Some North American history from 2000-1000BC

Were-jaguar sculpture from
the Olmec city of San Lorenzo

This is a post about North American history from 2000-1000BC. I am not an expert on this time period at all and there is much that is still unknown and being discovered by archaeologists but the broad outlines of what I will describe here will hopefully be mostly correct. The dates presented here will be very broad estimates and may well be wildly off. This is a time before writing in this part of the world so the main sources will be entirely archaeological but I may make some references to the beliefs of later cultures.

For the purposes of this blog, North America will comprise of Alaska, Canada, the continental USA, Mexico, all the Central American countries as far as Panama, the Caribbean Islands and, for good measure and because there was nowhere else to really put it, Greenland.

Around the century of the 2000’s BC many archaeologists refer to the Mesoamerican Archaic Period ending and to the Pre-Classic period beginning. This is more a matter of definition than of any real change. Nothing really changed for the inhabitants of the region. But it is an acknowledgement that in Mesoamerica all of the major crops had been domesticated and that villages were now forming that would eventually grow into cities.

To the far north, in Greenland, a young man died.  His body was discovered four thousand years later and his genome sequenced. He is known now as Inuk, from the current Greenlandic language word for “man”. The cold climate and the fortunate preservation of some of his hair allowed for the DNA sequencing to take place and points to Inuk being closely related to the current tribes on the Russian side of the Bering Strait.

Map of Poverty Point site in Louisiana

Around the century of the 1900’s BC the cacao plant was cultivated in Mesoamerica. The initial domestication was probably to make an alcoholic beverage, but all subsequent cocoa and chocolate products in the world stem from this single domestication event. The cacao beans were very rare and were even used as currency in Mesoamerica. The elites of all the subsequent cultures in this region, until the time of the Spanish arrival, would use this item as a status symbol and in their mythology and rituals.

Over the next centuries, the peoples of Mesoamerica became ever more organised into small farming communities. In the lands that are now the United States and Canada, the people still engaged primarily in hunting and gathering. However, the hunting and gathering communities along the southern reaches of the Mississippi River were organised into small villages that were able to use the fertility of the land to support living in the same region for a long time. These people are referred to by archaeologists as the Poverty Point Culture. This was because one of the main sites of occupation was at a location called Poverty Point.

Semi-circular mounds at Poverty Point site

Around the century of the 1600’s BC the site of Poverty Point, in what is now northern Louisiana, was occupied. The site was built along a river bend and comprised of a number of large earthworks. It is unclear if this was a type of hunter-gatherer city (which would have been most unusual) or if it was a place for the roving bands to meet and trade. The answer is probably both.

Also around this time the city of San Lorenzo was occupied by the people of the Olmec culture. While the site at Poverty Point would grow greatly in size, it likely that San Lorenzo (known as San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan) in Mexico was the first true city in North America. The name of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan does not mean that the site had anything to do with the Spanish, or even the Aztecs. It is simply the name of the nearby present day settlement, after which the ancient city is named. San Lorenzo began as a village or town in the midst of a rich agricultural hinterland. It was near a river and yet not far from the sea and thus could be accessed by traders coming from all directions. It probably became a ceremonial site that grew into an actual city. This phase of Olmec history is referred to as the Formation Stage and they have good claim to being the first great civilisation of Mesoamerica.

Olmec colossal stone head from San Lorenzo

Around the century of the 1500’s BC the Marsden Mounds archaeological site was occupied by people from the Poverty Point culture group. However the large mounds currently on this site in northern Louisiana are from a much later period and a different culture.

Around the century of the 1300’s BC the city of San Lorenzo had swelled in population to over at least five thousand people, with many others living in the hinterlands. This is usually classed as the Integration stage of Olmec history. The people living in San Lorenzo farmed, traded extensively, built large dwellings and ceremonial structures, and carved enduring stone monuments. The ball-game, which was later so obsessively played in Mesoamerican cultures, may have been played there.

Of the signs of the greatness of San Lorenzo and its Olmec inhabitants, none is more spectacular than the stone heads. These are nearly spherical basalt rocks, transported from a nearby volcano and carved into representations of the heads of rulers, ball-players or deities. Some of these colossal sculptures weigh up to 28 tons.

Mound A at Poverty Point site

Around this same time, at the Poverty Point site in Louisiana, the huge Mound A was built. This currently stands 22 metres tall but was undoubtedly higher when it was built. It is shaped rather like a T and is composed over approximately 238,000 cubic metres of earth, making it a truly impressive structure. Even after a time of over thirty centuries of erosion it still looms over the landscape. It would be the largest structure in the region of what is now the United States for the next two thousand years.

The next centuries would see the Olmec culture in Mesoamerica continue to grow and flourish, with a new settlement at La Venta dating to around 1200BC and another Olmec settlement now known as Tres Zapotes being founded slightly afterwards. San Lorenzo however continued to be the main settlement.

Olmec colossal stone head from San Lorenzo

Around the century of the 1000’s BC the Woodland Period began in what is now the southern part of the continental US. This was a period where the inhabitants built mounds and engaged in trade, in a fashion quite similar to the Watson Brake and Poverty Point cultures, but covering a much larger area and extending much further northwards. The first of these cultures of note would be the Adena culture in what is now the Ohio region but these would only flourish some time later.

Thus the period draws to a close. The river dwellers of the Mississippi were creating large ceremonial structures, while still not relying on farming technology for their subsistence. Meanwhile in Mesoamerica, the Olmec cultures were flourishing and creating the first cities in the region, as well as enduring works of art that would last through the ages.

Related Blog Posts:
Some North American history from 4000-2000BC
Some North American history from 2000-1000BC
Some North American history from 1000-500BC