Mokaya culture
The Mokaya culture ('corn people' in the Mixe-Zoque language) in the Soconusco region in the Mexican state of Chiapas and in southwest Guatemala is perhaps the oldest sedentary culture in Mesoamerica.
history
The Mokaya culture was only discovered in the 1970s and is almost only documented by ceramic finds, which suggest an age of no more than 3700 to 3900 years. This means that the finds would be slightly older or at about the same time as early ceramic fragments from the Olmecs on the Gulf of Mexico .
Since the manufacture of ceramic vessels is an important indicator of the settling down of hunter and gatherer cultures , research is currently based on the first sedentary culture in America, which was mainly based on corn cultivation and fishing. Sedentariness, in turn, is the prerequisite for the gradual development of a differentiated village social structure and perhaps also a differentiated religious consciousness. Several settlement sites with a size of 15 to 50 hectares were discovered in Barra ; For reasons of agriculture or defense, they sometimes even had small settlements.
In later times (approx. 1200–900 BC) the Mokaya culture was apparently overlaid by the Olmecs; It would also be possible to mix the two cultures, in which the Olmec cultural component predominated. In any case, much is still unclear - mainly due to the age of the culture and the associated small number of finds.
Locations
- Barra
- The Barra site (approx. 1850–1650 BC) is the oldest known site of the Mokaya culture. The oldest ceramics in Mesoamerica and the oldest larger settlements were found here.
- Locona
- More developed ceramics have already been excavated at the Locona site (approx. 1650–1550).
- Paso de la Amada
- In just a few kilometers from the Pacific coast distant reference Paso de la Amada mound (were mounds ) v dating back to 1700s. Discovered; perhaps the largest of these served as a substructure for a community house. In addition, a structure was found in 1995 that resembles a ball court and was built around 1400 BC. It would be the oldest known ball court in America. Both structures suggest an already organized social structure, because it is estimated that at least 20 to 50 people were involved in the construction of the mound and the ball court.
- San Carlos
- San Carlos is in the immediate vicinity of Paso de la Amada .
- La Blanca
- The later around the time from 900 to 600 BC. The site of La Blanca , dated to BC, is located about 100 km southeast of Paso de la Amada in northwest Guatemala. To what extent it can still be assigned to the Mokaya culture is questionable - at least it is mentioned in this context. The highest pyramid of this time in Mesoamerica was discovered here at 25–30 m.
literature
- Michael Blake, Brian Chisholm, John E. Clark, Barbara Voorhies, Michael W. Love: Prehistoric Subsistence in the Soconusco Region. Current Anthropology 33, 1992, pp. 83-94. JSTOR
- Robert M. Rosenswig: Sedentism and food production in early complex societies of the Soconusco, Mexico. World Archeology 38, 2006, pp. 330-55. Informaworld.
- Michael Love, Julia Guernsey: The Context and Associations of Monument 3 from La Blanca, Guatemala. The Foundation Granting Department: Reports Submitted to FAMSI. Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. (FAMSI), 2005. [1]
- Carolyn E. Tate: Reconsidering Olmec Visual Culture: The Unborn, Women, and Creation. University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas 2012 pp. 78ff ISBN 978-0-292-72852-3 [2]