365-day calendar counts. Integral to daily life, these comple-
mentary calendar systems spread throughout Mesoamerica
and dictated agricultural, ritual, and social activities until the
arrival of the Spaniards in the 16th century c.e.
Th e fi rst inhabitants of the Americas who crossed the
Bering Strait land bridge approximately 10,000 to 12,000
years ago, aft er the last ice age, surely possessed a basic un-
derstanding of the movements of the sun. However, the re-
gion’s fi rst farmers, around 2000 b.c.e., necessarily developed
a more acute interest in seasonal climate changes as they cul-
tivated important staple crops like maize, beans, squash, and
tomatoes. Early settlers created ritual centers oriented to the
cardinal directions, and several early Mesoamerican struc-
tures mark the summer and winter solstices.
For example, the Old Temple at the highland Andean site
of Chavín de Huántar dates to the late Initial Period (ca. 900–
500 b.c.e.) and forms part of a cardinally oriented ceremonial
center. A U-shaped structure typical of coastal Andean sites,
the Old Temple turned away from the other buildings at the
settlement and faced the rising sun in the east. Archaeologists
discovered that darker stones set within the patio fl oor em-
phasized the east-west trajectory of the sun and the proces-
sional movement of participants in temple rituals. Th is patio
also contained a sunken circular court.
Relief carvings of shamans in human and jaguar forms
line the walls of this court, echoing human movement
through the space. Th e entrance to the Old Temple on the
east side of the building led to a dark, windowless, and laby-
rinthine interior. Set within a cruciform space at the center
of this structure, a 15-foot-high monolithic stone sculpture
of a Chavín deity marked the intersection of the four cardi-
nal directions and a fi ft h vertical dimension, making it an
axis mundi, or center of the world. As the Andean scholar
Rebecca Stone-Miller notes, the wedge shape of the sculp-
ture probably references the shape of the local highland foot
plow. Obeisance to this supernatural deity ensured success-
ful planting.
Th e Nasca Lines, created by the Nasca people who
inhabited the Ica and Nasca Valleys of the Andean coast
around 1–700 c.e., may also mark astronomical and sea-
sonal events. Created by brushing away darker, oxidized
stone to reveal the lighter earth beneath, the Nasca Lines
create trapezoids, radial lines, and outlines of the forms of
humans, plants, animals, and other objects. Comprehen-
sible only from an aerial view, the Nasca Lines cut straight
lines across mountains and valleys, revealing forms on an
immense scale. Archaeological remains indicate ritualized
use of the lines. Studies suggest that the Nasca Lines point
to the sun’s position on the horizon at the start of the rainy
season and that the lines may run parallel to streams that
traverse the plain.
In Mesoamerica, buildings that mark astronomical phe-
nomena and a complex calendrical system developed in the
Late Formative and Proto Classic periods (400 b.c.e.–250 c.e.).
Mound J at Monte Albán, a small observatory that points to
bright stars during the zenith passage of the sun, is one of the
oldest chronographic markers and may contain some of the
earliest recorded dates in Mesoamerica.
Early inhabitants of Mesoamerica in Guatemala and
the Mexican regions of Veracruz and Chiapas devised sev-
eral methods of keeping time. Th e oldest, a 260-day calen-
dar, marked the intersection of a continuous and repeating
cycle of 20 day names and 13 numbers. As the day signs and
numbers meshed together, it took 260 days to arrive back at
the original confi guration. Painter-scribes recorded this in-
formation in almanacs, and diviners used the calendar to
interpret the future. Each day name carried positive or nega-
tive associations with a supernatural entity. Diviners called
in aft er the birth of a child assessed the nature of his or her
birth date, renaming the child on a more auspicious day as
necessary. Th e 260-day calendar probably derived from the
nine-month human gestation period.
A 365-day solar calendar came into use shortly thereaf-
ter. Th is calendar consisted of 18 periods of 20 days. Each pe-
riod had a name and associated number. Ancient Americans
considered the fi ve days remaining at the end of this count
unlucky and dangerous. People avoided activity during this
time and viewed them as unfortunate birth dates. Known
as the Vague Year, the solar year calendar lacked leap days
and eventually wandered through the seasons, necessitating
moveable feasts or periodic adjustments of the associated fes-
tivals. Mesoamericans used the 260-day and 365-day calen-
dars concurrently and kept track of the intermeshing of these
two cycles. Every 52 years the two calendar counts completed
a full cycle, or calendar round.
While the calendar round completed every 52 years
and then started over, the development of the Long Count
or Initial Series allowed records of a much longer span. Th e
Long Count posited a starting point, or zero date, equiva-
lent to the European date of 2 August 3114 b.c.e. Units of
time measured the amount of time elapsed since that point.
According to the Maya system, time was recorded in units
of 400 years, 20 years, single years, 20 days, and single days.
Th ese fi ve numbers appeared on monuments and archi-
tecture in a specifi c order, with the largest numbers fi rst.
Th e Maya used a vigesimal system, or a system based on
units of 20, the number of fi ngers and toes on a person. In
the Long Count system, all years equaled 360 days. Th ese
dates appear carved on stone monuments and portable ob-
jects, and painter-scribes may have recorded the calendar
counts in native paper manuscripts like those in use in the
16t h centur y.
No clocks from the ancient period of the Americas exist,
but early inhabitants may have noted the position of the sun
in the sky and the movement of shadows around the everyday
objects that surrounded them.See also agriculture; architecture; art; astronomy;
climate and geography; festivals; numbers and count-
ing; religion and cosmology; sacred sites; writing.calendars and clocks: The Americas 173