Chapter 6
When I was in the sixth grade, I wrote a country report on
Mexico. I wanted to learn a bit more about my heritage. One of the things that
fascinated me then was learning about the societies that had been established
in Mesoamerica during what the book calls the second-wave era. The city of
Teotihuacan in particular is interesting, and like many other places that we
have read about recently, even if so little is known about it, excites the
imagination. The most interesting thing to me is that it seems to have been
built to plan (244). I wonder if people had official positions as city
planners, like we do now.
I like that this chapter talked about alternative societies
that “are often neglected in favor of civilizations” (230). When I read this,
it made sense to me as I was reading through that one of the reasons why many
details of these societies are unknown might be because of this. It also
probably does not help that apparently some of these societies did not develop
writing or that it has not been translated yet.
It was interesting reading about Moroe, the Nubian
civilization in the Nile Valley south of Egypt. Once the Egyptian trade route
switched from the Nile Valley to that of the Red Sea, the state weakened (236).
This was an example of how trade was and is such an important part of not only
economic life but that of a society.
Reading about the Natchez people, a chiefdom located in
southwestern Mississippi in North America, and there “sharp social classes” was
thought-provoking. This was because even though they were so distinct, the
upper-class people were required to marry commoners. Why was this? What was the
intention behind it? Maybe I will look this up later.
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