Ancient Trade: 9th Century

Part 2: Transition

 

As I mentioned in part 1, trade centers changed over time.   In the ninth century A.D., my hypothetical trade route ran from Tikal in the lowlands of Yucatan north through the Toltec capital of Tula (sometimes called Tollon), continued north to the Ancestral Pueblos of Chaco Canyon, then east to the Mississippi River city of Cahokia.

9th Century Trading Centers

The four cultures—Mayan, Toltec, Ancestral Puebloan, and Mississippian Mound Builders—were in transition.   Tikal and Tula were nearing the end of their dominance in their regions, while Chaco Canyon and Cahokia would dominate their regions for centuries to come.

Tikal was the capital of one of the most powerful kingdoms of the ancient Maya.  Tikal reached its apogee during the Classic Period, ca. 200 to 900 AD. During this time, the city dominated much of the Maya region politically, economically, and militarily, while interacting with areas throughout Mesoamerica including the Toltecs to the north. 

The name “Tikal” was not the name of the city in the 9th century.  It was named Tikal after its discovery in 1840.  It was most likely called Yax Mutal at that time.  The “Mutal” probably refers to

the emblem of the reigning dynasty and roughly means “Hair Knot” referring to the hair knot worn by the “Ahua” or Ruler.  “Yax” means “first”. 

I would like to share with you this description of trade by J. Eric S. Thompson from his book, The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization:

“Throughout Middle America the principal medium of exchange was the cacao bean, with beads of spondylus shell and jade as secondary exchange units.  Cacao made an ideal currency.  Inflation was automatically controlled because if the value of the cacao dropped as a result of overproduction, more beans were taken out of circulation to make chocolate, the appetite for which was insatiable throughout Middle America.  It conformed to the law that the cheaper a desired product, the greater the demand.  Secondly, insect pests and decay made hoarding impossible; the beans shriveled and lost value.  Moreover, only certain localities were suitable for production.

“… Price depended on distance from the orchards.  … Because of its high value, there was regular counterfeiting of cacao money.  The skin of the bean was carefully lifted, the flesh removed and replaced with a wax or earth substitute or pieces of avocado rind were inserted beneath the skin of the bean to give it a well-filled look.

“… Traffic in cacao and other commodities gave rise to a wealthy merchant class.  Much of the trade in the Maya area was by canoe and was in the hands of the Chontal Maya. … Their dugout canoes, capable of holding forty or more people [were eight –feet wide] … maintained a service which girded the whole peninsula of Yucatan."

Items traded within the region were cotton mantles and loincloths from Mexico, wooden swords with pieces of flint or obsidian glued into slots down each side, little copper bells, plates and forges to melt copper, razors or knives of copper, and hatchets of sharp bright-yellow stone with wooden hafts and large quantities of cacao.  There would also have been spondylus shell and jade and salt from the north and northwest coasts of Yucatan.  The center of the canoes had covered galleys where the merchandise was kept and often women and children accompanying the traders rode inside out of the weather.

In the 9th century, these items among others would have been transported to the market in Tikal to be exchanged for exotic items transported in by foreign merchants .  These foreign traders would then haul their valuable bounty to the markets in the north.

 

-- Courtney Miller

www.CourtneyMillerAuthor.com

Ancient Trade: 9th Century

Part 1: The Great Trade Centers

 

One of the things that strikes me as I travel around to different ancient Native American sites is how focused the information is at each location.  I often get the feeling that this spot was completely isolated from the other sites in the Americas.  But then, I will run across some artifact that was found at the site that I know came from far, far away.  Or I notice some influence (like the bow and arrow or corn) that seems to have appeared on the scene and spread instantly across the continents.

Casa Bonito, Chaco Culture

This tells me that there was a lot more interaction among the different cultures than we give them credit for.  For instance, at Casa Bonita in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, they found chocolate and a parrot feathers from Central America and copper ornaments possibly fashioned at Cahokia, near St. Louis, Missouri and shells from the coast.  They had to have been trading with those cultures.  And archaeological evidence shows us that trade and communication throughout the ancient Americas was extensive and prolific.

 

 

In this series of articles, I want turn the clocks back to the 9th Century and propose a hypothetical trade route starting in Cahokia (near St Louis) connecting to Chaco Canyon (New Mexico) and Tula (or Tollon) in Mexico ending at Tikal in the Lowlands of Yucatan.  Not only were these great cities and cultural centers, there is good evidence that commerce had as much to do with their significance as anything else.

There is also good evidence that each of these cities were trading with other regional cities as well as internationally.  In the case of Chaco Canyon, for instance, it may have started as a regional center for the Ancestral Puebloan cities scattered all around the southwest.   It may have become the warehouse or storage cooperative for surrounding puebloans and then grown into a massive central storage facility, market and distribution center.  This area was notorious for erratic weather.  As populations grew, it became necessary to store surpluses in good years and then draw from them in draughts.  Hopefully, the draughts were localized and not widespread so that areas with better weather could support the less fortunate.

Cahokia was an enormous city—the largest city in the United States until 1780 when Philadelphia grew larger.  Cahokia was the home of the only known copper workshop in North America.   It hosted great ceremonies and games with a huge central plaza that had been meticulously leveled and surrounded by important mounds supporting great palaces on top of them.

All of these great trade centers were flourishing in the 9th century and, based upon the archaeological evidence, most likely traded with each other.

Mississippian City similar to Cahokia

So, what would it have been like?  Let’s start with Cahokia.  Picture a huge caravan of men and women carrying trading goods in tump baskets and on wood carriers approaching Cahokia from the west.  They send out a messenger to the leaders of Cahokia announcing their estimated arrival.  Cahokian leaders then send out messengers to other cities across the Mississippi valley and east coast and soon traders from the region flow into Cahokia with their goods.  Cahokia sponsors a great market with dances and feasts and special ceremonies.  They have already built great storage houses for just such events and have also built great houses for the visitors to stay in and have large open areas for the market and celebrations.  It is a grand affair with the market buzzing during the day and great feasts,  dances and religious ceremonies during the evening and nights.

The caravan has brought Turquoise trinkets from Chaco, cotton and obsidian from Tollon (Tula), parrot feathers and cocoa from Tikal.    They will

trade for corn, beans, squash, copper ornaments made in Cahokian shops, and shell beads and necklaces from the coast. 

In the meantime, the caravan brings news from around the world and sometimes new inventions like the bow and arrow, or advanced pottery techniques, or fertile seeds for new or improved crops.  The regional traders soak up the news and share news from the region that the caravan will carry back with them.

Over the years,  different trading centers may fall and others pop up, but the trading caravan adjusts and continues across the centuries providing a vital link between the cultures.

by Courtney Miller
www.CourtneyMillerAuthor.com

Inconvenient Arrogance, Part 4 -- The Maya

For all his learning or sophistication, man still instinctively reaches towards that force beyond. Only arrogance can deny its existence, and the denial falters in the face of evidence on every hand. In every tuft of grass, in every bird, in every opening bud, there it is.”

-- Hal Borland

Mayan City of Tikal

The Mayan culture of Central America was arguably one the most advanced civilizations in the world.  The architecture was magnificent; the Mayan calendar is still the most accurate and complex ever invented;  their knowledge of astronomy still astounds us; and their sophisticated written language is still being deciphered today.  There is good evidence that the Maya or their predecessors the Olmec had an advanced understanding of the cosmos and a written language as early as 3000 B.C.  I point to the dates on their monuments that originate from 3113 B.C.

 

But unlike the Moche culture that I described in Part 3 of this series, the Mayan culture did not fail all at once because of a single climatic event.  There are a number of reasons and I shall touch on some of them, but I still see evidence of the devastating role that arrogance played on each of the collapses.

 

Frederick Catherwood lithograph of Tulum, 1844

Unlike the Moche empire, the Maya never unified the many grand empires under a single rule.  Probably the biggest factor was that the terrain forced the different cities to be isolated and were separated by great distances.  The difficulty of agriculture to provide for the huge populations needed to support the massive cities required ever expanding cultivation of land surrounding the cities.  There is evidence of terraced hill slopes to retain soil and moisture, irrigation systems, and complex canal systems to enhance production and extend the fertility of the soil beyond what was possible with slash and burn techniques, but, because of the low protein crops, lack of domesticated animals, high humidity that curtailed storage, and difficulty of transporting crops (again no domesticated animals) a typical farmer could only produce twice what he needed for himself and his family.  A paltry surplus compared to other advanced cultures.

 

It is easy to see the affect that climate change had on the Mayan empires.   The pre-classic rise of El Mirador coincides with the wet climate that prevailed from 250 B.C.  to 125 A.D.  Then El Mirado collapsed during the drought from 125 A.D. to 250 A.D.  The rise of the classic period coincided with the return of a wetter period from 250 A.D. to 500 A.D.  The momentous event that started the collapse of the Moche culture in 536 A.D. also appears to have affected the Maya. This event coincides with the so-called “Mayan Hiatus” in 6th and 7th centuries when no monuments were erected at the well-studied site of Tikal.  There is no doubt that turmoil and confusion gave the cultures reason to pause during the several years when the sun was blocked by acidic particles in the atmosphere (refer to Part 3) and temperatures cooled.  Following the cooling period, the worst drought in the last 7,000 years peaking around 800 A.D. coincides with the collapse of the classic period.  End dates on monuments for clusters of Maya centers fall into three clusters – 810, 860, and 910 which match the severe droughts that occurred around those three dates.

 

Time and time again, the cities would expand and grow during periods of favorable weather until they were vulnerable to periods of drought and failed.  And, as we saw with the Moche, the Kings and nobles who had taken credit for prosperity were blamed for the climate change.  And, like the Moche, cruel ritual ceremonies of human sacrifice developed and increased as each empire went into collapse.

 

As Jared Diamond wrote in his Pullitzer Prize winning book “Collapse”, “In Maya society the king also functioned  as high priest carrying the responsibility  to attend to  astronomical and calendrical rituals, and thereby to bring rain and prosperity, which the king claimed to have the supernatural power to deliver because of his asserted family relationship to the gods.  That is, there was a tacitly understood quid pro quo: the reason why the peasants supported the luxurious lifestyle of the king and his court, fed him corn and venison, and built his palaces was because he had made implicit big promises to the peasants.  … [the] kings got into trouble with their peasants if a drought came, because that was tantamount to the breaking of a royal promise.”

 

Once again, the “inconvenient arrogance” that man can influence or control climate most likely brought down the magnificent Mayan culture as it did the incredible Moche. 

Continue to Part 5

 

-- Courtney Miller