David Zheng
Honor
Mr. Schutz
World Cultures 8
16 December 2015
The Mayan: Isolated Achievers The Mayans were an impressive civilization, which existed around 3,000 years ago. During this time, they were mostly isolated, only making contact with the rest of the world 500 years ago. The Mayans were located on the Yucatan Peninsula in North America. Put simply, the geography of Mesoamerica was less favorable than the geography in Eurasian. This, coupled with the lack of useful animals of labor, lead the Mayans to discover ideas, such as farming, far later than the Europeans. Despite this, the Mayans were able to develop things like math with the use of “zero”, a trade network, impressive stone structure, and a solar calendar. All of this was …show more content…
The Mayans were located far from the central hub in the ancient world, Eurasia. Almost all the Mayans achieved was based off what they did themselves, as there was little to no contact with other civilizations. Ideas, such as farming, were seen in Eurasia as early as 7000 BCE with the farming of effective crops like wheat and rice. The same idea of farming was not seen in the New World until 3000 BCE Even when the North Americans discovered farming, they farmed hard to domestic, ineffective plants like maize and squash. Another issue the Mayans faced was the severe lack of useful domesticable animals in North America. Eurasia was dotted with useful animals that help agriculture, subsequently helping the development of cities and new ideas. The lack of a horse or ox in North America made farming more tedious. And trade also took a major hit because transporting food and ideas around the already jungled Central American was nearly impossible, and ineffective at …show more content…
Leading the charge of Mayan innovation was mathematics. While the world recognizes the Arabic numerals, few notice that the Mayans developed a similar system without help from any outsider. The Mayans used placeholder digits, like Arabic numbers. However, these Mayan numbers had twenty as a base rather than ten, meaning every “zero” after a number would result in the first number being multiplied by twenty rather than ten (Doc C). Now, while this numerical system is indeed impressive for its intellectual skill, it is not impressive in the terms of scale or effort. The other Mayan achievements mentioned; trade and architect, obviously lack intellectual skill, but are both grand examples of scale and effort. Their extensive trade system stretched across the whole Yucatan Peninsula. Now, while normally a trade system would never be considered monumental, the Mayan trade system was different. The Mayans lacked the luxuries that other trade systems had, for example horses or other animals of labor, and the Mayans needed to trade through the dense jungle terrain of Mesoamerica (Doc A). The other extraordinary, not remarkable, achievement of the Maya was there architecture. Historians have described, “ [Mayan] civilization ... as one of the great pre-industrial [cultures]of the world” (Foster 1). These massive stone buildings took immense amounts
Honor
Mr. Schutz
World Cultures 8
16 December 2015
The Mayan: Isolated Achievers The Mayans were an impressive civilization, which existed around 3,000 years ago. During this time, they were mostly isolated, only making contact with the rest of the world 500 years ago. The Mayans were located on the Yucatan Peninsula in North America. Put simply, the geography of Mesoamerica was less favorable than the geography in Eurasian. This, coupled with the lack of useful animals of labor, lead the Mayans to discover ideas, such as farming, far later than the Europeans. Despite this, the Mayans were able to develop things like math with the use of “zero”, a trade network, impressive stone structure, and a solar calendar. All of this was …show more content…
The Mayans were located far from the central hub in the ancient world, Eurasia. Almost all the Mayans achieved was based off what they did themselves, as there was little to no contact with other civilizations. Ideas, such as farming, were seen in Eurasia as early as 7000 BCE with the farming of effective crops like wheat and rice. The same idea of farming was not seen in the New World until 3000 BCE Even when the North Americans discovered farming, they farmed hard to domestic, ineffective plants like maize and squash. Another issue the Mayans faced was the severe lack of useful domesticable animals in North America. Eurasia was dotted with useful animals that help agriculture, subsequently helping the development of cities and new ideas. The lack of a horse or ox in North America made farming more tedious. And trade also took a major hit because transporting food and ideas around the already jungled Central American was nearly impossible, and ineffective at …show more content…
Leading the charge of Mayan innovation was mathematics. While the world recognizes the Arabic numerals, few notice that the Mayans developed a similar system without help from any outsider. The Mayans used placeholder digits, like Arabic numbers. However, these Mayan numbers had twenty as a base rather than ten, meaning every “zero” after a number would result in the first number being multiplied by twenty rather than ten (Doc C). Now, while this numerical system is indeed impressive for its intellectual skill, it is not impressive in the terms of scale or effort. The other Mayan achievements mentioned; trade and architect, obviously lack intellectual skill, but are both grand examples of scale and effort. Their extensive trade system stretched across the whole Yucatan Peninsula. Now, while normally a trade system would never be considered monumental, the Mayan trade system was different. The Mayans lacked the luxuries that other trade systems had, for example horses or other animals of labor, and the Mayans needed to trade through the dense jungle terrain of Mesoamerica (Doc A). The other extraordinary, not remarkable, achievement of the Maya was there architecture. Historians have described, “ [Mayan] civilization ... as one of the great pre-industrial [cultures]of the world” (Foster 1). These massive stone buildings took immense amounts