Chapter 7. Classical Era Variations, Africa and the Americas
500 B.C.E. to 1200 C.E.
The African Northeast
- 300 B.C.E. to 100 C.E
- Governed by all-powerful and sacred monarch, a position occasionally conferred on women
- Rulers buried in accordance with ancient traditions along with human sacrificial victims
- Economic specialties include merchants, weavers, potters, masons, servants, laborers and slaves
- Iron tools and weapons were prominent industries
- Populated by people who practiced combination of herding, farming and periodic tribute to the ruler.
- Declined due to deforestation and kingdom’s conquest around 340s C.E. by neighboring and rising state of Axum
- Lay in the Horn of Africa
- Emerged around 50 C.E.
- Economic foundation was highly productive agriculture that used plow-based farming system
- They grew wheat, barley, millet and teff
- Decline came because of environmental changes such as soil exhaustion, erosion and deforestation. Also the rise of Islam which altered trade routes and diminished the revenue available
Along the Niger River : Cities without States
- Around 300 B.C.E to 900 C.E.
- Distinctive city-based civilization
- Most prominent was the city of Jenne-jeno
- Absence of corresponding state structure
- Cities without citadels
- Specializations included were iron smithing, cotton weavers, potters, leather workers and griots
- Decline can be attributed to a large-scale states or empires emerged in the region. Islam penetrated the region marking a gradual but major cultural transformation.
South of the Equator: The World of Bantu Africa
Bantu:
- Around 500 – 1500 C.E.
- Organized without formal political specialists
- Made decisions, resolved conflicts and maintained order by using kinship structures or lineage principles supplemented by age grades or men in their community
- Less emphasis on God but more on ancestral or nature spirits
- Performed rituals which included sacrificing of cattles
- Bantu language are still retained today, distinctive “clicks”
Civilizations of Mesoamerica
Maya:
- Around 2000 B.C.E. to 900 C.E.
- Intellectuals developed a mathematical system that included the concept of zero and place notation and was capable of complex calculations
- They plotted the cycles of the planets to predict eclipses of the sun and moon
- Constructed elaborate calendars
- Accurately calculated the length of the solar year
- Created an elaborate writing system which included pictographs and phonetic or syllabic elements
- Recorded historical events, masses of astronomical data and religious or mythological texts
- Created temples, pyramids, palaces and public plazas
- Lived in an “almost totally engineered landscape”
- Decline was due to prolonged droughts, political disunity and endemic rivalries and increased warfare
- Around 150 B.C.E to 650 C.E.
- The city was built to plan rather than evolving haphazardly
- Population was about 100,000 to 200,000 in 550 C.E.
- One of the six largest urban complex in the world during the time
- Dubbed as “City of the Gods”
- Decline is still mysterious
Civilizations of the Andes
Chavin:
- Around 2000 B.C.E.
- Chavin de Huantar became the focus of a religious movement the swept through coastal and highland Peru
- Strategic location for trade route to both coastal region and Amazon rain forest
- Decline may have been due to violence or warfare although no Chavin “empire” emerged
Moche:
- Around 100 to 800 C.E.
- Replaced Chavin
- Economy was rooted in a complex irrigation system which runoff from the Andes to fields of maize, beans, squash and cotton. They also harvested millions of anchovies.
- Governed by warrior-priests
- Decline was possibly due to periodic drought, earthquakes, occasional torrential rains which may have caused extended ecological disruption and were vulnerable to aggressive neighbors and possibly internal social tensions
North America in the Classical Era: From Chaco to Cahokia
Pit Houses and Great Houses: The Ancestral Pueblo
- Around 860 to 1130 C.E.
- Started off living in pit houses with floors sunk several feet below ground level
- Later gave rise to larger settlements known as pueblos
- Only about 5000 people
- Decline may have been due to extensive drought, warfare, internal conflict and occasional cannibalism
The Mound Builders of the Eastern Woodlands
- Around 200 B.C.E to 400 C.E.
- Dubbed as the Mound Builders
- Known to scholars as the Hopewell
- Particularly significant are the striking burial mounds, geometric earthworks, smoking pipes, human figurines, mica mirrors, flint blades, fabrics and jewelry
- Stratified societies with a clear elite and with rulers able to mobilize the labor required to build such enormous structures
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