Mirador Basin Economic Interaction

Aside from the great temples and pyramids the Mayas also had city states spread throughout. Unlike the Aztecs in Mexico, the Maya were never a unified empire ruled by a single ruler from a single place. The Maya’s were a series of smaller city states who ruled their immediate vicinity. Each city was different in its own unique way. Although they had their differences they tended to share certain characteristics as well, such as their general layout. The Maya’s laid out their cities similarly to the Aztecs and built around a central plaza. In the center of the cities were the important public buildings such as temples, palaces and a ball court. Residential areas radiated out from the city center, growing sparser the further they got from the center. Raised stone walkways linked the residential areas with each other and the center as well. Something important to note is that these plazas were rarely neat and orderly, and this is because the Maya’s

The Olmec’s lived along muddy riverbanks and the Gulf of Mexico around 1500 B.C. Rigorous agricultural practices characterized the Olmec civilization, enabling them to provide food and resources for their families and generate income by selling their food to others around them. They also used the land to their advantage, using the mud to create elaborate earthen pyramids. Along with the cultivation of land, trade contributed to the success of the Olmec’s. They had many widespread trade routes extending into the surrounding areas. Their trade routes further helped to expand agriculture and grow the economy within this society due to the selling of agricultural products along these routes. To grow spiritually, the Olmec’s created religious rituals and a system of hieroglyphics that allowed the peoples to communicate effectively while also uniting the Olmec people as a whole. The Olmec’s’ use of their surrounding geography, combined with the economic growth brought about from extended trade routes and the societal unity brought about from the implementation of religious rituals allowed the Olmec’s to thrive during their time.

The priestly class lived in the cities, while the general population lived away in small farming villages. The priests would carry out daily religious duties, particularly sacrifices, and the peasants would gather periodically for religious ceremonies and festivals. They built the ceremonial centers in a specific design for religious practices. They constructed tall pyramid temples, warren-like single story palaces, and a ball court that was surrounded by a broad central plaza. The architectural features of the Mayan pyramids include towering roofs, corbel vaults, and elaborate embellishment with stucco reliefs (Palfrey 2). It is amazing to imagine the detail that the Mayans were able to create in their architecture with only primitive tools. For the Mayans, science and religion were linked. Time was extremely important and their agriculture and religious ceremonies required a system that could record time.

From the 1890s, as a result of discovery and drilling of some of the most productive oil fields in the world, the small town of Los Angeles suffered a big change. By 1930, California was producing nearly one quarter of the world's oil output, and its population had grown to 1.2 million. In the flowing decades, urban and suburban area grew quickly, surrounding by closeness and more openness of the oil wells. People found ways to camouflaged machinery, decreased loud noises, vented methane pockets, as residents had to live closely to those oil production facilities. Until now days, oil fields in the Los Angeles Basin remain very productive. By applying modern techniques, operations can be conducted in smaller areas, and some of them have been moved offshore. However, there are still some oil fields and drilling activities hiding among the shopping malls, sports sites and residences of Los Angeles.

According to Aditia Rinaldi “Every end should be followed by great new beginning”. The ending of the Toltec and Chavin civilizations marked the new beginnings of the Aztec and Incan cultures. The cultures of former civilizations in Mesoamerica developed technology that aided in the creation of the Aztec and Incan civilizations. The culture of these civilizations was also impacted by their location. The Aztecs were built on cities next to lakes and plentiful water sources while the Incans were founded on mountainous, rough soil. The soil type determined the number of crops that could be grown and trade patterns. Another important aspect of Incan and Aztec culture was social class structure. The class structure of the Aztecs started with monarchs/religious leaders and ended on slaves with warriors, craftsmen, and traders located in the middle. The Incan hierarchy was based on the lower class (poor families) working for the upper class (monarch and government). Both class structures had a majority of low class poor workers. The cultures of both Incan and Aztec empire were greatly affected by civilizations before them, geographic location, and social class structure.

Aztec community was experience and knew how to maximise the production by following crop rotations on highlands where less irrigation treatments are available, also exchanging in inter-cities to have different availability of vegetation (Peters-Golden 2002a: 21).In the form of occupation the status of women was limited on some extents, as the entire section of croft practiced by women of all classes only. Women of the lower rank used to produce simple goods for household where Nobel women were engaged in producing ceremonial capes, by using finest cotton, rabbit fur and feathers(Peters-Golden 2002a: 22). This division of labor amongst women represent status-run going the empire with less equalities. "A boy was declared a soldier"(Peters-Golden 2002a: 29) and the only way a women n get honor in warfare is only if a women dies while giving birth a boy. The high involvement of men in warfare resulted in handling of agriculture and small level horticulture by women, as they used to cultivate cotton and decorative herbs which were used in making clothes.

The economic systems of early American societies were very similar. One of these societies, the Mayans, lived in southern Mexico and northern Central America from the 3rd to the 10th century CE, and they relied on the trade of goods such as obsidian and crops such as cacao beans. Another American civilization was the Aztec civilization. They were located in the Valley of Mexico around the 13th to 16th century CE, and they used slash-and-burn farming to plant crops to trade. The Inca Empire existed from the 13th to the 16th century CE along the Pacific coast of South America near the Andes Mountains. The Inca used terrace farming and irrigation to grow crops such as corn. The economies of these early American civilizations were heavily

“In the vast Latin American backcountry, everyday life could seem to outsiders to be stuck in a pre-Columbian time warp” (page 120). A few hundred to a few thousand people resided in rural towns, settled far away from the hustle and bustle of the cities. Described as “miniature version of the great cities” (page 116), each town had their own central focuses which ranged from trading to military outposts to mines. Geographically isolated mining camps were in places that would never undergo urban development and played a large role when contributing to society. These mines were usually staffed by indigenous workers or by African slaves and owned by the wealthy (page 119). The center’s influence on the fringe was extremely slow but the fringe

Agriculture was the basis of the economy of the Mayan and corn was the principal food.(Voorhies 324) Other crops included avocados, tomatoes, and chili peppers. They cultivated an enormous variety of plants.(Foley 20)

The ancient world of Mesoamerica entered a long period of change that soon led to the development a mammoth city that would serve as a regional center for more than 600 years. Beginning in about 1000 B.C. the majority of the people in the Valley of Mexico relocated to one of two primary sites, that of Cuicuilco in the southwest corner and Teotihuacan in the northeast. By about 300 B.C., Cuicuilco dominated the region, but its heyday would soon diminish. (Sabloff 2000, p 60)

Massive temples hidden in the jungles of the Yucatan, mysterious stone stelas, and cryptic calendars eluding to advanced knowledge of the stars and mathematics are just some of the artifacts originating from the “Classic Maya” period (200 CE-900 CE). However, these popular items should not be the only defining characteristics of a society that dominated the Mesoamerican region for nearly a millennia. Dynastic lines, similar to those found in European houses, were important elements during this period in places like Palenque, Tikal, and Calakmul. Additionally, the Maya experienced violent and consistent warfare between localized powers and the backbone of their society, agriculture, suffered through several multi-year droughts. These factors

The class system that developed after the Olmec was a result of the pyramid and monument construction. Those in power did not build but they could tell those beneath them to (Byers and Campbell 2014). Due to an increase in trade among the Mesoamerican civilizations an unspoken diplomacy was formed between trading cities. For example, the Mayans and The Aztecs with 500 miles of different obstacles between them, the two still found a way to trade with one another (Mann 1973: 221). Because of the knowledge many of the citizens had regarding the production of certain items the common man or woman made the product, much like how it is today. In the case of the Mayans housewives would weave, anyone by the coast could collect salt and it was common for families to raise bees (Mann 1973: 222). Product were collected and then sold and while those who created the product may receive a payment (usually in the form of Cacao beans), the payment was non-comparable to what those who sold the final product received, but this may be due to the fact anyone could make tradable goods (Mann 1973:

Many decades ago, northern Central America and southern Mexico cultures developed complex political and social ranks. Researchers today know this region as Mesoamerica, known for its rich soil, abundant amount of rainfall, and agriculture. (Judge & Langdon, 2012) The Mesoamericans, Aztec and Mayan tribes, developed into complex civilizations for multiple reasons. These societies were advanced and complex for their time in areas, such as architecture, agriculture, militarism, and education. Each had unique religion and political systems as well. The rise and fall of both were due to several factors.

Above the primary agriculturalists and soldiers were the skilled artisans, who functioned within Mayan society not only to produce functional

Throughout the three civilizations, various methods of dealing with crops were introduced in attempts of increasing yield and production. The Olmecs developed irrigation, which made agriculture an important element of Mesoamerican life as it brought surpluses that led to population growth and civilization expansion. Alongside irrigation is the extensive planting and harvesting of crops like beans, squash, and especially maize that became the basis and stable crops of the community. The Mayans continued the agricultural success of the preceding people by draining swamps and erecting platforms for farming. These two practices greatly expanded the amount of land agriculture could take place in a geography without vast fertile lands, further leading to population boost and empire building in addition to the long-lasting practice of irrigation. With with the aid of innovations made into reality by the two previous groups of people, the Aztecs kept the tradition of constant improvement to current conditions. Building up on the Mayan efforts of draining swamps, the Aztecs developed Chinampas. These aquatic water beds that acted as floating islands extended the existing use of irrigation on the rich aquatic environment of the capital, Tenochtitlan. With these multiple examples and instances of agricultural advancements that continued and improved on the products and practices of previous civilizations, changes still coexist in the middle as the use of calendar differed from one civilization to the next despite sharing a root of calendar