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Mayans And Ancient China Similarities

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In Ancient China the Social hierarchy was built like a pyramid, with an Emperor and his Nobles being at the top. The food they ate was of wide variety, and they took pride in there pastoral animals considering them as prized possessions. In Ancient Maya the majority of their structures were built like pyramids, with human sacrificial ceremonies happening at the top of them. While the food that impacted there survival was corn and a couple of fruits that they farmed. These cultures are extremely different, but surprisingly they can also be compared with some similarities. Ancient China is arguably one of the most successful country ever to exists in terms of its longevity of it’s existence, this is true to be because of its core values that …show more content…

They were people of numbers and calculations. They ran on a number system based on the number 20, while their math system was based on adding dots and bars. The Mayans had two types of calendars, a lunar calendar, and a religious calendar. The lunar calendar had 365 days, and kept track of the seasons while the religious calendar had 260 days, and it was used to determine ceremonies and sacrifices. The climate in Ancient Maya was warm and rainy making it very hard to farm. In order to compensate for the rough climate they perfected the practice of slash-burn farming to farm their crops. Slash-burn farming requires little technology, and consists of cutting and burning the plants and trees in the forest, this creates land called a Swidden. The Swidden only had the ability of crop protection for a mere 2 years. It was extremely difficult for them to farm, because after they burned there crops, they needed to wait 5 to 7 years for the land to rejuvenate. To avoid moving to different land every few years Mayan farmers brilliantly planted their crops together to maximize the production of their crops. For example, the beans and squash were planted in fields of maize so that the beans could climb up the maize stalks and the squash could help reduce soil erosion. The Mayas agriculture was key, in receiving precious items from different regions. They traded with larger cities that weren’t fortunate enough to have access to large amounts of land to farm on. Although these cities couldn’t farm they had the opportunity trade with even larger cities with more valuable resources such as slaves, salt, honey and precious goods such as metals, feathers, and shells. As trade between city-states increased, so did cultural exchange, leading to the expansion of the culture. The determining factor for the

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