Geography
Major landforms:
- Sierra Madre Occidental
- Sierra Madre Delsar
- Sierra Madre Oriental
- Orizaba Peak
- Popocapetti
- Volcantajomolco
- Usumacinta River
- Lake Izabal
- San Jose
- Valley of Mexico
- Main Body of Water: Gulf of Mexico
- Lake Nicarugua
Description of Area/Landform Part of Chart:
The main body of water for Mesoamerica is the Gulf of Mexico. The terrain around it is very full of foliage, this makes an ideal farming landscape, in which the body of water is used for transportation, fishing, and trading purposes. As a result, many of the cities were built along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. There were several volcanoes also located in Mesoamerica. This may have caused the Mesoamericans to relocate their civilations. This could have also destroyed much of their land. The climate in Mesoamerica is very hot, sticky, and humid. Although, the area around Lake Nicaruga was very tropical. This was located in Centroamerica within Mesoamerica. Centroamerica recieved signifigant cultural influences from the Colombian Altiplano relatint to the Usamacinta River.
Mesoamericans built many things. They would cut paths in the forest, make dirt roads, and create large irragation systems. They also created huge houses, cities, carved rocks, and huge pyramids. They also used large hand made plows to cleat fields for farming. They used all their recourses. They used as much water as they can to drink because it was very hot and rarely lived in the mountains, and usually lived in the valleys. The mountains were MUCH cooler.
Climate:
Mesoamerica has an overall tropical climate. Large ammount of direct sunlight combined with being connected to the Gulf of Mexico and several rivers makes Mesoamerica tropical year round. According to this, Mesoamericas normal normal climate is usually hot and sticky. In the winter it is around 70*F with very little rain. In spring it is warmer, around 80*F. Summer has a high probability of rainfall with a very warm climate. Autumn is cooler, but consosts of alot of rain.
To adapt to their climate, the people woved plant or animal skins into warm weather clothing, such as T-shirts and shorts, or their idea of those. The Mesoamericans also drank constantly and wore very light clothing to stay cool in the warm climate.
Trade:
The Mesoamericans took boats such as canoes to paddle down the river to trade with other tribes. Some of the Natural trade posts used by the People are the Gulf of Mexico, The Grijalva River, and the Rio Grande. They trades Items such as tin, gold, sugar, tabacco, and nucleur fuels. The nation had many natural recources. These consist of both domesticated and wild plants and animals. They also used rocks and materials to build tools for trade.
Housing:
The people built their houses in a very sturdy fashion. The mesoamericans cut slabs of rock using stone tools and combined them to make towering yet sturdy houses. They also made temples using the same techniques.They lived in huts and large temples and used lighter material that it would not always be hot inside. They mainly used stone and roughage.They cut stones into large slabs.They stacked the stones very carefuly to build homes.
Their houses protected them from the environment. as rock houses they protect people from the environment by having the roofs built at angles so that the rocks and any precipatation would slide off. The buildings were built very sturdy so that the violent storms would not knock them down.
Agriculture:
The Mesoamerican people distribute food on a strange way. The farmers are elite villigars because they control the food, and as a result they get the pick of the crop. The rest of the villagers pay much respect to the farmers and buy food from them. They are their single food recource and are a very important pary of the Mesoamerican civilization. The agriculture was mostly made up of goats and sheep. They used plows to clear land for planting. Agriculture aroused in hunters and gathers as they developed many new tools for planting and harvesting food for their civilization. As the ice ages stopped, the land grew warm and wild plants such as wheat, barley, and other grains reseeded year after year. They had many ways to take advantage of the environment. One of these is that they domesticated wild plants and another is that they used these plants for the slash and burn technique which spread widely through Mesoamerica. They used what they had to make and invent many things they didn't have.
Sources:
littlewolf.us/olmecmesoamerica.html
angelfire.com/cal/humanorgans/religion.html
docushare.ycs.K12.pa.us/dockushare/dsweb/get/document-22968/w5b09bad.pdf
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Maps:
Daniel's Map:
Jose's Map
Hannah's Map:
Kim's Map:
Captions:
There are several volcanoes in Mesoamerica. This may have caused the Mesoamericans to relocate. This could've also destroyed alot of their land. The climate in Mesoamerica is very hot and sticky. Although, the land around Lake Nicarugua is very tropical, swampy, and humid. This is located in Centroamerica which is in Mesoamerica. Centroamerica recieved signifigant, cultural influences from the Columbian Altiplano relating to the main river, the Usumacinta river.
Concept Map:
Cloth/Clothing
light clothing
Tools
Hammers
Chisels
Toys
Used Tools to make
Statues
Art
Armor
Statues of Gods worshipped....
Ruins
Found out how it was built
Occupations:
found 5'' balls
Found courts
Rings on walls- suspected of having balls thrown through
Archeology Article:
Does archoeology still influence us today? Of course is does! Archeology informs us of the past and how ancient civilizations functioned. Archeology is used to collect information on the history of the world. By the study of rocks, plants, and artifacts. Without archeology, there would not be any websites or book recources because there would be no history of anything. Wouldn't that be hard? Now you see that without archeology, many things, especially research and school, would be very hard. There wouldn't be any ways to see How things ever existed or how people in them lived. It would also be VERY hard to do any history assignments. And in millions of years, wouldn't you want people to know our ways of life so they can make our findings and inventions historical, or better??