The Natural History Museum Of Los Angeles Essay

Carrasco, David and Scot Sessions. Daily Life of the Aztecs: People of the Sun and Earth. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998.

In my quest to study the life of the ancient California inhabitants, I visited the San Diego Museum of Man which is an anthropological museum situated in Balboa Park, San Diego, California. The museum was established in the year 1915 as a result of the Panama-California Exposition where several exhibits were displayed with ‘The Story of Man through Ages’ being the first. At the culmination of the exposition, San Diego Museum Association sought to retain the available collection and start a permanent museum. As a result, the collection was named Museum of Man in

Mesoamerica have been connected the North and South America culturally and geographically throughout the history. Mesoamerican culture and aspects heavily influenced southwestern United States, being the frontier borderline between North America and Mesoamerica. It is very important to study the relationship between the Mesoamerica and American Southwest because American Southwest contains various elements of Mesoamerican culture and this provides fundamental information about human behaviors, history, interactions, and tradition in America. Our group has selected Agriculture, Architecture, Religion, and Trade as our categories to analyze the relationship between American southwest and Mesoamerica. Fair trade, we will focus on scarlet macaws and how it got traded from Mesoamerica in the American southwest and its significance. For architecture, we will compare the ball courts of Hohokam and that of Mesoamerica. Significance of ball courts and how it got introduced into the American southwest from Mesoamerica will be discussed as well. Religion will be analyzed by focusing on the cosmological beliefs of both groups and the similarities and differences between Mesoamerican cosmology and American southwest cosmology.

A common element found within the cultures of Mesoamerica was the way they expressed themselves, "primarily in oral modes of expression… and mute texts” (Carrasco, 47). This was observed in the Olmec and Teotihuacan culture. Although, the Olmec culture was from formative Mesoamerica and the Teotihuacan culture was from contemporary Mesoamerica there were noticeable similarities and differences between the two cultures. Evidence of influence and continuity was found linking the Olmec and Teotihuacan culture.

The fascination with Native Americans has been a constant with outsiders since explorers first “discovered” the New World. The biggest surge in this fascination came in the mid-19th century when the Indian Wars were starting to come to an end and the belief that Native Americans were disappearing, walking into the sunset never to be seen again. This led to an increase in the collecting of anything Native American, from artifacts to stories to portraits. The inevitable outcome of this was that Native Americans, who were never considered very highly to begin with, where now moved into a category of scientific interest to be study. This scientific interest in Native Americans is what many museums and other institutions based their collections and exhibits on and is one of the issues that many Native Americans have with how both their people and their culture were, and to some extent still are, represented in these places.

The relationships between Native Americans and Archeologist has been difficult to say the least. In the past archeologists have never been seen in a positive light by Native Americans. The relationship between us has improved with the passing of NAGPRA. However, there are a lot if things that need to be done to make a permeant change. The way to change the relationship between us and them is a simple idea but a difficult undertaking. First we need to make all the laws that involve native American antiquity have more effect. This laws, if broken, should have a real punishment to the people that broke them. If we can show Native American that we are trying to make a change at the governmental level that could translate to a change in community relationships. Additionally, there needs to be more community involvement, whether that is inviting native people work on sites, or having more indigenous archeologist. Overall if we want to continue to learn about the past, archeologists must make a change for the future.

Annabelle Headrick’s The Teotihuacan Trinity: The Sociopolitical Structure of Ancient Mesoamerican City discusses the mystery behind the development of Teotihuacan, a city-state located in the Mesoamerica. Historically, not much is known about this great city, in terms rulers, cultural aspects, and even hieroglyphs. In the text, Headrick uses other Mesoamerican city-states, critical analysis and other historical documents to uncover the mysteries and to support her hypothesis of the Teotihuacan trinity, which comprised of rulers, lineages, and the military to shape the dynamics of the socio-political structure of Teotihuacan.

In Mesoamerica and South America two very unique and mysterious settlements exist today. In the 15th century during the “Late Horizon” (Kleiner, p.1089) the Inca or Inka created an empire. In the following 16th century the Aztec people established their own empire. Thousands of miles apart, these two cultures share some striking similarities and differences. The religious beliefs of both cultures would be the foundation for every facet of life, including the massive architectural settlements they left behind.

There has been many evidences and study about the culture interaction between the American Southwest and Mesoamerica. The phases of growth and decline that Chaco Canyon shares with many other regional centers is called the Chaco’s developmental cycle (Nelson 2006). There are many artifacts or objects that show either the direct or indirect interactions between Chaco Canyon and Mesoamerica; also why people might have chosen to adopt the culture. Every objects have different kinds of interaction and effect on social, political, and religious change. There are five objects currently considered as evidences of interaction: colonnades, roads, copper bells, shell bracelets, and unusual ceramic vessels.

The idea that Prehistoric Aboriginal culture is averse to change or is static is a belief shared by the minority. Although it can be said that Indigenous culture and our ancestral peoples share many similar or unchanged basic behaviour patterns, each society or culture can be distinguished from others by the certain configurative patterns or directives for why the Prehistoric peoples did or did not achieve things and how they were or were not achieved. This willingness to change and not be opposed to innovation and holding traditional values all the time, suggests that Prehistoric Aboriginal Culture was constantly changing. This essay discusses the concept that Prehistoric Aboriginal culture adopted a willingness to learn, change and grow through forms of art and culture, for both aesthetic and useful purposes. Secondly, the developing cultural intricacies will be deliberated, how hunter gatherer societies affected Prehistoric Aboriginal culture and how these complexities are the source of change for many Indigenous peoples through time.

Last Thursday, I went to Native American museum. I heard the museum was built in just before three years. So the museum was very clean and beautiful. Also the building was built in modern style. But inside of the museum, a number of the relics were of considerable antiquity. We took on the tour with docent. Docent was a women who is a member of Navajo. Navajo is one kind of Native American tribe. She told of her tribe’s story, so I felt more truthful. At first, we saw the traditional boat. It was made of wood and some of them was made of straw. I was curious about that could really float. Because the boat was huge and heavy. She told to us, it was actually used in the tribe. Then we went to 4th floor and we saw various flag. Each of the flag

As seen with archeological evidence, ball courts are undoubtedly planted all throughout Mesoamerican territories. Taube’s paper compares Mesoamerican societies to the Hohokam culture of the American Southwest. From previous research conduced from other scholars, it is universally known the ballgame and the courts themselves held influential power; holding ritualistic meaning, and ceasing issues between political and economic disputes. In particular, Taube argues what seems to be an anomaly. Unlike most evidence, he brings to light that despite neighboring communities and alliances that may have been held, this region did not hold political influence over the ballgame as heavily as research has shown for the rest of Mesoameica. This is important

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

Mesoamerica is the area in which the ancient Maya had lived, and is the area where modern Mayans are still reside. According to Coe, the Mayan geographic can range from Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Yucatan Peninsula, and the Mexican States of Chiapas and Tabasco (1966:17). Yet these areas are not limited to just Mayan. Many structural architecture remains today has proven the complexity of the Mayan culture in Mesoamerica.