Agriculture in Mesoamerica

778 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Effects Of Climate On Agriculture Essay

Agriculture was fundamental to prehistoric societies and an addictively trend that eventually replaced hunter-gathers societies. It has become debatable if agriculture produced Jordon Childe’s ‘Neolithic Revolution’ or that it served ulterior purposes in religious and social agendas but it is certain that it spread across the world possibly through natural cause or the direct influence of human activity. In the case of Mesoamerica these debates tend to favour agriculture as a revolution to improve sustenance and result from both the intentional actions of humans and the natural environment that endorsed productivity.

Agriculture expanded in Mesoamerica gradually due the ideal conditions that allowed natural expansion compared to the ‘Neolithic Revolution’ Jordon Childe suggests. Maize originated from teosinte much earlier than the innovation of pottery and before hunter-gather societies settled into villages. The variety of crops from agriculture result independently before spreading later to the American Southwest and the Northern America during the Formative period. The optimal foraging theory could explain the role of human actions in spreading of agriculture as a by-product of rational societies adapting from the Mesoamerican example for self-interest of reproducing valuable food sources. This belief was easily spread through group-to-group diffusion between societies within and later to Southwest America. However it is also vital to accept that the environment played a fundamental role in how agriculture in the Americas could spread so widely from Mesoamerica. Although maize was introduced into the Eastern North America as the dominant agricultural plant intensively, chenopods, marsh elder and sunflowers were domestic...

... middle of paper ...

...by the adaptability of maize, squash and beans to reproduce efficiently in the terrain and environment. Instead of the grand ‘Neolithic revolution’, it is suggested that the trend to agricultural dependency was gradual due to the stable environment and conservative use of agriculture by the societies in Mesoamerica to provide additional surplus in food resources conveniently. This accumulation of goods in surplus eventually initiated more complex societies consisting of social classes, chiefdoms and statecraft.

Works Cited

Chazan 2008, Pg. 205.

Chazan 2008, Pg. 211.

Chazan 2008, Pg. 209.

Merrill, Hard, Mabry, Fritz, Adams, Roney & MacWilliams 2009, Pg. 21020.

Chazan 2008, Pg. 214.

Merrill et al. 2009, Pg. 21023.

Bowles 2011, Pg. 4763.

Chazan 2008, Pg. 206.

Chazan 2008, Pg. 206.

Bowles 2011, Pg. 4764.

Merrill et al. 2009, Pg. 21024.

Show More
Related

  • Que Vivan Los Tamales Summary

    662 Words  | 2 Pages

    The sale of food products in the market of Tlatelolco with its various colors, shapes, smells, and sounds “unified Native American cuisines while preserving rich regional variations; [epitomized] the social relationships that depended on the feeding of gods and people; and [preserved] the cultural significance of taste for pre-Columbian cooking and eating” (9-10). Cuisine played an important part in the constructing of social hierarchies in Mesoamerica, and to this day continues to shape individuality not only in Mexico, but also for every country. Traditional forms of Mesoamerican cooking mainly belonged to women, and three simple utensils including a cazuela, a metate, and a comal, allowed them to frugally make delicious tortillas. But they “derived much of their self-worth from skill at the metate, the ability to grind maize so they could feed tortillas and tamales to their husbands and children,” (14-15). This single crop has permitted for these lower-class women to preserve and refine the pre-Columbian cuisine of tortillas and tamales. Mexicans have always been and still are a people of corn, in spite of numerous attempts to change this, partly in thanks to the female

    Read More

  • Dbq On The Aztecs

    963 Words  | 2 Pages

    August 13th, 1521 marked the end of a diabolical, yet genius group of leaders. They were referred to as the Aztecs. They were an extremely advanced ancient civilization. The Aztec’s were overthrown by the Spanish, yet we still haven’t forgotten the Aztecs. But since their culture was so complex it’s hard to know what is the most necessary thing to study when it comes to them, especially when their were so many things that defined their culture. The Aztecs were highly religious and believed in human sacrifice. They also had a complex method of farming called chinampas. This grew an extremely large amount of food per year by using canals. This was extremely successful because of how complex it was. When asked if historians should emphasize agriculture

    Read More

  • The Native Americans: Christopher Columbus Vs. Hariot

    1188 Words  | 3 Pages

    For at least fifteen thousand years before the arrival of Christopher Columbus and Thomas Hariot, Native Americans had occupied the vastness of North America undisturbed by outside invaders (Shi 2015 pg. 9). Throughout the years leading up to Columbus’s voyage to the “New World” (the Americas) and Hariot’s journey across the sea, the Indians had encountered and adapted to many diverse continents; due to global warming, climatic and environmental diversity throughout the lands (2015). Making the Native Americans culture, religion, and use of tools and technology very strange to that of Columbus’s and Hariot’s more advanced culture and economy, when they first came into contact with the Native Americans.

    Read More

  • Why Did The Aztec Empire Fall Essay

    1051 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the fertile valleys or high plateaus the Mayas, Incas, and Aztecs built communities and villages practicing sedentary lifestyles. They had for the most part “permanent, intensive agriculture.” (Lane and Restall 2012) This allowed them to produce complex foods that benefitted the villages because it made them possible but it also resulted in social stratification. “Agricultural activities of the majority allowed a minority to live and work as artisans, merchants, warriors, nobles and royalty – permitting the development of writing, metallurgy, bureaucracy, and other features of high civilization.” More specifically, the Mayans were able to create the most complete of the three Mesoamerican writing systems, “one that was still used in the early sixteenth century.” (Lane and Restall 2012) They were also able to expand, but their expansion would also be their demise. Because they were so large -- filled with regional kingdoms and empires -- the Spanish were easily able to conquer

    Read More

  • Early Mesoamerica A Chronological History of Cultures & Societies Up to the Start of the Common Era

    1467 Words  | 3 Pages

    While the existence of conclusive data on how and when Mesoamerica was first populated is still wanting in substance, it is generally accepted that the first people to arrive in the New World did so around 18,000 years ago. Occasionally data will surface that suggests that pre-modern humans may have come to the Americas prior to 16,000 BCE, but these conclusions are largely speculative, or based on data that cannot be corroborated. It is unknown if the migration played out as a single event, or if it happened in a succession of waves. Regardless, there are a few prominent theories on how genetically modern humans were able to make the last great migration from the Old World into the Americas. In any case, despite our murky understanding of how humans arrived in Mesoamerica, it is clear that once there, human civilization and culture was not only able to subsist, but thrive under a set of conditions that were unique to the region.

    Read More

  • Corn To The Maya Culture

    1016 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... into society also came with a new social responsibility to make sure that the crops would never fail. For once a society had made this unique and vital bond with the crop, with deep meaning. For a modern mind, the Mayan methodology of working with maize, and how it became to dominate life far beyond a means of food, becoming the backbone of their religion, it is truly amazing and great, the Mayans for one were not simple folk their attitude towards maize was clearly one of great spirituality. The Mayan mind believed or realized that not only had the gods given them maize, the gods would continually need to be thanked for giving them a great crop and they cultivated it and through it thanked and worshiped the gods for feeding them, and allowing them to grow and excel. In the end, the relationship between Man and maize was a contract between the gods and the earth.

    Read More

  • Slavery in Colonial America

    846 Words  | 2 Pages

    Rice was another cash crop that required a substantial investment in land, labor, and equipment. It was among the most intensive and extensive crops developed in colonial North America. Its cultivation helped shape the development of societies in South...

    Read More

  • Mesoamerican Civilization Essay

    1254 Words  | 3 Pages

    The proximity of the Mesoamerican people to each other in the region led to a high degree of cultural interaction between each other. The consistent interaction between Mesoamerican civilizations within the region created a cultural diffusion that allowed Mesoamericans to

    Read More

  • Maya Civilization Collapse

    1318 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fagan, Brian M. (2001) "Mesoamerican Civilizations." The Seventy Great Mysteries of the Ancient World: Unlocking the Secrets of past Civilizations. New York: Thames & Hudson, 491-509.

    Read More

  • Native Americans Essay

    2232 Words  | 5 Pages

    A single group of indigenous people or single Native American group does not exist but many. Early America had many groups of Native Americans that can be organized by regions: Eastern Woodlands, Southwest, Pacific Northwest, and Great Basin. This analysis will focus on the Southwest Native Americas. The Southwest refers to modern day Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Northern Mexico. This region consisted of three major cultures, the Mogollon, Hohokam, and Anasazi people. In the Southwest, all three groups engaged in extensive farming more than groups in the Eastern Woodlands. This extensive farming proved that these Native Americans were settlers created pueblo villages complete with dwellings. The Hohokam peoples constructed canals as an irrigation system in now modern Arizona. This differed from several other groups of Native Americans usually in the Great Basin that were nomadic, following their food, the bison. Specialization in sophisticated crafts such as ceramics, pottery, and basket weaving emerged in the Southwest. Especially important and distinctive to Southwest Native Americans was maize, co...

    Read More

  • United States Agriculture

    3163 Words  | 7 Pages

    Thesis Statement: In early America, agriculture was a significant part of society and America’s early development.

    Read More

  • Environmental Impacts of Unsustainable Agriculture in Brazil and Costa Rica

    1661 Words  | 4 Pages

    Pengue, W. (2004, April). A Short History of Farming in Latin America. Seedling. Retrieved from http://www.grain.org/article/entries/413-a-short-history-of-

    Read More

  • Neolithic Revolution

    897 Words  | 2 Pages

    Authors, Various. The Origins Of Civilizations, "The Agrarian Revolution And The Birth Of Civilization." Last modified 2007. Accessed March 23, 2012. http://history-world.org/neolithic.htm.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Wheat In Maya Civilization

    208 Words  | 1 Pages

    Upon arrival in the Americas, Europeans set out to make wheat the standard grain in the lands they had discovered; the establishment of wheat was both functional, as it was a staple of the European diet, as well as an attempt to institutionalize European control. While wheat did gain some ground in the Americas, especially among the upper classes, it failed to surmount maize as the “the foundation of indigenous livelihood.” The persistence of maize as a staple of the indigenous way of life is not shocking, as J. Eric Thompson writes: “Maize was a great deal more than the economic basis of Maya civilization: it was the focal point of worship, and to it every Maya who worked the soil built a shrine in his own heart.” The Americas were not

    Read More

  • Essay On Domestication Of Maize

    1525 Words  | 4 Pages

    The story of maize domestication is not only an interesting topic to us today, but an impressive realization on how hard it was for people living thousands of years ago to find food for themselves. The people living in modern day Mexico eight thousand, seven hundred years ago found a crop that was not much more than a stick with small pods that could be pried off for a small reward of nutrients. However, with that plant they created one of the most useful foods today because of thousands of years of artificial breeding and domestication. Maize is an extremely useful crop that is easy to grow, and gives giant harvests thanks to the experimentation and instinct of our ancestors, and the act of artificial selection over the passage of time.

    Read More

More about Agriculture in Mesoamerica

Open Document