Mesoamerica Cultural Timeline

Mesoamerica Cultural Timeline This Mesoamerica timeline is built on the standard periodization used in Mesoamerican archaeology and upon which specialists generally agree. The term Mesoamerica literally means Middle America and it typically refers to the geographic region between the southern border of the United States to the Isthmus of Panama, including Mexico and Central America. However, Mesoamerica was and is dynamic, and never a single unified block of cultures and styles. Different regions had different chronologies, and regional terminologies exist and are touched upon in their specific areas below. Archaeological sites listed below are examples for each period, a handful of the many more that could be listed, and they often were inhabited across time periods. Hunter-Gatherer Periods Preclovis Period (?25,000–10,000 BCE). There are a handful of sites in Mesoamerica that are tentatively associated with the broad-scale hunter-gatherers known as Pre-Clovis, but they are all problematic and none appear to meet enough criteria to consider them unequivocally valid. Pre-Clovis lifeways are thought to have been based on broad-based hunter-forager-fisher strategies. Possible preclovis sites include Valsequillo, Tlapacoya, El Cedral, El Bosque, Loltun Cave. Paleoindian Period (ca 10,000–7000 BCE): The first fully-attested human inhabitants of Mesoamerica were hunter-gatherer groups belonging to the Clovis period. Clovis points and related points found throughout Mesoamerica are generally associated with big game hunting. A handful of sites also include fish-tail points such as Fells Cave points, a type found more commonly in South American Paleoindian sites. Paleoindian sites in Mesoamerica include El Fin del Mundo, Santa Isabel Iztapan, Guil Naquitz, Los Grifos, Cueva del Diablo. Archaic Period (7000–2500 BCE):. After the extinction of large-bodied mammals, many new technologies were invented, including maize domestication, developed by Archaic hunter-gatherers by 6000 BCE. Other innovative strategies included the construction of durable buildings such as pit houses, intensive techniques of cultivation and resource exploitation, new industries including ceramics, weaving, storage, and prismatic blades. The first sedentism appears about the same time as maize, and over time more and more people gave up mobile hunter-gatherer life for a village life and agriculture. People made smaller and more refined stone tools, and on the coasts, began to rely more on marine resources. Sites include Coxcatln, Guil Naquitz, Gheo Shih, Chantuto, Santa Marta cave, Pulltrouser Swamp. Pre-Classic / Formative Periods The Pre-Classic or Formative period is so named because it was originally thought to be when the basic characteristics of the classic civilizations such as the Maya began to form. The major innovation was the shift to permanent sedentism and village life based on horticulture and full-time agriculture. This period also saw the first theocratic village societies, fertility cults, economic specialization, long-distance exchange, ancestor worship, and social stratification. The period also saw the development of three distinct areas: central Mesoamerica where village farming arose in the coastal and highland areas; Aridamerica to the north, where traditional hunter-forager ways persisted; and the Intermediate area to the southeast, where Chibchan speakers kept loose ties to South American cultures. Early Preclassic/Early Formative Period (2500–900 BCE): The major innovations of the Early Formative period include the increase in pottery use, transition from village life to a more complex social and political organization, and elaborate architecture. Early Preclassic sites include those in Oaxaca (San Josà © Mogote; Chiapas: Paso de la Amada, Chiapa de Corzo), Central Mexico (Tlatilco, Chalcatzingo), Olmec area ( San Lorenzo), Western Mexico (El Opeà ±o), Maya area (Nakbà ©, Cerros), and Southeastern Mesoamerica (Usulutn). Middle Preclassic/Middle Formative Period (900–300 BCE): Increasing social inequalities is a hallmark of the Middle Formative, with elite groups having a closer connection to the wider distribution of luxury items, as well as the ability to finance public architecture and stone monuments such as ball courts, palaces, sweat baths, permanent irrigation systems, and tombs. Essential and recognizable pan-Mesoamerican elements began during this period, such as bird-serpents and controlled marketplaces; and murals, monuments, and portable art speak to political and social changes. Middle Preclassic sites include those in the Olmec area (La Venta, Tres Zapotes), Central Mexico (Tlatilco, Cuicuilco), Oaxaca (Monte Alban), Chiapas (Chiapa de Corzo, Izapa), Maya area (Nakbà ©, Mirador, Uaxactun, Kaminaljuyu, Copan), West Mexico (El Opeà ±o, Capacha), Southeastern Mesoamerica (Usulutn). Late Preclassic/Late Formative Period (300 BCE–200/250 CE): This period saw an enormous population increase along with the emergence of regional centers and the rise of regional state societies. In the Maya area, this period is marked by the construction of massive architecture decorated with giant stucco masks; the Olmec may have had three or more city-states at its maximum. The Late Preclassic also saw the first evidence of a particular pan-Mesoamerican view of the universe as a quadripartite, multi-layered cosmos, with shared creation myths and a pantheon of deities. Examples of Late Preclassic sites include those in Oaxaca (Monte Alban), Central Mexico (Cuicuilco, Teotihuacan), in the Maya area (Mirador, Abaj Takalik, Kaminaljuyà º, Calakmul, Tikal, Uaxactun, Lamanai, Cerros), in Chiapas (Chiapa de Corzo, Izapa), in Western Mexico (El Opeà ±o), and in Southeastern Mesoamerica (Usulutn). Classic Period During the Classic period in Mesoamerica, complex societies increased dramatically and split into a large number of polities that varied greatly in scale, population, and complexity; all of them were agrarian, and tied into the regional exchange networks. The simplest were located in the Maya lowlands, where city-states were organized on a feudal basis, with political control involving a complex system of interrelationships between royal families. Monte Alban was at the center of a conquest state that dominated most of the southern highlands of Mexico, organized around an emerging and vital craft production and distribution system. The Gulf Coast region was organized in about the same fashion, based on the long-distance exchange of obsidian. Teotihuacan was the largest and most complex of the regional powers, with a population of between 125,000 to 150,000, dominating the central region, and maintaining a palace-centric social structure. Early Classic Period (200/250–600 CE): The early Classic saw the apogee of Teotihuacan in the valley of Mexico, one of the largest metropolis of the ancient world. Regional centers began to diffuse outward, along with widespread Teotihuacan-Maya political and economic connections, and a centralized authority. In the Maya area, this period saw the erection of stone monuments (called stelae) with inscriptions about kings lives and events. Early Classic sites are in Central Mexico (Teotihuacan, Cholula), the Maya area (Tikal, Uaxactun, Calakmul, Copan, Kaminaljuyu, Naranjo, Palenque, Caracol), Zapotec region (Monte Alban), and western Mexico (Teuchitln). Late Classic (600–800/900 CE): The beginning of this period is characterized by the ca. 700 CE collapse of Teotihuacan in Central Mexico and the political fragmentation and high competition among many Maya sites. The end of this period saw the disintegration of political networks and a sharp decline in population levels in the southern Maya lowlands by about 900 CE. Far from a total collapse, however, many centers in the northern Maya lowlands and other areas of Mesoamerica continued to flourish afterward. Late Classic sites include the Gulf Coast (El Tajin), the Maya area (Tikal, Palenque, Tonin, Dos Pilas, Uxmal, Yaxchiln, Piedras Negras, Quirigu, Copan), Oaxaca (Monte Alban), Central Mexico (Cholula). Terminal Classic (as it is called in the Maya area) or Epiclassic (in central Mexico) (650/700–1000 CE): This period attested a political reorganization in the Maya lowlands with a new prominence of the Northern Lowland of northern Yucatan. New architectural styles show evidence of strong economic and ideological connection between central Mexico and northern Maya Lowlands. Important Terminal Classic sites are in Central Mexico (Cacaxtla, Xochicalco, Tula), the Maya area (Seibal, Lamanai, Uxmal, Chichen Itz, Sayil), the Gulf Coast (El Tajin). Postclassic The Postclassic Period is that period roughly between the fall of the Classic period cultures and the Spanish conquest. The Classic period saw larger states and empires replaced by small polities of a central town or city and its hinterland, ruled by kings and a small hereditary elite based at palaces, a marketplace and one or more temples. Early Postclassic (900/1000–1250): The Early Postclassic saw an intensification of trade and strong cultural connections between the northern Maya area and Central Mexico. There was also a flourishing of a constellation of small competing kingdoms, that competition expressed by warfare-related themes in arts. Some scholars refer to the Early Postclassic as the Toltec period, because one likely dominant kingdom was based at Tula. Sites are located in Central Mexico (Tula, Cholula), Maya area (Tulum, Chichen Itz, Mayapan, Ek Balam), Oaxaca (Tilantongo, Tututepec, Zaachila), and the Gulf Coast (El Tajin). Late Postclassic (1250–1521): The Late Postclassic period is traditionally bracketed by the emergence of the Aztec/Mexica empire and its destruction by the Spanish conquest. The period saw increased militarization of competing empires across Mesoamerica, most of which fell to and became tributary states of the Aztecs, with the exception of the Tarascans/Purà ©pecha of Western Mexico. Sites in Central Mexico are (Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Cholula, Tepoztlan), in the Gulf Coast (Cempoala), in Oaxaca (Yagul, Mitla), in the Maya region (Mayapan, Tayasal, Utatlan, Mixco Viejo), and in West Mexico (Tzintzuntzan). Colonial Period 15211821 The Colonial period began with the fall of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and the surrender of Cuauhtemoc to Hernan Cortes in 1521; and the fall of central America including the Kiche Maya to Pedro de Alvardo in 1524. Mesoamerica was now administered as a Spanish colony. The pre-European Mesoamerican cultures sustained a huge blow with the invasion and conquest of Mesoamerica by Spaniards in the early 16th century. The conquistadors and their religious community of friars brought new political, economic, and religious institutions and new technologies including the introduction of European plants and animals. Diseases were also introduced, diseases which decimated some populations and transformed all of the societies. But in Hispania, some pre-Columbian cultural traits were retained and others modified, many introduced traits were adopted and adapted to fit into existing and sustained native cultures. The Colonial period ended when after more than 10 years of armed struggle, the Creoles (Spaniards born in the Americas) declared independence from Spain. Edited and updated by K. Kris Hirst Sources Carmack, Robert M., Janine L. Gasco, and Gary H. Gossen. The Legacy of Mesoamerica: History and Culture of a Native American Civilization. Routledge, 2016. Print.Carrasco, David, ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Print.Evans, Susan Toby, and David L. Webster, eds. Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 2001. Print.Manzanilla, Linda R., and Leonardo Lopez Lujan, eds. Historia Antigua De Mexico. Mexico City: Miguel Angel Porrà ºa, 2001. Print.Nichols, Deborah L., and Christopher A. Pool, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.

Free Essays on Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology Nanotechnology is actually a fairly new idea. This may not seem like any big deal in terms of ethics, but just like any type of scientific advancement there are positives and negatives. Of course the ethical issues don’t stem out of just the fact that this is a new kind of science. It branches off of â€Å"what will this new scientific technology be used for?† For example, Embryonic Stem Cell research. It’s not the research that’s bad it’s how they get the cells. There are half a dozen, maybe more, different places to get the same type of cells without taking the life of that unborn child. The term, Nanotechnology, was first introduced back in the mid 1970’s by a Japanese researcher named Norio Taniguchi to mean â€Å"†¦precision machinery with tolerance of a micrometer or less† (Kilner 55-56). In the 1986 book by Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, he brought the word and it’s concept in to the public’s thought. In Layman’s terms the basic idea of Nanotechnology is to make little tiny atomic size robots that can be called upon to do whatever we want them to do. Similar to having a little computer and telling it carry out an assigned task like empty the recycle bin, or something of that sort. Or in this case telling the little robot to float around in a persons body and switch out a section of DNA so that the person’s eyes are green instead of brown. Just so we know how small this a strand of DNA is 2.3 nanometers wide or if you divided a meter stick into 1 billion sections it would be 2.3 sections wide. In many of the sciences with Nanotechnology being no exception to the rules the ethical issues are much further behind the actual research that is taking place. For some reason the research of hazards with this technology are also far behind. But isn’t that just typical of scientists? I mean here’s a group of scientists, some of the smartest men in their field of study and they ... Free Essays on Nanotechnology Free Essays on Nanotechnology Nanotechnology Nanotechnology is actually a fairly new idea. This may not seem like any big deal in terms of ethics, but just like any type of scientific advancement there are positives and negatives. Of course the ethical issues don’t stem out of just the fact that this is a new kind of science. It branches off of â€Å"what will this new scientific technology be used for?† For example, Embryonic Stem Cell research. It’s not the research that’s bad it’s how they get the cells. There are half a dozen, maybe more, different places to get the same type of cells without taking the life of that unborn child. The term, Nanotechnology, was first introduced back in the mid 1970’s by a Japanese researcher named Norio Taniguchi to mean â€Å"†¦precision machinery with tolerance of a micrometer or less† (Kilner 55-56). In the 1986 book by Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, he brought the word and it’s concept in to the public’s thought. In Layman’s terms the basic idea of Nanotechnology is to make little tiny atomic size robots that can be called upon to do whatever we want them to do. Similar to having a little computer and telling it carry out an assigned task like empty the recycle bin, or something of that sort. Or in this case telling the little robot to float around in a persons body and switch out a section of DNA so that the person’s eyes are green instead of brown. Just so we know how small this a strand of DNA is 2.3 nanometers wide or if you divided a meter stick into 1 billion sections it would be 2.3 sections wide. In many of the sciences with Nanotechnology being no exception to the rules the ethical issues are much further behind the actual research that is taking place. For some reason the research of hazards with this technology are also far behind. But isn’t that just typical of scientists? I mean here’s a group of scientists, some of the smartest men in their field of study and they ...

ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF THE 2004 TSUNAMI Research Paper

ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF THE 2004 TSUNAMI - Research Paper Example In that terrible event, it was realized that the corporate world is indeed made up of real citizens and that business is never emotionless. This arose out of the many supplies that actually came from the corporate world as small organizations and global multinationals were almost competing in their donations towards the affected people. In the analysis of the physical and economic impact of the tsunami, many issues begin to emerge. The effect of the tsunami was indeed much greater than initially presumed and some of those effects continue to be felt to this day. In the same vein, there are certainly many lessons to be learnt from the economic impact of the tsunami more than the mere short term effects on the affected countries. Physical facts The tsunami began with a seismic shift on the floor of the Indian Ocean on the 26th December 2004 off the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. The whole shift set off a giant tidal wave that destroyed and swept houses and other structures on the beac hes wherever if reached. On the Richter scale, the oceanic earthquake measured 9.0 which was certainly a strong force. In less than three weeks later, the number of people who had been confirmed dead from the effects of the tsunami had reached 165,000. More deaths were later realized from water borne diseases, malnutrition and other effects that arose later. In the end, the estimated death toll was over 300,000 (Allen 45). The countries that were physically affected by the tsunami were Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, Maldives, Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, Myanmar, Seychelles and Bangladesh. Economic impacts of the Tsunami In the face of the tsunami, the immediate direct economic impact was the radical reduction in the consumption and business activity in the affected areas. Many people were greatly affected and they totally had to rely on food donations that mainly came from the corporate bodies. The economic effect of this phenomenon was, therefore, the reduced purchasing power which certainly affected organizations which mainly relied on the Asian markets. The most affected country was Indonesia which experienced a lot of costs in the reconstruction process given that the tsunami had greatly destroyed the costal infrastructure of that country. It was estimated that in the most affected area of Aceh, the government would need over $4 billion in the next five years in order to assist in the reconstruction process given that the area was totally flattened by the great waves. Figures from the International Labor Organization (ILO) reveal that more than 1 million jobs were lost as consequence of the tsunami in Indonesia (Askew 56). In Sri Lanka, the economy was enjoying a relatively high economic growth rate and peaceful times following the end of the 2 year civil unrest in the country. Just like Indonesia, the country was faced with a hefty reconstruction bill considering that its destroyed infrastructure was certainly the most advanced in the whole affected area. The Asian Development Bank estimated the amount to be used in the reconstruction process to be over $1.5 billion (Karan 65). Most importantly, the greatest challenge in the Indonesian case was the long-term effect of the tsunami on the critical tourism industry which contributes greatly to the economy of the country. It was actually realized that tourism, which accounted up to 4.6% of the country’s GDP prior to the tsunami, was greatly affected given that most tourists had to avoid the area for several months that followed the event (Murty 65). Moreover, the tourism infrastructure was totally destroyed and this created the need for reconstruction before