of steep mountains, creating cultivateable land. These teraces were notable engineering achievements. The Inca were master weavers. The nobility wore garments woven from vicuña. The common people wore garments wove from the more course llama wool. There was no written language, but records were kept by quipus--colored and knottd strings. The most important Inca ruler was Pachacuti (He Who Shakes the Earth) who regined from 1438-1471 and helped create the administrative structure needed for a great empire. The Incan Empire was operate on a system of state socialism. The Empire's output was the property of the Emperor or Inca and he distribute the food and clothing that wa produced among his subjects as he saw fit. To the Inca, the gods resided in their native Andean mountains. The Inca placated the gods with offerings of corn, chica, meat, and occasioinally human sacrifices.
The most sophisticated Native American civilization in what is now Colombia was the Andean Chibcha culture. They were one of the few Andean peoples not yet conquered by the expanding Inca Empire. The Chincha dominated the highland basins and valleys of the Cordillera Oriental in what is now Colombia. The Chibcha are less well known than the Inca, Maya, and Aztecs, but were an important culture. The Chibcha inhabited the Andean valleys around Bogotá and Tunja in centrl Colombia. The population has been estimated at 0.5 million people. They are believed to have been one of the most politically centralized of the Native Americans, with the exception of the highly centralized Inca Empire. Over time the process of war and alliances had unified the Chibcha into two major states and several smaller ones ones, each with its own hereditary chief. The Inca Empire was a much larger state, but a a result of rapid expansion not as coherent a state as the Chincha. The Chibcha like other Native Americans were a stone-age people, but a highly developed one. The economy was based on intensive highland agriculture. There were crafts, most notably gold working. They were also a trading society. The larger villages held weekly markets where aricultural produce, pottery, and cloth were traded. Gold was used for personal ornamentation and religious offrings. . The arrival of the Spanish cut short the further development and centralization of the Chibcha. The Spanish crushed the Chibcha militarily and by the 18th century the Chibcha language disappeared.
Today North America especially the Mississppi River Basin is one of the world's greatest bread baskets. It is an area where the first Proto-Indians would have reached fairly early in their journey south from the Beiring Straits. It is not, however, where agriculture and civilization first developed in the New World. And the reason for that is not entirely clear. Presumably the key factor was climate. Early people were less able to deal with effectively with severe winter weather. Thus early rivel valley civilizations developed in a rather narrow sub-tropical band. Notably Meso-America falls within this range. The Missippi Valley is wekk north of it. The Missiippi Basin was the site of an important Native Community agricultural cilture, in fact the most important such culture north of Meso-America--the Missipians also known as the Mound Builders. This culture was centered at Cahokia near what is now St. Louis. While the area of this culture and the number of people supported was impressive. This was not where the crops they raised, especially corn was domesticated. This occurred far to the south in Meso-America. The Missippi culture was thus a technological offshoot of the Neolithic agricultural revolution which occurred in Meso-America. Cahkokia was a relatively modern Morth American culture. The Great Mound there dates to about 1000 AD.
Mann, Charkes C. 1941: New Relevations of the Americas before Columbus (Vintage: New York, 2006), 541p.
Richardson, James B. People of the Andes: Smithsonian Exploring the Ancient World (St. Remy Press: Montreal, 1994), pg.122-131.
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