Chicano Studies
Describe the significance of the invention of agriculture to the development of Mesoamerica. When and where did it happen? What were the consequences of this invention?
The ancient Mexico was the branch of the region that is often regarded as Middle America or Mesoamerica. This culturally developed region encompasses the entire Mexico, Belize and Guatemala, and forming extensions into the division of Honduras. Mexico the area of central focus of the Mesoamerica and is recognized for having the earliest civilizations in America. It includes a diversity of environmental factors ranging from mountains, semi-aired deserts to the tropical rain forests. It has been therefore emphasized that the agricultural set up of Mesoamerica was established in Mexico (Havemeyer 244).
The agricultural setup of Mesoamerica was established approximately in the 5000 BCE, it was precisely the time when the agricultural activities at Mesoamerica were apparently observed. More than 6000 yeas ago in Mesoamerica the wild teosinte was hybridized by means of human selection and were regarded as the ancestors of the modern maize family. On the similar account at the time of European exploration this particular crop was widely known as the major (chief crop) of the Native Americans. Other varieties of the crops being irrigated in Mesoamerica at that time included squash, bean and cocoa (Restall 69).
In the subsequent period after agricultural development in the Mesoamerica it was observed that the stout cultural practices begin to spread in the corresponding regions. These cultural traits included the theocratic traditions, the adaptation of numeric values and systems, vigesimal, and architecture within the Mesoamerica. It was also an inevitable outcome of the agricultural development that the villages became socially stratified, which further resulted into the developed chiefdom and the well defined routes for trading crops additionally the system also relished the ceremonial centers and the development and trading of luxury goods in the Mesoamerica.
References
Havemeyer, Loomis. The Drama of Savage Peoples. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1916.
Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest / . New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
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