(TGT) Meso-American Societies, continued Lesson-2

Meso-American Societies, continued Lesson

The Other Indians

Mesoamerican and Andean civilizations were high points of Indian cultural development. The rest of the American continents were occupied by many peoples living in different ways. They can be grouped according to gradations based on material culture and social complexity. The Incas shared many things with tribal peoples of the Amazon, including clan divisions. The diversity of ancient America forces a reconsideration of patterns of human development dependent on examples from other civilizations. Social complexity based on agriculture was not necessary for fishing and hunting-gathering societies of the northwest United States and British Columbia: they developed hierarchical societies. In Colorado and South America, Indians practiced irrigated agriculture but did not develop states.

 

How Many Indians?

Arguments about the population of the Americas have been going on for a long time. Most scholars now agree that Mesoamerica and the Andes had the largest populations. If we accept a total of 67 million, in a world population of about 500 million, Americans clearly were a major segment of humanity.

 

Differing Cultural Patterns

There were major cultural patterns in the Americas outside of the main civilization areas. They shared features with both the Andes and Mesoamerica, perhaps serving at times as points of cultural and material change between the two regions. In central Colombia, the Muisca and Tairona peoples had large sedentary agriculture–based chiefdoms that shared many resemblances with other similarly based states. Along the Amazon, the rich aquatic environment supported complex populous chiefdoms; other large populations dependent on agriculture were present on Caribbean islands. Such societies resembled societies in Polynesia. By 1500, agriculture was widely diffused throughout the Americas. Some societies combined it with hunting-gathering and fishing. Slash-and-burn farming caused frequent movement in societies often not possessing large numbers, strong class divisions, or craft specialization. There were few nomadic herders. In 1500, about 200 languages were spoken in North America. By then, the towns of the Mississippi Mound Builders had been abandoned and only a few peoples maintained their patterns. In the southwest, the Anasazi and other cliff dwellers had moved to pueblos along the Rio Grande and practiced irrigated agriculture. Most other North American Indians were hunters and gatherers, sometimes also cultivating crops. In rich environments, complex social organization might develop without agriculture. There were sharp differences with contemporary European and Asian societies. Most Indian societies were kin based, with communal ownership of resources. Material wealth was not important for social rank. Women were subordinate to men but in many societies held important political and social roles. They had a central role in crop production. Indians, unlike Europeans and Asians, viewed themselves as part of the ecological system, not in control of it.

 

 

American Indian Diversity in World Context

Two great imperial systems had been created in Mesoamerica and the Andes. By the close of the fifteenth century, these militaristic states were fragile, weakened by internal strains and technological inferiority. American societies ranged from the Aztec-Inca great civilizations to small bands of hunters. The continued evolution of all Indian societies was disastrously disrupted by European invasions beginning in 1492.

 

Global Connections: The Americas and the World

American isolation from Afro-Eurasia shows in the absence of key technologies like ironworking and the wheel, in the small number of domesticated animals, and in the lack of a great world religion. Most tragically, it shows in the absence of immunity to contagious diseases from the Old World. However, there were impressive economic, cultural, and political achievements.

 

Questions to Consider

How are you holding up with all this history? Let's check!

 

 

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