Characteristics of Mesoamerican Civilizations Mesoamerica Is The

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Characteristics of Mesoamerican Civilizations

Mesoamerica is the name historians give to the area that comprises Mexico from around Mexico City south, and includes the Yucatan peninsula, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of El Salvador and Honduras. This part of the Americas was incredibly fertile ground for highly organized civilizations. These civilizations persisted in Mesoamerica up until the European conquest. In fact, the Aztecs, the inheritors of Mesoamerican cultural traditions that went back millennia, ruled much of Mesoamerica right up until the arrival of the Spanish. But the Aztecs were relatively new rulers in Mesoamerica when the Spanish conquistador Cortes arrived in 1519. They had only begun to conquer the regions around modern day Mexico City in the few decades before this. But long before the Aztecs there were other great powers that rose and fell in the Mesoamerica. Two of the oldest were the Olmec and the Zapotec.

The Olmec

The oldest major Mesoamerican civilization that appears in the archaeological record is called by historians the Olmec Civilization. This civilization emerged in the tropical rain forests of gulf coastal Mexico at the Bay of Campeche and existed for over 700 years between 1200 and 500 BCE. The word “Olmec” is a Nahuatl (Aztec) word that roughly translates to “people of the rubber producing region.” This name comes from the fact that the Aztec recognized that the homeland of the Olmec was known as a source of rubber production. Scholars do not know what the Olmec called themselves.

Settlements and Trade

Much of what is known about the Olmec comes from the traditions that survived through later Mesoamerican peoples like the Aztec and from archaeological work. In over twenty sites across the Olmec region, archaeologists and others have uncovered large Olmec-produced monuments

like the famous carved Olmec heads. Evidence culled from these sites indicate that the ancient settlements ranged in size from small farming villages to large urban centers of culture. The three largest sites are La Venta, San Lorenzo, and Laguna de los Cerros. In these sites archaeologists, have discovered varying quantities of obsidian, mica, flint, and jade. This variety of raw materials suggests that the Olmec civilization controlled a large trading network that connected the Olmec heartland with distant areas around Mesoamerica.

Religion

The large stone heads of the North Patio, Classic period (photo) | Zapotec | Olmec aren’t the only monuments that Monte Alban, Oaxaca State, Mexico | Jean-Pierre have been found in the Olmec region. Courau | Bridgeman Images Archaeologists have also found large Caption: This photograph shows the rectangular stone structures that north patio at the Zapotec city of Monte scholars have labeled “altars.” Several Albán. of these altars have been found in both

La Venta and San Lorenzo. The altars are carefully carved, showing what scholars believe are images of rulers and images of spiritual significance. Other symbols found on pottery and stelae, engraved stone pillars, include crocodile imagery, shark imagery, and feline imagery, possibly jaguars. Scholars can’t be entirely certain about the significance of this imagery, but many believe that these different creatures represent different abstract motifs like fertility and ritual.

The Zapotec

The Zapotec civilization began to emerge at about the time the Olmec was entering a period of decline. Around 500 BCE, the Zapotec civilization began to rise in the semi-arid Valley of Oaxaca, a large region located over 250

miles southwest of Mexico City. Like the word “Olmec,” the word “Zapotec” is also a Nahuatl word which means “people of the zapote tree.” Unlike the Olmec, however, the Zapotec people have not vanished despite the fact that their once great civilization declined and largely disappeared around 700 CE. Because Zapotec speakers still exist, we know that they call themselves bene zaa, translated as either “the native people” or “the cloud people.”

Monte Albán

The fact that the Zapotec refer to themselves as “the cloud people” is possibly a reference to the most impressive of the Zapotec settlement sites, Monte Albán. In Spanish, the name “Monte Albán,” means Albán Mountain. The city is named after a mountain because the actual settlement is perched atop an human-engineered plateau created when the peak the mountain was removed to create the city that exist today as ruins. This majestic mountain-top city is located near the modern city of Oaxaca. The origins of the city go back to the very beginning of Zapotec civilization, about 500 BCE. This founding until about 200 BCE is referred to by archaeologists as Monte Albán Period I. This period is further subdivided into an Early I phase (500-350 BCE) and a Late I phase (350- 200 BCE).

Early I Phase

In the early phase of Period I, the mountain top was removed, the city was founded, a main plaza was created, and several public buildings including a temple were constructed around it. Archaeologists estimate that the city’s population may have reached as high as 5,000, making it the most populous site in the area at the time.

Late I Phase

In the late phase of Period I, the city continued to grow in size, complexity and power. Archaeologists estimate that the city may have reached a population of approximately 16,000, and more buildings were constructed around the main plaza.

Politics, Society and Culture

Historians and anthropologists surmise that the construction of Monte Albán, in the way it required techniques of organization and effected a rise in population density, may have had a dramatic effect on the society of the Zapotec at that time. The evidence that the cheap and crude wattle-and-daub construction methods at this time were being replaced by much stronger mud- brick homes indicates that the residents experienced a gradual rise in standard of living. This rise in population would have also made it even more important to develop a more complex political system capable of organizing the growing population.

In the Late I Phase the Zapotec at Monte Albán constructed a large building at the main plaza that contains a gallery of carved stone monuments archaeologists have called Danzantes. There are over 300 of these Danzantes, and each one depicts a life-sized human being. The conclusions archaeologists and historians have drawn from these Danzantes is that they represent war captives that were killed, possibly in a sacrificial manner. Assuming these interpretations are correct, there are a number of conclusions historians can draw from this. But the most important conclusion is that war and conquest was a major part of the rise to dominance of Monte Albán. It is possible that the rise of Monte Albán occurred during a period of some disorder, possibly as different groups were vying for power.

Characteristics of Mesoamerican Civilizations

Based on the information in the text and your prior knowledge, take notes on the characteristics of each Mesoamerican culture in the chart below.

Olmec Characteristics

Zapotec Characteristics