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Berkeley HISTORY 2 - lecture4

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Lecture 3 - Society and Culture in the Americas: Mexico and the Missisippi Valley!!Key Terms Watson Brake!•Three Sisters!•Monks Mound!•chinampas!•Aztlàn!•Tenochtitlàn!•!Guiding Questions What conditions produced monumental building and early cities in North America?!•culture + environment: religion, social needs and suitable ecological conditions!◦How did Mesoamerican civilizations overcome technological limitations in creating complex •states?!Fusion of religious, political, to centralize, exploit human labor power!◦!America's Native Peoples: The Mound Builders and Cahokia Watson Brake, LA!•built c. 5400-5000 years ago!◦earliest known mounds!◦no written documentation!‣no burials or materials that let us learn more about these people!‣midden heaps!◦wild vegetables!‣animal bones!‣remains of fruits harvested!‣garbage!‣can't say much people lived there besides feasting, hunting and gathering!◦Watson Brake's Significance!•pre-agrarian, pre-ceramic!◦hunter-gathers NOT farmers!◦coordinated labor!◦not a permanent settlement !◦pre-date the Pyramids, Mesoamerican civilizations !◦making historians reconsider what hunter-gather societies were capable of!◦no evidence of permanent habitation!◦not an early city or town!‣people did built these mounds and come back to them and make additions to them ‣over the centuries!long term value!‣theories!◦mounds intended as territorial markers from one hunting group to another !‣religious and ritual significance !‣Poverty Point, LA!•c. 1700-1100 BE!◦builders: pre-agricult'l!◦mass coordination of labor!◦trade network: Soapstone (GA), ore (MA)!◦site for long distance exchange!‣across the American southeast!‣in modern Louisiana!◦Why Build the Mounds?!•not permanent settlement!◦not burial mounds!◦flood protection?!◦built close to major rivers that flood often!‣trying to protect themselves from religious places due to flood damage!‣annual assembly points?!◦territorial markers?!◦North America's Agrarian Transition •"Medieval Optimal": global warming period (900-1350)!◦led to the agricultural transition!‣agriculture spreads across eastern N. America !◦humans can grow more further north!‣expand and gained and domesticate crops !‣knowledge of trade routes !‣due to short growing seasons !◦The Three Sisters!•squash, maize, beans !◦1 kernel of maize = 200 kernels per harvest !◦wheat: 15 kernels per seed!◦combined with animal proteins = very nutritious diet !◦vegetables work together and prevent weeds !◦easy to grow and less labor !◦nutritiously better profit!◦continued sending out hunting -> combination create a healthy diet!◦Agriculture and Gender Roles!•3 sisters: core food sources!◦don't ruin the soil!‣dealt with fairly limited agrarian supply!‣farming, household: female kin groups!◦seasonal hunting camps, forest: gendered as male!◦females have more power politically and structurally from other places which creates a ◦dual power structure for men!The Mississippian Cultural Archipelageo!•refers of similar agriculture practices !◦large mounds go together with the cultivation of the three sisters switch to settled life!◦agrarian technology and social interactions spread !◦Chaokia: A Sacred Site!•c. 1000 CE: ~1000 people; 1100: ~30000!◦why the rapid boom?!◦religious boom town!‣population explosion 20,000 to 30,000!‣importance of celestial events !‣supernova event, 1054!◦visible for about a month for the American midwest!‣with the effect to the people who saw it!‣attract settlement !‣regional religious movement!◦religious revival movement!‣change of how the people believed to the divinity !‣Eastern North American Religious Beliefs!•astronomical events: important in religious life!◦interested in tracking astronomical changes like the supernova!‣Cahokia's woodhenge!◦found the goal post laid out to keep track of the stars and solar movements !‣solar worship: "Great Suns"!◦leaders or leader that ruled the site called themselves with celestial power and events!‣rulers oversaw rituals on Monk's Mound !‣Cahokian Religious Practices!•Black Drink: caffeinated, vomit-inducing holly drink!◦religious significance that you have when you ingest it for having spiritual interaction!‣burning of ritual objects!◦due to found charred material at sites!‣spiritual interactions!‣occasional human sacrifice!◦found in a mound 52 skeletons of people who are sacrificed!‣compressed them !‣ensure fertility and during drought!‣happened in a way for leaders to assert or reassure their authority!‣leaders live on top of monk's mound!‣power of life and death over the people!‣in order to get the crop in and agricultural surplus!•Cahokia's Possible Trading Area!•Monks Mound, Now and Then!•Monks Mound and Cahokia!•1100-1200: 20-30,000 inhabitants!◦100 ft high, 16 acres at base!◦Great Plaza: 50 acres!◦all built by human labor by transporting soil through woven baskets!◦just be planned carefully for wider control and social coordination!◦workers get food while they built this !◦Cahokia's Decline!•upstream deforestation!◦they have to continually expand land as more people come in!‣agricultural villages were taken in place during the deforestation!‣trees cut down for woodhenge and houses of the great suns as well as farming !‣increased flooding!‣catastrophic flooding!◦river can overflow and damage anything nearby!‣power of the leaders declined since they can't control agricultural fertility and flooding!‣undermines rulers' legitimacy!◦failed due to the expanding of their place!‣fortification of MM, Grand Plaza !◦started worrying about the people doing the farming and building and providing the ‣sacrifices for the fertility!power becomes endangered!‣evidence starts to show that people are starting to move away from the area around ‣Monks Mound !rituals begin to be conducted in family houses instead in the Grand Plaza!‣lost of central authority!‣Abandonment !•site abandoned by 1400!◦where did they go?!◦no DNA sampling yet!‣most likely scenario -> leaders did little to help !‣people moved away since the settlement of Cahokia is voluntary !•no oral tradition!◦no name !‣named Cahokia since they lived around the site but they don't own it !‣entwinement of cultural practices, environmental situation!◦!Mesoamerican


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