Ancient Cultures of Middle America Midsemester Exam Fall 2009, Page 5

Ancient Cultures of Middle America Midsemester Exam Fall 2009, Page 5

Anthropology 3618 Ancient Cultures of Middle America

Final Exam

21 December 2009

This exam is available in electronic form

from the General Purpose Course WebDrop Folder at

https://webdrop.d.umn.edu

If you are uploading a file to WebDrop call it something like

your emailname_MA_final

Upload all six of your questions in one file.

Do not upload them separately in six files.

You must finish and turn in or upload this exam by 9:55 p.m.

Answer SIX (only 6) of the following questions. Keep in mind that there is more than one approach you can take in answering these questions. Each question is worth up to 100 points.

Follow these guidelines:

¨ Organize your answer before you begin.

¨ Be sure to state:

1. What or who something is

2. Where it occurred or is located (if appropriate)

3. Why it is important

3. When it occurred

¨ State YOUR position or approach clearly.

¨ Cite specific examples or references to support your statements.

¨ Mention problem areas or other relevant materials which you would like to consider further in a more thorough statement.

¨ Summarize your argument or discussion.

¨ Wherever appropriate use materials from more than one region of the world.

¨ Remember that each of your responses should have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Note: Do not discuss any topic at length in more than one question.

1. From the MAforum:

Discuss the role of religion in ancient Mesoamerican societies and how nature was incorporated into their beliefs.

2. From the MAforum:

How is Ancient Mesoamerica best represented today? In other words, what pieces of the various Ancient Middle American cultures are still around and used throughout the world?

3. From the MAforum:

Describe the political climate and the historical events leading to those conditions in the Valley of Mexico at the time the Aztecs arrived ~1200 AD. How did the Aztecs come to settle at what would become Tenochtitlán and how did this location influence the Aztec empire's development and adaptation to their new home?

4. From the MAforum:

Explain two major prehistoric Mesoamerican cites and what they have done to help unravel Ancient Middle American history.

5. From the MAforum:

Describe the difficulties associated with deciphering the Mayan Glyphs. What were some of the major breakthroughs that helped in the cracking of the code?

6. From the MAforum:

Discuss the similarities and differences between Maya and Aztec art and religion; compare and contrast the use of art and art making as a means of depicting religion, hierarchy, power, ritual, belief doctrines, and the like.

7. What basic characteristics of anthropology (as discussed in class on Week 1) does the video Out of the Past: "New Worlds" illustrate. How specifically does Ancient Middle America fit in?

8. What is the importance of the video The Sweat of the Sun in understanding Ancient America? Be sure to indicate why or why not.

9. The video Secrets of the Dead: "Aztec Massacre" was advertised as portraying “a . . . discovery . . . in Mexico [which] is turning history on its head. ‘Aztec Massacre’ paints a new picture of the . . . relations between the Aztecs and the Conquistadors and rewrites much of what we thought we knew about the Aztec civilization.”

Discuss the “new picture” portrayed in “Aztec Massacre” and why the producers of the film think it “is turning history on its head” and rewriting “much of what we thought we knew about the Aztec civilization.”

10. The video Lost Kingdoms of the Maya showed archaeologists digging at a rather unusual Mayan site. Describe this site and discuss its relevance and importance to Middle American archaeology in general.

11. In both The Maya and Mexico Coe and Koontz discuss the life cycles of the Maya and of the Aztec. Discuss the life cycle of either the Maya or the Aztec.

12. Optional Take-Home Question:

NOTE: Essentially you may make up ONE question total. You may either do that as a take-home and bring it to class with you, or you may do that in class the day of the exam. If you elect to do the optional take-home exam and bring it with you to class, then you must choose five (5) additional of the remaining questions presented on the actual exam, as they are presented on the exam.

If you do not like these questions, make up and answer a question of your own choice relating to a topic which you have not considered in your other answers. Answers should contain specific information supporting your position. Both your question and your answer will be evaluated. If you like these questions but simply prefer to make one of your own, go ahead.

If you elect to make up and answer a question, you may prepare your question and answer in advance and bring them with you to the exam. If you prepare your question and answer in advance you only need to answer five (5) midterm exam questions in class.

13. On Current Affairs:

On 09 December 2009 Science News reported “Ancient Maya king shows his foreign roots: Dynastic founder [at Copán] may have been installed by kingdom to the north.” The full text of the report follows.

Question: In your opinion what is the major importance of this new information? And how does this event compare with what we know from other sites in Ancient Mesoamerica?

Royal foreigner

A tomb excavated at Copán, ancient capital of a Maya state, contains the bones of the site’s first king, researchers say. New evidence suggests that a distant Maya city colonized Copán and installed this dynastic founder. Courtesy of the Early Copán Acropolis Program, U. of Penn. Museum and Instituto Hondureno de Antropologia e Historia

Ancient Maya king shows his foreign roots

Dynastic founder may have been installed by kingdom to the north

By Bruce Bower

Web edition : Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

A man’s skeleton found atop a stone slab at Copán, which was the capital of an ancient Maya state, contains clues to a colonial expansion that occurred more than 1,000 years before Spanish explorers reached the Americas.

The bones come from K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’, or KYKM for short, the researchers report in an upcoming Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. KYKM was the first of 16 kings who ruled Copán and surrounding highlands of what is today northern Honduras for about 400 years, from 426 to 820, say archaeologist T. Douglas Price of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and his colleagues. KYKM’s bone chemistry indicates that he grew up in the central Maya lowlands, which are several hundred kilometers northwest of Copán.

Along with inscriptions at Copán, the new evidence suggests that the site’s first king was born into a ruling family at Caracol, a powerful lowland kingdom in Belize. KYKM probably spent his young adult years as a member of the royal court at Tikal, a Maya kingdom in the central lowlands of Guatemala, before being sent to Copán to found a new dynasty at the settlement there, Price’s team proposes.

“These findings reinforce the notion that the Copán state was founded as part of a colonial expansion,” says archaeologist and study coauthor Robert Sharer of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “They also demonstrate the widespread connections maintained by Maya kings.” This line of investigation aims to unravel how Classic era Maya city-states, which dominated parts of Mexico and Central America from about 200 to 900, originated and developed.

Hieroglyphics at Copán that were deciphered more than 20 years ago refer to KYKM as a foreigner who was inaugurated as king in 426 and arrived the next year. But it has been unclear whether the inscriptions referred to an actual historical event or were a form of royal propaganda. In 2007, archaeologist David Stuart of the University of Texas at Austin noticed that an inscription carved on a Copán stone monument referred to KYKM by a title indicating that he was originally a Caracol lord.

Archaeologists Arlen Chase and Diane Chase of the University of Central Florida in Orlando, who direct excavations at Caracol, consider it plausible that Copán’s first king was a Caracol lord but doubt that he arrived via Tikal. No signs of a political relationship between Caracol and Tikal appear at the time that KYKM took over at Copán, Arlen Chase notes.

Instead, KYKM probably came directly from Caracol, Arlen Chase says. By the year 150, Caracol hosted numerous royal activities and had extensive ties to settlements near Copán. “It would not be surprising for Copán to have coveted a Caracol individual to become their first ruler,” he says.

Sharer led a team that tunneled beneath the remains of the Copán Acropolis, a private royal complex, about a decade ago. Workers discovered three royal tombs containing skeletons, as well as four individuals buried in pits or beneath platforms outside the tombs.

An impressive vaulted chamber called the Hunal Tomb held the remains of a roughly 55-year-old man’, adorned by several large jade objects. The tomb’s construction style and pottery offerings suggested that the man was powerful, with connections to both Tikal and another Early Classic kingdom, Teotihuacan in central Mexico. Sharer’s team regards the tomb as that of KYKM.

Ratios of strontium and oxygen isotopes in teeth from the Hunal skeleton, along with comparable data for commoners buried at Copán and for animals and people living today in Central America, support that scenario. These measurements reflect local water sources and geology where a person grew up. KYKM spent most of his early years in the Tikal region, the study concludes.

Until researchers gather a more representative sample of isotopic ratios from throughout the Maya area, KYKM’s Caracol origins remain tentative, Stuart remarks.

Three other individuals buried under Copán’s Acropolis came from outside the Copán area, the new study concludes. But a woman in one royal tomb, presumably KYKM’s wife, grew up in Copán.