Bill Griffen
Thursdays 9:30 – 11:30 AM
January 12 through March 2, 2006
Kendal @ Hanover Training Rm.
Mesoamerica is one of the basic culture areas in early human culture history (along with Mesopotamia, India, China, Southeast Asia, and Peru). We will distinguish between Mexico and Central America as geographical areas, and will discuss why they do not coincide with Mesoamerica as a culture area, or with the many regional and local areas. Especially the major groups - Maya, Aztecs, Toltecs, Olmecs, Zapotecs and Mixtecs, their regions and linguistic manifestations - will be discussed. Relationships with bordering areas, such as South America and the U.S. Southwest, will be covered.
We will deal with basic aspects of the ways of life and how they varied, covering topics of technology (cloth-making and weaving, ceramics, pots and figurines, precious stones, metallurgy), agriculture (maize, beans, squash, chocolate, chilies, tomatoes and rubber, among others), water control (reservoirs, crop irrigation, terracing, drainage, artificial islands), monumental constructions (pyramids, temples, palaces, and roads), the ballgame and ballcourts, trade and markets, writing, the numeral system (invention of the Zero), calendars and time keeping, art and color symbolism, beliefs, and the basic organization of society, family, kingship, political organization and war.
BILL GRIFFEN, B.A. Whittier College, M.A. University of the Americas, Ph.D. University of Arizona, taught anthropology (after a brief stint in international business in Panama) and spent most of his working career in teaching and research. His M.A. was focused on the culture history of Mesoamerica; his Ph.D. and later research focused on the border area between Mesoamerica and the Greater Southwest. He continues to be very much interested in the burgeoning new information on the entire region.
