Definition of Mesoamerica

1
Definition of Mesoamerica

• Paul Kirchhoff coined the term "Mesoamerica" in
  1943
• His intention was to define a culture area that
  was distinct from the Southwestern U.S. and
  northern Mexico to the north and the Chibcha Area
  to the south.
• Concept based on
• geographic limits
• ethnic composition
• cultural characterictics at the time of the
  Conquest

2
Subsistence

• maize
• corn softened with ash
• large cooking plates (comales)
• three-stone hearths
• beans
• squash
• cacao (chocolate)
• also used as money
• tobacco (for smoking and healing)
• barkless dogs ("Mexican hairless")

3
Agriculture

• intensive agriculture
• terracing of slopes
• chinampas ("floating gardens")

4
Architecture

• stepped pyramids
• arrangement of buildings around a plaza
• construction with stone, mortar, and plaster
• stucco floors
• dedicatory caches in pits or cists
• roads paved with stone
• stone and clay construction
• hanging bridges

5
Religion

• I-shaped ball courts
• games played with latex (rubber) balls
• bar-and-dot for numerals
• complex pantheon of gods
• 260- and 365-day calendars
• bark-cloth or deerskin books
• accordion-style (like Chinese screens)
• autosacrifice (bloodletting)
• drawing blood from ears, tongue, or penis
• live heart removal
• ritual cannibalism

6
Dress

• earspools
• lip plugs
• turbans
• sandals
• cotton armor

7
Technology

• pyrite or magnetite mirrors
• copper working
• obsidian
• ceramics
• clubs with embedded stone chips
• spinning and weaving
• cotton cloth
• rabbit-hair textiles

8
Trade

• exchanges of valuables among elites established
  political ties
• specialized markets
• distributed basic commodities from producing to
  nonproducing sectors of society
• "ports-of-trade"

9
Social organization

• matrilineal clans (sometimes...)