Good Essay About Anthropology Part 1 Basketmaker II

Part, one of these essays the focus of my learning discusses the Basketmaker II peoples living in the northern Southwestern United States in what is now the Arizona and Utah connecting borders. In the lecture series presented, number one of this online course, the information discussed how this band of people living around 600 B.C.E. or 2600 years ago came to the area through migration north from Mexico. Their lives as outlined in the lecture, the PDF about Unit 9 of the course, as well as the unit chapter on “The Story of Maize” explained how living in the extreme hardships of this region proved tremendously challenging during the short life expectancy of clan members that lasted typically, only 25 years for an adult. Lecture number three explained how traveling from the Phoenix area to the Colorado Plateau took the band through extremely rough terrain into basins and over mesas. The journey went through the land of the volcanoes where black hardened lava rock covered the cone shaped mountains left by volcanoes with the biggest occurring over 50,000 years ago. As a basket maker band, communal activities included creating wondrously beautiful patterned baskets and sandals and made spectacular carvings as well.
In the second part of the series on the Maya, the information presented, again I learned about these people and their neighbors in Unite 10 of the course, the PDF, and the article provided. The highly developed civilization of the Mayan people of Mesoamerica lived in the deserts spreading from northern Mexico region across to the east occupying a third of the El Salvador and Honduran areas as known today. A highly organized civilization the Mayan political system kept city-states compiled of both smaller villages as well as hamlets controlling the people. The Time Life Video provided a simulation of the Mayan culture existing 1,000 years ago in the Americas. While Europe existed in the dark ages, the Mayans built cities of stone, created hauntingly beautiful artworks, and waged bloody war on one another through the leadership of their kings. The greatest of their cities was Tikal existed at its height around 750 A.D. with a population of 40,000 people. Warlike people as well, the article “Life and Death in a Maya War Zone” gave a detailed account of the buried remains found in a tomb at another grand Mayan city as magnificent as Tikal called Palenque where 11 skeletons of men, women, and children laid buried. Killed by rivals wanting the role of ruler of their particular city-state exemplifies the type of warfare traditional to the Mayan civilization during its reign on the Yucatan peninsula.
Archeologists believe according to the “Maya Blood of Kings” video that within 100 years of the height of the Tikal city existence, the people abandoned it as well as most of the other Mayan cities. This was a result of the 200 year series of draughts causing the people losing faith in their leaders based on their spiritual beliefs as also explained in part one of the PDFs leading to starvation and the demise of the entire city-states making up the civilization.
As I reflect on my reaction to the material explained in part one of the course about the details offered in all the quality-reading materials, the engaging videos lectures, the PDFs particular to Units 9-11. The learning journey beginning with the Basketmaker II Band moving to the Mayan, and finally further south to the other extraordinary civilizations in South America remains an exciting experience. Summarizing the three parts of the course begins with the Basketmaker II band.
These people living on the harsh Colorado Plateau proved remarkable survivors as nomadic farming hunter-gatherer people. These weavers of beautifully constructed basketry, the band moved from four rock shelter overhangs – one as big as a football field in groups of as many as 36 men, women, and children. These shelters protected them from the rain, but not from the gusting thunderstorms or flying snows of winter. Survival was dependent on the harvest of their meager corn crops. This was dependent on how the dangers affecting the crop production turned out year after year. This led to the group's decision to either stay in the rock shelter they inhabited or move to one of the other three taking the harsh and long journey moving the band to hopefully better living conditions aligned to the weather and the how well corn harvested. The typical life expectancy of the adult of the Basketmaker II band of people was 25 years of age. These people migrated from the southern regions of the New World from Mexico but further south lived another civilization called the Mayans.
The story of the Mayan civilization continues unfolding as archeologists find more of the jungle-hidden secrets of these city-state dwelling farmers. Ruled by kings waging bloody wars against one another cities, the Mayan believed in the divinity of the rulers as part of the great cosmological and spiritual powers governing their lives. Their magnificent cities, their art, their science, and their culture continue amazing the world today. The 200-year series of draughts explain what archeologists describe as the sudden demise of one of the greatest of the civilizations of the America’s in a short one hundred years. This culminated in bloody sacrifices trying to appease the gods for the draught and finally with the masses of people typified by the 40,000 living in the grand city of Tikal abandoning their homes spreading back into the jungles digging out their substance in small bands of mostly families.