David Carballo on Archaeology and Mesoamerica - The Atlantic - 0 views
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David Carballo: At its most ambitious, archaeology can cover the totality of the human story, from our evolution as a species to today, since the focus is on material culture rather than on texts—though we typically examine both in tandem. By material culture I mean the places we inhabit (“sites”) and the stuff we use (“artifacts”). Much of our history as a species has no written records and can only be accessed through material remains like sites and artifacts, whereas for other places and times we may have texts, but they represent the official transcripts of the rich and powerful. In those cases, archaeology can provide a voice to the “99 percent” who were non-elites yet played their part in shaping history.
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Lacking large domesticated animals, Mesoamerican civilizations developed other solutions to common concerns. Rather than extensive, plowed-field systems, Mesoamericans intensified agriculture in various ways. The ingenious system of lakeshore fields called chinampas is especially noteworthy, as they permitted multiple crop harvests per year and led to a population boom in the Aztec period.
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Lacking pack animals, Mesoamericans moved commodities using human porters over land and using canoes over water. For maximizing the circulation of goods in this environment, it made economic sense for populations to nucleate and develop brisk marketplace exchange, daily in larger cities and on a rotating schedule in more rural areas. The twin-city capital of the Aztec empire, Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco, was the largest of these, and likely larger than any city in Europe at the time except for Paris.
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