Scholars are currently examining a number of intriguing new theories about the peopling of the Americas. These theories suggest that the process may have been more complex than previously suspected and may have involved people traveling by sea as well as trekking across a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska. It is generally held that humans reached the Western Hemisphere through a series of migrations from Asia (see Chapter 1). Some scholars believe that the first migrations occurred as early as 35,000 to 25,000 b. c.e., but most accept a later date of 20,000 to 13,000 b. c.e. Although some limited contacts with other cultures—for example, with Polynesians—may have occurred later, the peoples in the Western Hemisphere were virtually isolated from the rest of the world for at least fifteen thousand years. The duration and comprehensiveness of their isolation distinguishes the Americas from the world’s other major cultural regions.
Over thousands of years the population of the Americas grew and spread throughout the hemisphere, responding to environments that included frozen regions of the polar extremes, tropical rain forests, and high mountain ranges as well as deserts, woodlands, and prairies. Two of the hemisphere’s most impressive cultural traditions developed in Mesoamerica (Mexico and northern Central America) and in the mountainous Andean region of South America. Well before 1000 B. c.E. the domestication of new plant varieties, the introduction of new technologies, and a limited development of trade led to greater social stratification and the beginnings of urbanization in both regions. Cultural elites associated
The Mesoamerican OLmec, 1200-400 b. c.e.
With these changes used their increased political and religious authority to organize great numbers of laborers to construct large-scale irrigation and drainage works, to clear forests, and to unleash the productive potential of floodplains and steeply pitched hillsides. These transformed environments provided the economic platform for the construction of urban centers dominated by monumental structures devoted to religious purposes and to housing for members of the elite. By 1000 b. c.e. the major urban centers of Mesoamerica and the Andes had begun to project their political and cultural power over broad territories: they had become civilizations. The cultural legacies of the two most important of these early civilizations, the Olmec of Mesoamerica and Chavin of the Andes, would persist for more than a thousand years.
Mesoamerica is a region of great geographic and climatic diversity. It is extremely active geologically, experiencing both earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Mountain ranges break the region into microenvironments, including the temperate climates of the Valley of Mexico and the Guatemalan highlands, the tropical forests of the Peten and Gulf of Mexico coast, the rain forest of the southern Yucatan and Belize, and the drier scrub forest of the northern Yucatan (see Map 3.4).
Within these ecological niches, Amerindian peoples developed specialized technologies that exploited indigenous plants and animals, as well as minerals like obsidian, quartz, and jade. Eventually, contacts across these environmental boundaries led to trade and cultural exchange. Enhanced trade, increasing agricultural productivity, and rising population led, in turn, to urbanization and the gradual appearance of powerful political and religious elites. Although a number of militarily powerful civilizations developed in Mesoamerica, the region was never unified politically. All Mesoamerican civilizations, however, shared fundamental elements of material culture, technology, religious belief and ritual, political organization, art, architecture, and sports.
The most influential early Mesoamerican civilization was the Olmec, flourishing between 1200 and 400 B. C.E. (see Map 3.4). The center of Olmec civilization was located near the tropical Atlantic coast of what are now the Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. Olmec cultural influence reached as far as the Pacific coast of Central America and the Central Plateau of Mexico.
Olmec urban development was made possible by earlier advances in agriculture. Original settlements depended on the region’s rich plant diversity and on fishing. Later, by 3500 b. c.e. or earlier, the staples of the Mesoamerican diet—corn, beans, and squash—were domesticated. Recent research indicates that manioc, a calorie-rich root crop, was also grown in the floodplains of the region, multiplying food resources. The ability of farmers to produce dependable surpluses of these products permitted the first stages of craft specialization and social stratification. As religious and political elites emerged, they used their prestige and authority to organize the population to dig irrigation and drainage canals, develop raised fields in wetlands that could be farmed more intensively, and construct the large-scale religious and civic buildings that became the cultural signature of Olmec civilization.
The cultural core of the early Olmec civilization was located at San Lorenzo (the names of early American sites are modern, since, in the absence of written records, the ancient names are invariably unknown) but included smaller centers nearby (1200-900 b. c.e.). La Venta°, which developed at about the same time, became the most important Olmec center after 900 b. c.e. when San Lorenzo was abandoned or destroyed. Tres Zapotes° was the last dominant center, rising to prominence after La Venta collapsed or was destroyed around 600 b. c.e. The relationship among these centers is unclear. Scholars have found little evidence to suggest that they were either rival city-states or dependent centers of a centralized political authority. It appears that each center developed independently to exploit and exchange specialized products like salt, cacao (chocolate beans), clay for ceramics, and limestone. Each major Olmec center was eventually abandoned, its monuments defaced and buried and its buildings destroyed. Archaeologists interpret these events differently; some see them as evidence of internal upheavals or military defeat by neighboring peoples, and others suggest that they were rituals associated with the death of a ruler.
Large artificial platforms and mounds of packed earth dominated Olmec urban centers. Because of the absence of dense housing precincts, scholars believe these centers primarily served to frame the collective ritual and political activities that brought the rural population to the cities at special times in the year. Some of the platforms also served as foundations for elite residences, in effect lifting the elite above the masses. The Olmec laid out their cities in alignment with the paths of certain stars, reflecting their strong belief in the significance of astronomical events. Since these centers had
La Venta (LA BEN-tah) Tres Zapotes (TRACE zah-POE-tace)
Map 3.4 Olmec and Chavin Civilizations The regions of Mesoamer-ica (most of modern Mexico and Central America) and the Andean highlands of South America have hosted impressive civilizations since early times. The civilizations of the Olmec and Chavin were the originating civilizations of these two regions, providing the foundations of architecture, city planning, and religion.
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Interactive Map: Olmec and Chavin Civilizations
Small permanent populations, the scale of construction suggests that the Olmec elite was able to require and direct the labor of thousands of men and women from surrounding settlements and dispersed family plots in the region. This labor pool was used primarily for low-skill tasks like moving dirt and stone construction materials. Skilled artisans who lived in or near the urban core decorated the buildings with carvings and sculptures. They also produced the high-quality crafts, such as exquisite carved jade figurines, necklaces, and ceremonial knives and axes, that distinguished Olmec culture. Archaeological evidence suggests the existence of a class of merchants who traded with distant peoples for obsidian, jade, and pottery.
Little is known about Olmec political structure, but it seems likely that the rise of major urban centers coincided with the appearance of a form of kingship that combined religious and secular roles. Finely crafted objects decorated the households of the elite and distinguished their dress from that of the commoners who lived in dispersed small structures constructed of sticks and mud. The authority of the rulers and their kin groups is suggested by a series of colossal carved stone heads, some as large as 11 feet (3.4 meters) high. Since each head is unique and suggestive of individual personality, most archaeologists believe they were carved to memorialize individual rulers. This theory is reinforced by the location of the heads close to the major urban centers, especially San Lorenzo. These remarkable stone sculptures are the best-known monuments of Olmec culture.
The organization of collective labor by the Olmec elites benefited the commoners by increasing food production and making it more reliable. People also enjoyed a more diverse diet. Ceramic products such as utilitarian
Olmec Head Giant heads sculpted from basalt are a widely recognized legacy of Olmec culture. Sixteen heads have been found, the largest approximately 11 feet (3.4 meters) tall. Experts in Olmec archaeology believe the heads are portraits of individual rulers, warriors, or ballplayers. (Georg Gerster/Photo Researchers, Inc.)
Early South American
Civilization: Chavfn, 900-250 b. c.e.
Pots and small figurines as well as small stone carvings associated with religious belief have been found in commoner households. This suggests that at least some advantages gained from urbanization and growing elite power were shared broadly in the society.
The Olmec elite used elaborate religious rituals to control this complex society. Thousands of commoners were drawn from the countryside to attend awe-inspiring ceremonies at the centers. The elevated platforms and mounds with carved stone veneers served as potent backdrops for these rituals. Rulers and their close kin came to be associated with the gods through bloodletting and human sacrifice, evidence of which is found in all the urban centers. The Olmec were polytheistic, and most of their deities had dual (male and female) natures. Human and animal characteristics were also blended. Surviving representations of jaguars, crocodiles, snakes, and sharks suggest that these powerful animals provided the most enduring images used in Olmec religious representation. The ability of humans to transform themselves into these animals is a common decorative motif. Rulers were especially associated with the jaguar.
An important class of shamans (individuals who claimed the ability to make direct contact with supernatural powers) and healers attached to the elite organized religious life and provided practical advice about the periodic rains essential to agricultural life. They directed the planning of urban centers to reflect astronomical observations and were responsible for developing a form of writing that may have influenced later innovations among the Maya (see Chapter 12). From their close observation of the stars, they produced a calendar that was used to organize ritual life and agriculture. The Olmec were also the likely originators of a ritual ball game that became an enduring part of Mesoamerican ceremonial life.
There is little evidence for the existence of an Olmec empire. Given the limited technological and agricultural base of the society, it is unlikely that the power of the Olmec could have been projected over significant distances militarily. However, the discovery of Olmec products and images, such as jade carvings decorated with the jaguar-god, as far away as central Mexico provides evidence that the Olmec did exercise cultural influence over a wide area. This influence would endure for centuries.
Geography played an important role in the development of human society in the Andes. The region’s diverse environment— a mountainous core, arid coastal plain, and dense interior jungles—challenged human populations, encouraging the development of specialized regional production as well as complex social institutions and cultural values that facilitated interregional exchanges and shared labor responsibilities. These adaptations to environmental challenge became enduring features of Andean civilization.
The earliest urban centers in the Andean region were villages of a few hundred people built along the coastal plain or in the foothills near the coast. The abundance of fish and mollusks along the coast of Peru provided a dependable supply of food that helped make the development of early cities possible. The coastal populations traded these products as well as decorative shells for corn, other foods, and eventually textiles produced in the foothills. The two regions also exchanged ceremonial practices, religious motifs, and aesthetic ideas. Recent discoveries demonstrate that as early as 2600 b. c.e. the vast site called Caral in the Supe Valley had developed many of the characteristics now viewed as the hallmarks of later Andean civilization, including ceremonial plazas, pyramids, elevated platforms and mounds, and extensive irrigation works. The scale of the public works in Caral suggests a population of thousands and a political structure capable of organizing the production and distribution of maritime and agricultural products over a broad area.
Chavin, one of the most impressive of South America’s early urban civilizations (see Map 3.4), inherited many of the cultural and economic characteristics of Caral. Its capital, Chavin de Huantar°, was located at 10,300 feet (3,139 meters) in the eastern range of the Andes north of the modern city of Lima. Between 900 and 250 B. C.E., a period roughly coinciding with Olmec civilization in Mesoamerica, Chavin dominated a densely populated region that included large areas of the Peruvian coastal plain and Andean foothills. Chavin de Huantar’s location at the intersection of trade routes connecting the coast with populous mountain valleys and the tropical lowlands on the eastern flank of the Andes allowed the city’s rulers to control trade among these distinct ecological zones and gain an important economic advantage over regional rivals.
Chavin’s dominance as a ceremonial and commercial center depended on earlier developments in agriculture and trade, including the introduction of maize cultivation from Mesoamerica. Maize increased the food supplies of the coast and interior foothills, allowing greater levels of urbanization. As Chavin grew, its trade linked the coastal economy with the producers of quinoa (a local grain) and potatoes, with the herders of llamas in the high mountain valleys and, to a lesser extent, with Amazonian producers of coca (the leaves were chewed, producing a mild narcotic effect) and fruits.
These developments were accompanied by the evolution of reciprocal labor obligations that permitted the construction and maintenance of roads, bridges, temples, palaces, and large irrigation and drainage projects as well as textile production. The exact nature of these reciprocal labor obligations at Chavin is unknown. In later times groups of related families who held land communally and claimed descent from a common ancestor organized these labor obligations. Group members thought of each other as brothers and sisters and were obligated to aid each other, providing a model for the organization of labor and the distribution of goods at every level of Andean society.
The increased use of llamas to move goods from one ecological zone to another promoted specialization of production and increased trade. Llamas were the only domesticated beasts of burden in the Americas, and they played an important role in the integration of the Andean region. They were first domesticated in the mountainous interior of Peru and were crucial to Chavin’s development, not unlike the camel in the evolution of trans-Saharan trade (see Chapter 8). Llamas provided meat and wool and decreased the labor needed
Chavin de Huantar (cha-BEAN day WAHN-tar)
To transport goods. A single driver could control ten to thirty animals, each carrying up to 70 pounds (32 kilograms); a human porter could carry only about 50 pounds (22.5 kilograms).
The enormous scale of the capital and the dispersal of Chavin’s pottery styles, religious motifs, and architectural forms over a wide area suggest that Chavin imposed some form of political integration and trade dependency on its neighbors that may have relied in part on military force. Most modern scholars believe, however, that, as in the case of the Olmec civilization, Chavin’s influence depended more on the development of an attractive and convincing religious belief system and related rituals. Chavin’s most potent religious symbol, a jaguar deity, was dispersed over a broad area, and archaeological evidence suggests that Chavin de Huan-tar served as a pilgrimage site.
The architectural signature of Chavin was a large complex of multilevel platforms made of packed earth or rubble and faced with cut stone or adobe (sun-dried brick made of clay and straw). Small buildings used for ritual purposes or as elite residences were built on these platforms. Nearly all the buildings were decorated with relief carvings of serpents, condors, jaguars, or human forms. The largest building at Chavin de Huantar measured 250 feet (76 meters) on each side and rose to a height of 50 feet (15 meters). About one-third of its interior is hollow, containing narrow galleries and small rooms that may have housed the remains of royal ancestors.
American metallurgy was first developed in the Andean region ca. 500 b. c.e. The later introduction of metallurgy in Mesoamerica, like the appearance of maize agriculture in the Andes, suggests sustained trade and cultural contacts between the two regions. Archaeological investigations of Chavin de Huantar and smaller centers have revealed remarkable three-dimensional silver, gold, and gold alloy ornaments that represent a clear advance over earlier technologies. Improvements in both the manufacture and the decoration of textiles are also associated with the rise of Chavin. The quality of these products, probably used only by the elite or in religious rituals, added to the reputation and prestige of the culture and aided in the projection of its power and influence. The most common decorative motif in sculpture, pottery, and textiles was a jaguar-man similar in conception to the Olmec symbol. In both civilizations and in many other cultures in the Americas, this powerful predator provided an enduring image of religious authority and a vehicle through which the gods could act in the world of men and women.
Class distinctions appear to have increased during this period of expansion. A class of priests directed religious life. Modern scholars also see evidence that both local chiefs and a more powerful chief or king dominated Chavtn’s politics. Excavations of graves reveal that superior-quality textiles as well as gold crowns, breastplates, and jewelry distinguished rulers from commoners. These rich objects, the quality and abundance of pottery, and the monumental architecture of the major centers all suggest the presence of highly skilled artisans as well.
There is no convincing evidence, like defaced buildings or broken images, that the eclipse of Chavin (unlike
The Olmec centers) was associated with conquest or rebellion. However, recent investigations have suggested that increased warfare throughout the region around 200 B. C.E. disrupted Chavtn’s trade and undermined the authority of the governing elite. Regardless of what caused the collapse of this powerful culture, the technologies, material culture, statecraft, architecture, and urban planning associated with Chavtn influenced the Andean region for centuries.
World History
