Created by the Adena (ca. 1000 b.c.e.–ca. 200 c.e.) and
Hopewell (ca. 200 b.c.e.–ca. 400 c.e.) cultures in the area
around southeastern Ohio, the art of the Woodlands Period
(ca. 1000 b.c.e.–ca. 1000 c.e.) demonstrates keen observation
of nature and perhaps the development of religious practices.
Th e Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio, represents one
of the most striking monuments created by the Adena. A
monumental earthwork, the dimensions of the serpent form
measure 4 feet high, approximately 20 feet wide, and 1,254
feet long. Th e mouth of the serpent appears to bite an egg,
while the body undulates across the landscape, terminating
in a spiral form at the tail. Th e Adena created other earth-
works depicting birds, bears, mountain lions, and various
predatory animals. Such monuments may mark sacred sites
and could have educated local communities on the power of
these creatures or the deities they represent. Like the Adena,
the Hopewell buried their dead with small artworks and ef-
fi gy pipes. In their stone pipes, the Hopewell artists include
certain identifying characteristics, such as beak, tail, or teeth,
that make the particular species more easily recognizable.
Hopewell artists must have taught their protégées how to rec-
ognize and represent these traits in the restrained naturalism
so characteristic of the culture.
In South America many early ceremonial centers mark
basic movements of the sun, moon, and stars; represent
important cosmological concepts; and demonstrate the in-
creased importance of shamans, intermediaries between the
spiritual and mundane worlds. Shamans who directed rituals
at the Old Temple and New Temple at the highland Andean
site of Chavín de Huántar (ca. 900–200 b.c.e.) educated their
followers on the east-west trajectory of the sun, the cardinal
directions, and the axis mundi, or fi ft h vertical direction that
connected the heavens, earth, and underworld. Art and archi-
tecture underscore themes of duality and complementarity
that formed bedrock cultural beliefs, passed down through
generations of Andeans.
Archaeological excavations prove that the Moche (ca.
1–600 c.e.) on the north coast of Peru practiced an important
ceremony called the “Sacrifi ce Ritual” for hundreds of years.
Moche priests and priestesses enacted their rites, educated
their apprentices, and spread their practices to neighboring
settlements. Th ey recorded the protagonists, costumes, and
activities of the ritual on painted ceramics and murals.
Th e highland site of Tiahuanaco (ca. 300 b.c.e.–1100
c.e.), near Lake Titicaca in western Bolivia, contained a cer-
emonial core fi lled with highly symbolic monuments visible
to the surrounding community. One of them, a huge stone
portal called the Sun Gate, depicts a relief carving of a super-
natural being or shaman surrounded by bird- and human-
headed attendants. Associated with the puma, this fi gure
carries arrows and a spear thrower. Th e people of Tiahuanaco
represented the spiritual beliefs that tied their community
together in permanent stone monuments. Th ey disseminated
their ideas by copying images from ceremonial architecture
in portable textiles.
Ancient Mesoamericans also used monumental sculp-
ture, architecture, and artwork to transfer communal knowl-
edge. Unlike contemporaries in North and South America,
however, they developed pictorial writing systems and com-
plex calendar notations to record and store information. Th e
earliest evidence of these developments appears on carved
stone sculptures and monuments.
Dating to the fi rst millennium b.c.e. a stone block dis-
covered in a quarry in Veracruz, Mexico, in 2006 may rep-
resent the earliest forms of glyphic, or symbolic, writing
in Mesoamerica. While the glyphs remain undeciphered,
they resemble forms found on art of the Olmec culture
(ca. 1200–400 b.c.e.). Lightly incised glyphic marks oft en
cover three-dimensional carved celts, or axes, and stone
sculptures depicting human and animal composite fi gures.
Many glyphs seem to represent deities or cosmological in-
formation. Th ese art objects, oft en found near ritual and
ceremonial structures, may indicate that Olmec villagers
relied on priests or shamans to maintain and transmit spir-
itual knowledge on their behalf. Late Formative and Proto-
classical stone sculptures from the southern Maya region
(ca. 400 b.c.e.–250 c.e.) record extensive glyphic notations
and calendric dates.
Priests, artists, and elite persons probably commanded
the greatest knowledge in ancient Mesoamerica, train-
ing those with aptitude and interest. Commoners may have
called upon these individuals to impart their knowledge
when needed.See also architecture; art; astronomy; calendars and
clocks; children; crafts; death and burial practices;
economy; employment and labor; family; festivals;
gender structures and roles; government organiza-
tion; health and disease; hunting, fishing, and gath-
ering; language; laws and legal codes; literature;
military; music and musical instruments; numbers
and counting; occupations; religion and cosmology;
sacred sites; social organization; sports and recre-
ation; weaponry and armor; writing.FURTHER READING
Robin Barrow, Greek and Roman Education (London: Macmillan,
1987).
Stanley F. Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome: From the Elder Cato
to the Younger Pliny (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1977).
Rafaella Cribiore, ed., Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in
Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 2005).
Suresh Chandra Ghosh, History of Education in Ancient India
(Delhi, India: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 2001).
Frank P. Graves, A History of Education before the Middle Ages
(Whitefi sh, Mont.: Kessinger Publishing, 2004).
Henri Irénée Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, trans.
George Lamb (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956).386 education: further reading