Collapse
True of False: Collapse is the complete disappearance of a society and it's culture.
False: Collapse ≠ disappearance
Collapse is disintegration of central authority and complex institutions, a rapid transition to simpler, decentralized systems.
What area to the term "Mesoamerica" refer to?
The "culture area" roughly from Costca Rica to central Mexico (north of the Valley of Mexico)
What is remarkable about the Archaic period of Mesoamerica?
Early domestication of maize, settlements, earliest pottery
When were major Maya centers abandoned? (Tikal, Copan)
By ~900AD
What are Stelae?
Upright stone slab Carved in low relief
Public Monuments of Authority; visible markers of elite power often placed in ceremonial centres which convey political or religious messages
Narrative and Symbolic Carvings - complex iconography rulers, deities, mythological scenes
When did the Bronze Age Collapse occur?
1177 BC
What are the common features across Mesoamerica?
- Intensive cultivation of maize (teosinte)
- Calendars
- Ball courts
- Bloodletting
Which Mesoamerican period is described below?:
- Large cities (Tenochtitlan, Cichen Itsa) with defensive walls, palaces, temples
- Intensive agriculture with terracing, irrigation, and the Chinampa system
- Advanced pottery styles, metallurgy (GOLD), writing and books.
- Regional polities, independent states, and decline of major centers
- Military elites and endemic warfare
- Extensive trade networks
( - Ritual practices )
Postclassic Period
900-1521 AD
What features were remarkable about the Preclassic/Formative period of Mesoamerica?
Pottery widespread
Olmec (stone heads!)
Mayan city – pyramids
Mounds, stellae
What is Chinampa Agriculture?
– Irrigation -> fertilization cycle:
“Floating” fields
Inter-field canals
– Super productive
– Supported very large urban settlements
What are the 5 key features of Collapse (per Renfrew 1979)?
– End of central administration, elite class, and redistribution economy
– Population decline and settlement shifts
– Loss of writing, abandonment of public works, temples, and palaces
– Craft specialization and external trade diminish
– Rise of localism, “folk” religion, and peasant imitation of elite goods
What was Mesoamerican geography like? Describe it.
Diverse!
- Tropical rainforests/lowlands
- Highland dry climates
- Deserts
- Seasonal variation
What period of Mesoamerica is represented in the following data?:
- Urbanization at the MAX: huge cities
- Monumental architecture
- Regional capitals: Teotihuacan, Tikal
- Intensive Agriculture
- Widespread terracing and irrigation
- Chinampa system
- Advanced pottery styles (polychrome)
- Development of writing
- State level societies
- Centralized power
- Dynastic rulership (kingship)
- Ritual practices
Classic period
250 BC -900 AD
There were several factors behind the Maya collapse.
What were they?
Severe droughts
Environmental degradation
Overpopulation
Intensified warfare
Political fragmentation
External pressures
Teotihuacan was a major site in which Mesoamerican Period?
Classic Period
250 BC - 900 AD
How does the Bronze Age Collapse (~1177BC) fit the model of collapse?
– Mycenaeans, Hittites, and eastern trade systems fragmented
– Egypt weakened; Sea Peoples and droughts contribute
– Transition to “Dark Ages” = reduced complexity, not cultural erasure
– Tehuacán Valley
– Soconusco
– Gulf Coast
– Mayan highlands
– Yucatan lowlands
Which period of Mesoamerica in defined by the following data?:
- Seasonal camps
- Increasing sedentism: seasonal villages near resources
- Broad-spectrum foraging: wild plants and animals
- Growing reliance on plant cultivation/horticulture mixed with foraging
- Earliest pottery
- Grinding stones (manos and metates)
- Weaving
- Earliest evidence of deliberate burials
- Early monumental architecture
Archaic Period
8000-1000 BC
What following is the story of which civilization?:
● Early city states emerge ca. AD 250 with Dynastic rule
● Growing urbanization with Intensive Agriculture (Swidden (slash & burn) & raised fields)
– Writing system (Hieroglyphics, Calendar)
● Collapse: AD 800-900 --> “it’s complicated”
Classic Maya
What features are remarkable about the Classic Period?
Major Mayan cities; advanced architecture; hieroglyphic writing; astronomical observations.
Teotihuacan megapolis!!!
Where did the Bronze Age Collapse occur?
The established network of states composed of the Eastern Mediterranean
– Egypt
– Levant
– Anatolia
– Mycenaeans (Greece; islands)
What is Terrace Agriculture and how does it work?
Which Mesoamerican period is characterized by the following?:
- Village life (sedentism) expands and spreads
- Growing urbanism by 1000 BC
- Large urban centers 400-250BC
- Reliance on domesticates grows; narrower subsistence base
- Transition to agriculture; intensive cultivation
- Ubiquitous pottery, manos, and metates
- Prismatic obsidian blades (+ long distance prestige goods)
- Mass manufacture
- Ritual practices
- Increasing social complexity
- Regional power centers; regional elites
Formative/Preclassic Period
1900*-250 BC
When was Classic Teotihuacan formed?
What was the highest population at it's apex?
When was it's decline?
Formation: ca. 200 BC - AD 1
Apex: AD 150-450 with a population of up to 125,000 people.
Decline: AD 450-550
What features are remarkable about the Postclassic Period of Mesoamerica?
Rise of the Toltec, Aztec, and late Maya civilizations; increased militarism; complex social structures; extensive trade networks