Mesoamerican Civilization

The Olmec, Mayan, Incan, and Aztec civilizations are some of the greatest ancient civilizations in history,
and yet we know very little about them compared to other parts of the world. The Olmecs are frequently
forgotten entirely, and the rest are often lumped together or confused, but they were all completely
distinct. In short, the Maya came first, and settled in modern-day Mexico. Next came the Olmecs, who
also settled Mexico. They didn’t build any major cities, but they were widespread and prosperous. They
were followed by the Inca in modern-day Peru, and finally the Aztecs, also in modern-day Mexico.

How they ended?

The distinct Mesoamerican ended with the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.

OLMEC CIVILIZATION

The first significant civilization to develop in Mesoamerica was that of the Olmecs.

1. The word Olmec means “rubber people” . The Olmec extracted latex from rubber trees growing in the
region and mixed it with juice from morning glory vines to produce rubber several millennia before
vulcanization was developed in the 19th century. Among other things, they used it to create bouncy
rubber balls to play the famous Mesoamerican Ballgame .

2. In the late 1990s, a writing-tablet-sized block of serpentine was discovered from a site near San
Lorenzo. Known as the Cascajal Block , it shows a set of 62 symbols, 28 of which are unique . A large
number of prominent archaeologists have hailed this find as the “earliest pre-Columbian writing”.

The Cascajal Block is dated to the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan phase of the Olmec civilization, which ended
around 900 BC .

The Cascajal Block may thus represent the earliest writing system of Mesoamerica making the Olmec the
first civilization in the Western Hemisphere to develop a writing system. However, there is still a lot of
debate regarding the authenticity of the Cascajal Block.

3. Olmec also constructed water drainage system using stone. Apparently, they also use it to store water
in case of dry season.

4. The Olmec may have invented the famous Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar

The ancient Maya civilization of Mesoamerica are renowned for their mathematical and astronomical
knowledge. Among other things, they had developed the concept of zero centuries before the
Europeans; and had a sophisticated and complex calendar.
The Long Count calendar used by the Maya was a non-repeating calendar representing the number of
days since a mythical creation date. As the six artifacts with the earliest Long Count calendar dates were
all discovered outside the immediate Maya homeland, several researchers believe that this calendar
predated the Maya and was possibly the invention of the Olmec .

The Long Count calendar requires the use of zero as a place-holder. Hence it is also speculated that the
Olmec may have devised the concept of zero.

MAYAN CIVILIZATION

The Maya made important discoveries in the areas of science and cosmology which enabled them to
create a complex calendar system.

The Maya also invented elastic a long time before the process of vulcanization, or rubber-making, was
discovered.

Other innovations included the creation of immense underground repositories to store water during the
dry season.

1. The ancient Maya were the first to discover the many uses of the cacao bean between 250 and 900
AD.

They mixed the cacao bean with pepper and cornmeal to make a fiery chocolate drink. Sugar was rare in
those days, which was a blessing considering there was no dental care to speak of. As a consequence,
the Maya did not suffer from sugar-related conditions such as diabetes or obesity. However, sugary
modern-day chocolate and chocolate drinks can be traced back to the Maya.

Cacao beans were also used as glue by being boiled and mixed with different bases, and were even
considered valuable enough to be used as currency.

2. The shamans took stimulating drugs to induce trance-like states during these rituals in order to make
contact with the spiritual world. These substances affected the body in such a way that pain was not felt,
and energy was increased. A number of these substances have subsequently been used as pain relief in
modern medicine.

3. INVENTED RUBBER

Experts have found that the Maya knew how to make elastic quite some time before Charles Goodyear,
the tire giant, firmly established the material in the mid-19th century. Alongside other Mesoamerican
societies, the Maya made elastic from latex and mixed it with other plant substances to make elastic
items with various properties, including bouncy balls.

The Maya took the latex from trees and blended it with the juice from vines to make elastic.

The earliest use of elastic in Mesoamerica has been dated to 1600 BC, many centuries before
vulcanization was invented. The Maya, similar to other Mesoamerican societies, used bouncy elastic balls
to play their popular ball games.

4. THE MAYAN CALENDAR

The Maya calendar is a system of three interlacing calendars and almanacs which was used by several
cultures in Central America, most famously the Maya civilization.

The Mayan Calendar consists of three separate corresponding calendars:

•the Long Count

• the Tzolkin (divine calendar)

• Haab (civil calendar).

Each of them is cyclical, meaning that a certain number of days must occur before a new cycle can begin.

The three calendars are used simultaneously.

•The Tzolkin and the Haab identify the days, but not the years.

•The Long Count date comes first, then the Tzolkin date, and last the Haab date.

•A typical Mayan date would read: 13.0.0.0.0 4

Kumku is the Haab date.

The Haab

The Haab is a 365-day solar calendar which is divided into 18 months of 20 days each and one month
which is only 5 days long ( Uayeb) .

The calendar has an outer ring of Mayan glyphs (pictures) which represent each of the 19 months.

Each day is represented by a number in the month followed by the name of the month. Each glyph
represents a personality associated with the month.

The Haab is somewhat inaccurate as it is exactly 365 days long. An actual tropical or solar year , the time
it takes Earth to orbit the Sun, takes about 365.24219 days on average. In today’s

Gregorian calendar , we adjust for this discrepancy by making almost every fourth year a leap year ,
when an extra day— a leap day —is added on the 29th of February.

The Tzolkin

The Tzolkin , meaning “the distribution of the days,” is also called the Divine Calendar and the

Sacred Round . It is a 260-day calendar with 20 periods of 13 days, and it is used to determine the time
of religious and ceremonial events. The days in each period are numbered from one to 13. Each day is
also given a name (glyph) from a sequence of 20 day names.

The Long Count

The Long Count is an astronomical calendar which is used to track longer periods of time. The Maya
called it the “universal cycle.” Each such cycle is calculated to be 2,880,000 days long (about 7885 solar
years). The Mayans believed that the universe is destroyed and then recreated at the start of each
universal cycle. This belief caused the 2012 phenomenon described above, and it still inspires a myriad
of prophecies about the end of the world.
The “creation date” for the current cycle is 4

Ahau, 8 Kumku . According to the most common conversion, this date is equivalent to August 11, 3114
BCE in the Gregorian calendar and September 6, 3114 BCE in the Julian calendar .

How to Set the Date

A date in the Mayan calendar is specified by its position in both the Tzolkin and the Haab calendars. This
creates a total of 18,980 unique date combinations, which are used to identify each day within a cycle
lasting about 52 years. This period is called the Calendar Round .

In practice, the date combinations are represented by two wheels rotating in different directions. The
smallest wheel consists of 260 teeth with each one having the name of the days of the Tzolkin . The
larger wheel consists of 365 teeth and has the name of each of the positions of the Haab year. As both
wheels rotate, the name of the Tzolkin day corresponds to each

Haab position.

The date is further identified by counting the number of days from the “creation date”, using the Long
Count calendar. A typical Long Count date has the following format:

Baktun.Katun.Tun.Uinal.Kin.

Kin = 1 Day.

Uinal = 20 kin = 20 days.

Tun = 18 uinal = 360 days.

Katun = 20 tun = 360 uinal = 7,200 days.

Baktun = 20 katun = 400 tun = 7,200 uinal = 144,000 days.

The kin , tun , and katun are numbered from zero to 19; the uinal are numbered from zero to 17; and the
baktun are numbered from one to 13.

The Long Count has a cycle of 13 baktuns , which will be completed 1.872.000 days (13

baktuns ) after 0.0.0.0.0. This period equals 5125.36 years and is referred to as the “Great Cycle” of the
Long Count .

5. MAYAN WRITING SYSTEM

•Out of all the ancient Americans, the Maya invented the most advanced form of writing, known as
“glyphs.”
•Glyphs are used to describe or represent a word, sound or even a syllable through pictures or symbols.

•History suggests that the Maya used around 700 different glyphs, and astonishingly 80 percent of the
language is still understood today.

The Maya were aware of their history and achievements, and so they wrote about them on pillars, walls,
and big stone slabs all the time. They also wrote books about almost everything such as gods, daily life,
their leaders and more. These books were made of bark and folded like a fan. Unfortunately, many of the
books were destroyed as they were assumed by the Spanish to depict the devil and demons. Luckily, a
few have survived.

The written word, known as the Maya script, is accepted to be the most comprehensive writing system in
Mesoamerica, and much Maya history was recorded in this way. Recent research has shown that these
engravings can be dated back to the third century BC. This would make the Maya the creators of writing
in Mesoamerica, and one of three known ancient civilizations where writing grew autonomously, the
others being China and Mesopotamia.

6. Mayan Technology

Remarkably, the ancient Maya managed to build elaborate temples and great cities without what we
would consider to be essential tools: metal and the wheel. However, they did use a number of other
“modern” innovations and tools, especially in the decorative arts. For example, they built complicated
looms for weaving cloth and devised a rainbow of glittery paints made from mica, a mineral that still has
technological uses today.

7. Chichén Itzá

The Maya incorporated their advanced understanding of astronomy into their temples and other
religious structures. The pyramid at Chichén Itzá in Mexico , for example, is situated according to the
sun’s location during the spring and fall equinoxes. At sunset on these two days, the pyramid casts a
shadow on itself that aligns with a carving of the head of the Mayan serpent god. The shadow forms the
serpent’s body; as the sun sets, the serpent appears to slither down into the Earth.

8. The Maya had an extremely accurate numerical system. It had only three symbols:

•0 (shell shape)

•1 (a dab)

• 5 (a bar).
•They used these three symbols to express numbers from 0 to 19

•Numbers after 19 were composed vertically in groups of 20, using place markers.

The Maya, therefore, used a base 20 or vigesimal numbering system. The use of place markers and 0
made this system much the same as the one we use today. With the base-20 system, the second position
was worth 20 times more than the numeral, the third position had 202 or 400 times the value, etc.

•The Maya likewise used shorthand to express extensive numbers like 2.4.1.9.9 where the numbers 2, 4,
1, 9, and 9 are coefficients before forces of 20. Similarly fascinating is that the Maya had built the
concept of 0 into their numbering system by 36 BC.

INCA CIVILIZATION

•The term Inka means “ruler” or “lord” in

Quechua , the main language of the Inca Empire. It was used to refer to the ruling class of the empire but
the Spanish, who conquered and destroyed their civilization in the 16th century, used it to refer to all the
people of their empire.

•The Inca Empire rose to prominence in the 15th century to become the largest empire in pre-
Columbian America.

•The Inca were great architects and engineers; and they constructed some of the most marvelous and
renowned structures by any civilization.

•A prime example of their extraordinary engineering ability is the site known as Machu Picchu , which
was voted as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World .

•The Inca built advanced aqueducts and drainage systems ; and the most extensive road system in pre-
Columbian America. They also invented the technique of freeze-drying ; and the rope suspension bridge
independently from outside influence. It is important to mention that Inca accomplished all this without
the use of the wheel, a proper beast of burden and a writing system.

The Inca had many technologies, including Stone Cutting (which they were very good at), Agriculture,
Astronomy, Mathematics, Medicine, Hydraulics, Architecture, Record-keeping and Military Tactics . They
recorded their special events on Quipus. They had a major road system of over 16,000 miles. They also
had bridges to cross over rivers, and Aqueducts to bring fresh water to the
1. THE INCA INVENTED THE TECHNIQUE OF FREEZE-DRYING TO MAKE FOOD DURABLE

Qullqa (“deposit, storehouse”)

•is a term used for the storehouse of the Inca. Qullqas were built in the tens of thousands across the
Inca empire allowing them to store more food than any other civilization till that time.

The reason for this is probably the uncertainty of agriculture in the region. Qullqas were built along
roads and near the cities and political centers. They provided food and other commodities to:

•Inca officials and armies on the move;

•to laborers; and to

•the general public

This was done in case of crop failures and shortages of food. Among the items stored at Inca storehouses
were Charqui, dried meat ; and Chuño , or freeze-dried potato.

•The Inca used the freezing temperatures at night in the Andes to freeze frost-resistant varieties of
potatoes and then exposed them to the intense sunlight of the day. Chuno was extremely durable and
could be kept in the storehouses for up to four years .

•The Inca are considered to be the first people who developed the technique of freeze-drying .

2. Roads and Communication

The Incas built a large system of roads that went throughout their empire. The roads were usually paved
with stone. Stone steps were often built into steep areas in the mountains. They also built bridges where
the roads needed to cross rivers.

Communication was accomplished by runners on the roads. Fast young men called "chaskis" would run
from one relay station to the next. At each station they would pass the message on to the next runner.
Messages were either passed verbally or by using a quipu. Messages traveled quickly this way at the rate
of around 250 miles per day.
Quipus

A quipu was a series of strings with knots.

The number of knots, the size of the knots, and the distance between knots conveyed meaning to the
Inca, sort of like writing. Only specially trained officials knew how to use quipus.

Stone Buildings

The Inca were able to create sturdy stone buildings.

Without the use of iron tools they were able to shape large stones and have them fit together without
the use of mortar. By fitting the stones closely as well as other architectural techniques, the Inca were
able to create large stone buildings that survived for hundreds of years despite the many earthquakes
that occur in Peru.

Calendar and Astronomy

•The Inca used their calendar to mark religious festivals as well as the seasons so they could plant their
crops at the correct time of the year. They studied the sun and the stars to calculate their calendar.

•The Inca calendar was made up of 12 months. Each month had three weeks of ten days each. When the
calendar and the sun got off track, the Inca would add a day or two to bring them back into alignment.

Calendar

Inca calendrics were strongly tied to astronomy. Inca astronomers understood equinoxes, solstices. They
could not, however, predict eclipses.The Inca calendar was essentially lunisolar, as two calendars were
maintained in parallel, one solar and one lunar. Time during a given day was not reckoned in hours or
minutes, but rather in terms of how far the sun had traveled or in how long it takes to perform a task.

Agriculture

The Incan civilization was predominantly an agricultural society.

•The adaptation of agricultural technologies that had been used previously allowed the Incas to organize
production of a diverse range of crops from the coast, mountains, and jungle regions, which they were
then able to redistribute to villages that did not have access to the other regions.

•These technological achievements in agriculture would not have been possible without the workforce
that was at the disposal of the Sapa Inca, as well as the road system that allowed them to harvested
crops and to distribute them throughout their territory.

•These practices were so effective that many experts believe that if they were readopted today, they
would solve the nutritional problems of Andean people for many decades.

The Incas had to create flat land to farmsince they lived in the mountains. They didthis by creating
terraces. Terraces werecarved steps of land in the mountainside. Not only did this genius way of farming
help them grow crops, it was also great for irrigation and preventing drought.

Machu Picchu

Sacred place and refuge of Inca Pachacutec It is known that Machu Picchu was a sacred place where the
Incas worshiped their gods, but that would not have been the only use that gave the Inca City; it is
known that wasalso used as a kind of retreat for the Inca Pachacutec and his family.

Machu Picchu Architecture

•Inca architecture is most known for its polygonal stones used in many religious buildings. One stone
found in a temple wall in Machu Picchu is estimated to have at least 33 corners.

•Machu Picchu is also known as the “City within the clouds” because it is located high in the Andes. Its
location provided unobstructed view of astronomical phenomenon.

Three (3) structures in the citadel of Machu Picchu that the Incas built in order to observe celestial
events.

1.The Intihuatana stone

2.the Temple of the Sun and

These structures were dedicated to the greatest deity, the Sun or Inti .

•The Intihuatana stone or Hitching Post of the Sun was used to indicate the date of the two equinoxes
and other significant celestial periods.

•Buildings and windows were strategically placed in order to observe astronomical events of importance
to the Incas. These observations served to predict changes of season and were used as an agricultural
calendar. For survival these events had to be carefully tracked.

Facts about Inca Science and Technology

•The messengers who ran on the roads were punished harshly if the message was not accurately
delivered. This rarely happened.

•The Inca built a variety of bridges including suspension bridges and pontoon bridges.

•One of the main forms of medicine used by the Inca was the coca leaf.

•The Inca developed aqueducts to bring fresh water into town.

•The basic unit of distance used by the Inca was one pace or a "thatki".

The term Aztec comes from the word Aztecah which means “people from Aztlan”.

The Aztec established Tenochtitlan (‘the city of Tenoch’) after witnessing a sign believed to be from the
god Huitzilopochtli. The sign they searched for was an eagle on a cactus holding a rattlesnake.

The Aztecs arrived in the Valley of Mexico and built one of largest and most powerful empires in Pre-
Columbian Americas.
1. THEY PERFECTED THE TECHNIQUE OF CREATING ARTIFICIAL ISLANDS CALLED CHINAMPAS

-Chinampas, often referred to as floating gardens, were more accurately artificial islands. The Aztecs
perfected the technique of building chinampas allowing them to create new land to farm and to live on.

2.THEY CONSTRUCTED A DOUBLE AQUEDUCT TO BRING FRESH WATER TO TENOCHTITLAN

-As the Aztec population in Tenochtitlan grew so did the demand for fresh water.

-In the 1420s, they initiated the construction of the Chapultepec aqueduct to bring clean water to their
city from the springs at Chapultepec on the mainland. The aqueduct had two channels each about 5 ft
high and 3 ft wide. When one channel was being maintained, the other brought water to the city thus
ensuring constant supply. The Chapultepec aqueduct ran for three miles and poured water into public
fountains and reservoirs. It is considered a remarkable Aztec accomplishment as only a few ancient
civilizations could master the engineering and construction of such a sophisticated aqueduct.

3. THEY ENGINEERED A MASSIVE DIKE TO PROTECT THEIR CITY FROM THE SURROUNDING WATER

•The Aztecs designed a huge dike or dam with a height of around 12ft and running for around 10 miles
from the southern edge of the lake to the north.

•Made of sticks, weeds and stone, it was the largest earthwork in the Americas at the time. It was fitted
with doors which could be raised or lowered to control the level of water behind it. Apart from
protecting Tenochtitlan from floods, the dike also kept the brackish waters beyond the dike, to the east.

4. THEY HAD A BASE 20 NUMBER SYSTEM.

-The Aztecs used a base 20 or vigesimal number system. Dots, or a combination of dots and bars, were
used to represent quantities up to 20. A flag was used to indicate 20, repeating it for quantities up to
four hundred. A sign like a fir tree signified 400 while a bag was used to represent 8000. Though they
had a conceptual idea of 0, it is not known whether they had a symbol for it and thus 0 was not
prevalent in their number system. The Aztecs had an understanding of multiplication and division as well
as certain principles of geometry. Their standard unit for linear measurement was land rod, which
corresponded to about 2.5 meters. Recent research has also shown that they used symbols such as an
arrow, a heart, a hand, or a bone, to represent fractional distances when calculating areas of lands.

5. A CALENDAR WITH TWO CYCLES

- The Aztec used a calendar which consisted of

1. 365-day calendar cycle called xiuhpohualli (year count)

2. 260-day ritual cycle called tonalpohualli (day count).

4. THEY HAD GREAT KNOWLEDGE OF MEDICINE AND THEY COULD PERFORM SURGERIES

•Aztec physicians, known as tictils, were accomplished herbalists who did medicinal research.

•The Aztecs believed that there were three main causes of illness:

1. punishment from an angry god or goddess;

2.black magic inflicted by an enemy

3. natural causes.

They used an extensive inventory consisting of hundreds of different medicinal herbs and plants. They
used the sap from the maguey tree as a disinfectant and to heal wounds; and Argemone mexicana as a
painkiller.

•The Aztec performed surgeries using knives made of volcanic glass. They used traction and
countertraction to reduce fractures; and sprains and splints to immobilize fractures. After the surgical
process they often covered the wound with crushed plants to aid the healing process.

•They had great knowledge of entheogenic plants and animals. Apart from using them for prophetic and
religious activities, they also used them in medicine.

•They used the passion flower as a type of antispasmodic medication to relax muscles during surgeries.