Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World

to throw pieces of cedarwood onto a bonfi re to ward off the

lightning. Even though they could not have fully understood

the physical laws that explained why this was successful, suc-

cessful it was. When cedar burns, it emits a negative electrical

charge that repels the negative electrical charge in the atmo-

sphere that produces lightning.

As biologists, the ancient Americans also recognized the

principle modern scientists refer to as biodiversity—the no-

tion that there is value in maintaining diverse genetic strains

of plants and animals. Doing so allows species to adapt more

successfully to changes in conditions. Th us, for example,

they developed a bean that sprouted in underground storage

chambers; their purpose was to develop a plant they could

use in winter religious ceremonies. Th e bean, it turned out,

was resistant to a common pest that attacked bean crops.

Th us the new bean became a reliable source of food when pest

outbreaks occurred. In cultivating various crops, the ancient

Americans appear to have valued diversity in strains of the

crop and did not try to breed that diversity out.

MAIZE

Th e ancient Mesoamericans (that is, the people who inhab-

ited modern-day Mexico and parts of Central America; from

the prefi x meso-, meaning “middle”) carried out one of the

most successful plant-breeding programs in the history of the

world with the development of maize, known to most North

Americans as corn. Maize became an important staple crop

among early Americans, contributing to immense popula-

tion growth and cultural development in regions throughout

North and South America

Maize, however, does not reproduce wildly and could not

grow without human cultivation. Early Americans bred maize

out of a wild plant called teosinte over a period of many years,

though whether their success was an event or a process can-

not really be known. Teosinte can be found in small patches

at higher elevations west of the Sierra Madre in western Mex-

ico. Historians estimate that it was domesticated into maize

sometime between 4000 and 3000 b.c.e. Using sophisticated

tools they can even locate where it was domesticated: in the

drainage areas of the Balsas River in Michoacan, in western

Mexico. Its origins lay with small hunter-gatherer bands that

had migrated throughout the region, following the changes

in the seasons to fi nd deer, antelope, rabbits, and plant foods

like nuts and berries. Archaeological evidence, found pri-

marily in excavated caves in Puebla, shows that these early

Mesoamericans were experimenting with meals and grains.

Maize was not the fi rst cereal grain the early Mesoameri-

cans domesticated. Th e fi rst was a grain related to modern-

day millet. But by about 2700 b.c.e., historians believe, people

in the region were subsisting in part on a type of maize with

very small ears and just six to nine kernels per ear. Th e pro-

cess of domesticating maize continued over the next 2,000

years, and by about 1400 b.c.e. maize cultivation had spread

throughout Mexico, along with methods for grinding and

cooking the dough in the form of round, fl at cakes. By that

time maize had become the staple crop of the Mesoameri-

cans, and the development of Mesoamerican culture, includ-

ing the invention of irrigation and the emergence of pottery

and weaving, corresponded with the spread of maize as a reli-

able food source.

Th e development of maize is intimately bound up with

Mesoamerican cosmology and creation myths. (Cosmol-

ogy is the branch of philosophy that deals with the origins,

structure, and purpose of the universe.) In these myths the

world originated at a time when maize was trapped inside

mountains and boulders, where it was inaccessible to hu-

mans. Small animals such as foxes could get to the maize,

but humans were able to get to it only as a result of divine

intervention. Both the Maya and the Aztec envisioned the

process of creation as one of the gods progressively provid-

ing humans with better and better food. In the earliest stages

of humankind, humans ate only fruits and acorns. In the

next stage pine nuts were a primary food, followed by a third

stage dominated by millet. In the fourth stage of human de-

velopment, people ate the grains of the teosinte. Th e Mayan

version of the story relates that they were attracted to the

teosinte plant because they had observed grains in the dung

of wildcats that had eaten the plant. Finally, in the fi ft h stage

the gods gave Mesoamericans maize, the perfect food. Even

early Mesoamerican mythology incorporated a kind of an-

thropology and recognized that over time the conditions of

their lives improved.

Maize, put diff erently, was divinity itself. It meant life,

so it was closely associated with fertility and regeneration.

Th e rain that nourished it, which came from the heavens,

enabled people to share in the fundamental life spark of the

divine. So important to the ancient Americans was maize and

maize cultivation that the plant was central to their everyday

thought and activity.

MAYAN MATHEMATICS

Th e ancient Maya occupied the Yucatán Peninsula in mod-

ern-day Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and sections of Hondu-

ras and El Salvador. Th e Maya began to inhabit the region

in roughly 2000 b.c.e., reached the peak of their infl uence

in the early centuries of the Common Era, and began to de-

cline in the ninth century c.e. In studying Mayan history

and culture, historians refer to the classic period, extending

from about 250 to 900 c.e., as the period of the Maya’s great-

est achievements. While much of what historians know about

them dates to that period, they also know that classic Mayan

culture was built on the achievements of their ancestors dat-

ing back many hundreds of years before then.

In the 16th century Spanish explorers landed on the

Yucatán Peninsula and eventually overran the regions in-

habited by the Maya and the Aztec. Unfortunately, the early

Spanish explorers and missionaries regarded all manifesta-

tions of Mayan religious beliefs as the work of the devil and

had them destroyed. Th ese included not only religious arti-

facts but also written texts on many subjects. Only a handful

science: The Americas 947

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