The Late Preclassic period witnessed the emergence of the ahau , or high king, and the rise of kingdoms throughout Maya lands. For the next thousand years the principles of kingship dominated Maya life. Within each Maya kingdom, society was organized hierarchically, including kings, nobles, teachers, scribes, warriors, architects, administrators, craftsmen, merchants, labourers, and farmers.
Besides the capital, outlying subsidiary sites ranged from sizeable towns down to hamlets and extended-family farming compounds. There may be several reasons why the Maya moved away from the small farming communities ruled by local officials to the complex kingdoms of the Classic period. Finding ways to collect rainwater and creating more arable land for agriculture played a major role in bringing about these changes.
A sizeable labour force was organized to build and maintain the waterworks reservoirs, cisterns, and canals and tend the cornfields. These innovations set the stage for increased food production, creating a surplus that led to enhanced trade with neighbouring states, and subsequent population growth. The need for a government to administer the intricacies of expanded urban and rural activities may in part explain why the Maya adopted the king as head of state.
More and more arable land was taken up by growing cities that continued to swell in size, partly owing to the influx of people arriving from outside the region. A growing population, drought, and crop failure may have led to serious food shortages and malnutrition.
When crops failed, people may have been forced to move elsewhere to survive. Other factors in the collapse of the southern lowland cities around A. Whatever the reasons, the Maya decided to return to a simpler form of life as farmers of maize -- living in rural villages much as they do today.
Most homes probably had a small garden of herbs and basic foods. Because the Olmecs preferred to live in or near flood plains, they built their homes on small mounds or platforms. They dug holes in their floors to store food. Excavations show that smaller villages consisted of a handful of homes, most likely inhabited by family groups. Fruit trees such as zapote or papaya were common in villages.
Larger excavated villages often have a central mound of greater size: this would be where the home of a prominent family or local chieftain was built, or perhaps a small shrine to a god whose name is now long-forgotten.
The status of the families that made up the village could be discerned by the how far they lived from this town center. In larger towns, more remains of animals such as dog, alligator, and deer have been found than in smaller villages, suggesting that these foods were reserved for local elites.
The Olmec people had a well-developed religion. According to archaeologist Richard Diehl, there are five aspects of Olmec religion , including a well-defined cosmos, a shaman class, sacred places and sites, identifiable gods and specific rituals and ceremonies.
Peter Joralemon, who has studied the Olmecs for years, has identified no fewer than eight gods from surviving Olmec art. Common Olmecs who worked the fields and caught fish in the rivers probably only participated in religious practices as observers, because there was an active priest class and the rulers and ruling family most likely had specific and important religious duties. Many of the Olmec gods, such as the Rain God and Feathered Serpent, would go on to form part of the pantheon of later Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Aztec and Maya.
The Olmec also played the ritualistic Mesoamerican ball game. Most of what we know about the Olmec today is due to surviving examples of Olmec art. The most easily recognizable pieces are the massive colossal heads , some of which are nearly ten feet tall.
Other forms of Olmec art that have survived include statues, figurines, celts, thrones, wooden busts and cave paintings. The Olmec cities of San Lorenzo and La Venta most likely had an artisan class who worked on these sculptures.
Common Olmecs likely produced only useful "art" such as pottery vessels. That's not to say that the Olmec artistic output did not affect the common people, however: the boulders used to make the colossal heads and thrones were quarried many miles from the workshops, meaning that thousands of commoners would be pressed into service to move the stones on sledges, rafts, and rollers to where they were needed.
Understanding the Olmec culture is very important to modern-day researchers and archaeologists. First of all, the Olmec was the "mother" culture of Mesoamerica, and many aspects of Olmec culture, such as gods, glyphic writing, and artistic forms, became part of later civilizations such as the Maya and Aztecs.
Even more importantly, the Olmec were one of only six primary or "pristine" civilizations in the world, the others being ancient China, Egypt, Sumeria, the Indus of India and the Chavin culture of Peru.
Pristine civilizations are those that developed somewhere without any significant influence from previous civilizations. These primary civilizations were forced to develop on their own, and how they developed teaches us a lot about our distant ancestors. Not only are the Olmecs a pristine civilization, they were the only ones to develop in a humid forest environment, making them a special case indeed.
The Olmec civilization had gone into decline by B. Their decline probably had much to do with wars and climate change. After the Olmec, several clearly post-Olmec societies developed in the Veracruz region.
There is much that is still unknown about the Olmecs, including some very important, basic things such as what they called themselves "Olmec" is an Aztec word applied to sixteenth-century dwellers in the region.
Dedicated researchers are constantly pushing the boundaries of what is known about this mysterious ancient culture, bringing new facts to light and correcting errors previously made. Coe, Michael D. Cyphers, Ann. Diehl, Richard A. The Olmecs: America's First Civilization. London: Thames and Hudson, Grove, David C. Elisa Ramirez. Miller, Mary and Karl Taube. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content.
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