Societies that, historically, grew rapidly because of abundance of Environmental resources and that have collapsed after exhausting their resources
A society, or a human society, is a group of
people involved with each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping
sharing the same geographical or social territory, typically subject to the
same political authority and dominant cultural expectations.
Rapid Growth and abundant
Environmental Resources Interrelationship
 |
| Image by Tim Hill from Pixabay |
There exists a strong interrelationship between
Environmental resources available and population .Mostly people migrate to
areas having greater potential for food water or we can summarize it to be
economy is key to population .Greater resources greater will be the population
.ancient civilization were mostly found at river bank why? Because of fertile
land for crops similarly over usage of resources damage the environmental
balance and leads to excavation of societies, but consequences of environmental
degradation are very serious and harmful. Let’s see how certain societies in
history finished and why so? What relationship does environmental degradation
had to societies exit.
Chokia
Mound State
Society Name: Cahokia Mounds State
Description:
Cahokia
Mounds State Historic Site is located on the site of an
ancient Native American city
(600–1400 CE) situated directly across the Mississippi
River from modern St. Louis,
Missouri. This historic park lies in southern Illinois between East St. Louis and Collinsville. The park covers 2,200
acres (890 ha), or about 3.5 square miles, and contains about 80 mounds, but
the ancient city was actually much larger. In its heyday, Cahokia covered about
6 square miles and included about 120 man-made earthen mounds in a wide range of sizes,
shapes, and functions.
Societies have abundant of resources:
Abundant items such as copper, Mill Creek cherty, and whelk shells were
found. Mill Creek cherty, most notably, was used in the production of hoes, a high
demand tool for farmers around Cahokia and other Mississippian centers. Mississippian culture pottery and
stone tools in the Cahokia style were found at the Silverdale site near Red Wing, Minnesota, and materials and trade
goods from Pennsylvania, the Gulf Coast and Lake Superior have been excavated
at Cahokia. At the high point of its development, Cahokia was the largest urban
center north of the great Mesoamerican cities
in Mexico.
Although it was home to only about 1,000 people before c. 1050, its population
grew explosively after that date. Archaeologists estimate the city's population
at between 6,000 and 40,000 at its peak, with more people living in outlying
farming villages that supplied the main urban center. Open terrain in
this area reflected Cahokia's location on the Mississippi's alluvial flood plain but
instead soil studies have shown that the landscape was originally undulating.
In one of the earliest large-scale construction projects, the site had been
expertly and deliberately leveled and filled by the city's inhabitants.
Utilization and positive outcomes
from resources:
Excavations near Mound 34 from
2002 to 2010 revealed a copper workshop, although the one of a kind discovery
had been previously found in the 1950s by archaeologist Greg Perino but
lost for 60 years. It is the only known copper workshop to be found at a
Mississippian site. The area contains the remains of three tree stumps
thought to have been used to hold anvil stones. At the high point of its
development, Cahokia was the largest urban center north of the great Mesoamerican cities
in Mexico.
Although it was home to only about 1,000 people before c. 1050, its population
grew explosively after that date. Archaeologists estimate the city's population
at between 6,000 and 40,000 at its peak, with more people living in outlying
farming villages that supplied the main urban center. If the highest population
estimates are correct, Cahokia was larger than any subsequent city in the
United States until the 1780s, when Philadelphia's population
grew beyond 40,000.
Mistakes done:
Cahokia began to decline after AD 1300. It was abandoned
more than a century before Europeans arrived in North America, in the early
16th century, and the area around it was largely uninhabited by indigenous
tribes. Scholars have proposed environmental factors, such as over hunting and deforestation as
explanations. The houses, stockade, and residential and industrial fires would
have required the annual harvesting of thousands of logs. In addition, climate
change could have aggravated effects of erosion due
to deforestation, and adversely affected the cultivation of maize, on which the
community had depended. Another possible cause is invasion by outside peoples,
though the only evidence of warfare found so far is the wooden stockade and
watchtowers that enclosed Cahokia's main ceremonial precinct. Due to the lack
of other evidence for warfare, the palisade appears
to have been more for ritual or formal separation than for military purposes.
Consequences:
Diseases transmitted among the large, dense urban population
are another possible cause of decline. Many recent theories propose
conquest-induced political collapse as the primary reason for Cahokia’s
abandonment.
Lesson learnt:
·
The houses, stockade, and residential and
industrial fires would have required the annual harvesting of thousands of
logs. In addition, climate change could have aggravated effects of erosion due
to deforestation, and adversely affected the cultivation of maize, on which the
community had depended.
Maya
Name of Society: Maya
Description:
Maya cities were
deserted, hidden by trees, and virtually unknown until rediscovered in 1839 by
a rich American lawyer named John Stevens, who, under appointment by President
Martin Van Buren, explored and documented the existence of 44 Mayan sites and
cities.
Societies have abundant of resources:
- The Maya civilization is one of the best-known ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica.
- The Maya originated around 2600 BC in the Yucatan peninsula and rose to a cultural an geographical prominence in the classic period (250-900 A.D.) when they occupied present-day Chiapas, Guatemala, Belize, Southern Mexico and Western Honduras.
- By borrowing the ideas and tools of neighboring civilizations, the Maya were able to develop sophisticated concepts in the disciplines of astronomy and mathematics.
- They used this knowledge to construct a calendar system and implemented the mathematical concept of zero.
- The Maya developed a written language through the use of hieroglyphics and were known for their ceremonial architecture that included temple-pyramids and residential palaces.
- The Maya were also skilled farmers, potters, and weavers trading and distributing goods with distant peoples.
- The Maya were organized in city states, sharing the same beliefs and deferred to priests who derived power from their knowledge of astronomy, mathematics and numerology.
- The Maya were aware of the passage of time.
- They recorded some dates on stelae and probably much more in books that are lost now because Spanish Catholic priests destroyed them to eradicate "pagan beliefs".
- To retrace the history of the Maya we have to rely on whatever clues we can find in what is left of archaeological sites that the Spanish did not plunder or destroy.
- Deep within the tropical rainforests of Guatemala lies Tikal, one of the largest cities of the Maya civilization.
- Serving as an administrative, ritual and cultural center for the surrounding urban and agricultural regions, Tikal was home to large populations of people.
- soil exhaustion due to slash-and-burn agriculture
- Rapid depopulation of the countryside and ceremonial centers in 50 to 100 years,
- Abandonment of administrative and residential structures overpopulation water loss and erosion of topsoil evident by increased sedimentation in lakes natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes
Consequences:
- Climatic change
- Disease
- Insect Infestations
 |
| Image Source: Google Album |
Peru
Definition
Two thousand years ago a mysterious and little known civilization
ruled the northern coast of Peru. Its people were called the Mocha.
They built huge and bizarre pyramids that still dominate the
surrounding countryside; some well over a hundred feet tall. Many are so
heavily eroded they look like hills; only close up can you see they are made up
of millions of mud bricks. Out in the desert, archaeologists have also found
the 2,000-year-old remains of an extensive system of mud brick aqueducts which
enabled the Mocha to tame their desert environment. Many are still in use
today. Indeed there are signs that the Mocha irrigated a larger area of land
than farmers in Peru do now.
Who were they?
But who were
the Mocha? How did they create such an apparently successful civilization in
the middle of the desert, what kind of a society was it, and why did it
disappear? For decades it was one of the greatest archaeological riddles in
South America. But now at last, scientists are beginning to come up with
answers.
Resources
As archaeologists have excavated at Mocha sites they've unearthed
some of the most fabulous pottery and jewelry ever to emerge from an ancient
civilization. The Mocha were pioneers of metal working techniques like gilding
and early forms of soldering. These skills enabled them to create
extraordinarily intricate artefacts; ear studs and necklaces, nose rings and helmets,
many heavily inlaid with gold and precious stones.
But it was the pottery that gave the archaeologists their first
real insight into Moche life. The Moche left no written record but they did
leave a fabulous account of their life and times in paintings on pots and
vessels. Many show everyday events and objects such as people, fish, birds and
other animals. Others show scenes from what, at first sight, look like a series
of battles.
But as the archaeologists studied them more closely they realized
they weren't ordinary battles; all the soldiers were dressed alike, the same
images were repeated time and again. When the battle was won, the vanquished
were ritually sacrificed; their throats cut, the blood drained into a cup and
the cup drunk by a God-like deity. It was, the archaeologists slowly realized,
a story not of war but ritual combat followed by human sacrifice.
Finished
Many of the skeletons were deeply encased in mud which meant the
burials had to have taken place in the rain. Yet in this part of Peru it almost
never rains. Bourget realized there had to be a deliberate connection between
the rain and the sacrifices. It lead him to a new insight into the Mocha world.
The Mache, like most desert societies, had practiced a form of ritual designed
to celebrate or encourage rain. The sacrifices were about making an
unpredictable world more predictable. A harsh environment had molded a harsh civilization
with an elaborate set of rituals designed to ensure its survival.
Core Reason of Collapse
The result was fascinating. The climate record suggested that at
around 560 to 650 AD – the time the Moche were thought to have collapsed –
there had been a 30-year drought in the mountains, followed by 30 years or so
of heavy rain and snow.
If the weather on the coast was the opposite, then it suggested a
30-year El Nino - what climatologists call a mega El Nino – starting at around
560 AD, which was followed by a mega drought lasting another 30 years. Such a
huge series of climatic extremes would have been enough to kill off an
civilization – even a modern one. Here, at last, was a plausible theory for the
disappearance of the Moche. But could it be proved?
Environmental Considerations
Archaeologists set out to look for evidence. And it wasn't hard to
find. All the huacas are heavily eroded by rain - but scientists couldn't tell
if this was recent damage or from the time of the Moche. But then Steve Bourget
found evidence of enormous rain damage at a Moche site called Huancaco which he
could date. Here new building work had been interrupted and torn apart by
torrential rain, and artefacts found in the damaged area dated to almost
exactly the period Thompson had predicted there would have been a mega El Nino.
Thompson's theory seemed to be stacking up.
Then archaeologists began to find evidence of Thompson's mega
drought. They found huge sand dunes which appeared to have drifted in and
engulfed a number of Moche settlements around 600 to 650 AD. The story all
fitted together. The evidence suggested the Moche had been hit by a doubly
whammy: a huge climate disaster had simply wiped them out.
For several years this became the accepted version of events; the
riddle of the Moche had been solved.
The
Anasazi
Definition
The Anasazi ("Ancient Ones"),
thought to be ancestors of the modern Pueblo Indians. They
inhabited the Four Corners country of southern Utah, southwestern Colorado,
northwestern New Mexico, and northern Arizona from about A.D. 200 to A.D.
1300.They practiced a wandering, hunting, and food-gathering life-style from
about 6000 B.C. until some of them began to develop into the distinctive
Anasazi culture in the last millennium B.C, By A.D. 1200, horticulture (growing
maize) had assumed a significant role in the economy. Anasazi society collapsed
suddenly around 1200 AD.
Core Reason of Collapse
- Deforestation & Habitat destruction
- Soil problems (erosion, salinization, & soil fertility loss)
- Water Management problems
- Over hunting
- Over fishing
- Effects of introduced species on native species
- Human population growth
- Increased per-capita impact of people
Comments
Post a Comment