Latin America Essay, Research Paper

Early Farmers in Central America

As the glaciers sheltered at the end of the last Ice Age, (when Asia and North

America were connected by a piece of land) the hills and mountains of Mesoamerica, or

Middle America changed dramatically. From about 7000 BC farmers from these regions

began to plant crops and this period was also known as the Archaic or Early Farming

period, the interesting thing about this is that these development in the Agriculture

coincided with the development of the agriculture in the Old World (Europe, Africa,

Asia).

Between these period people began living in camps and cave-settlements for

seasons at a time, this is the reason why they were called semi-nomads. Crop plants

became an useful food source, people no longer depended on hunting wild animals for

food, though hunting still went on. By 2000 and 1500 BC, pottery was being made, a sure

sign that the semi-nomads had become settled dwellers.

Farmers at this time used to construct their villages near the sea or a river, giving

these the opportunity to collect shellfish and catch fish from the ocean and estuaries from

rivers. Plant domestication and settlement went together, farmers began to develop better

plants. This meant more food, and a growing population settled in a same place. People

began to live in villages of thatched houses, they made clay statutes everywhere, also pots

and wave cotton. The way the used to built their houses change through the years, first

they only had lower levels on the houses, by the pass of the time, the started growing, by

the end houses were being build of three levels: Lower level, Middle Level and Upper

Level. During these phases, simple village communities started living alongside more

developed societies, which were ruled by kings or priests.

Javier Riba