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America: A.D. 801 to 900
∗
Jack E. Maxeld
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1 AMERICA
Back to America: A.D. 701 to 800
1.1 NORTH AMERICA
1.1.1 THE FAR NORTH AND CANADA
We have noted previously that since at least 2,300 B.C. northern Canada was inhabited by tribes of the
Arctic Small Tool people, who, after about 600 B.C., were called the "Dorsets". A Dorset longhouse, carbondated to between A.D. 800 and 900, has just recently been excavated near the shore of the Knud Peninsula
of Ellesmere Island by Professor Peter Schledermann and his associates. (Ref. 189) This house consisted
of a framework of waist-high walls built of boulders with the base measuring 16 x 148 feet, which was
believed to be the foundation for a row of skin tents. Nearby was a 100 foot row of outdoor, individual stone
hearths, 18 in number, with stone platforms, apparently used as tables, between them. The community
probably contained 100 people and debris on the longhouse oors would indicate that they dined well on
various birds, foxes, arctic hares, seals, walruses, belugas and even narwhals. This particular settlement was
evidently among the last for this people, as in the next century or two they mysteriously disappeared. At
about this same time in this 9th century the Thule Culture, which appears to have involved a new, invading
Inuit people, appeared throughout northern Canada. They had dog teams, kayaks, umiaks and winter igloos.
They were seal hunters, ivory carvers and wore tailored skin clothing. Apparently they rst coexisted with
the Dorset groups, as Dorset artifacts have been found in Thule houses. (Ref. 189, 209)
Trager (Ref. 222) says that Greenland was discovered in 900 by the Norseman Gunbjorn, who was blown
o course en route to Iceland from Norway.
1.1.2 THE UNITED STATES
In the central and southeastern United States the Mississippian Mound-builders Culture continued, with
perhaps an increasing Mexican inuence from extensive trading activities. This culture seemed to spread
throughout the southeastern United States just before A.D. 900. (Ref. 284) Exquisite carved wooden gures
have been found from the Key Marco Culture of Florida, dating to as early as A.D. 800. (Ref. 215)
The Anasazia Culture, which had originally developed from the Desert Archaic in Colorado, New Mexico
and northern Arizona, had now reached a high level of development with elaborate pueblo dwellings. At
Mesa Verde, Colorado, some apartment houses had 800 rooms. There was some irrigation and the people
were skilled in weaving, basketry, pottery, masonry, and masonry architecture. They led a ceremonial and
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artistic life and were skilled artisans in turquoise jewelry as well as wooden and bone tools and utensils.
All through this century, however, much of the southern Colorado plateau became climatically unt for
growing corn, with even the best areas marginal. Below elevations of 5, 500 feet the land was too dry and
above 7,500 it was too cold. As a result, the Anasazi were constantly moving, looking for more favorable
sites. Excavations indicate that of 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants of the Dolores Valley all were gone by the next
century. Their salvation came with new irrigation practices, using shallow channels to divert run-o onto
small elds and check dams that collected eroding soil and held the water that carried it. (Ref. 277) In
archeological classication the Pueblo I phase terminated at A.D. 900.
The Hohokams, living south and west of the Anasazi, had a much more extensive irrigation system. Fell
(Ref. 66) agrees with most that the Pima Indians of today are direct descendants of the Hohokams but be
believes that Hohokam relics in ancient Libyan language can be identied in the Pima chants, and this not
all would concede. Fell believes that the degree of cultural advancement of these 9th century, southwestern
Indians is not readily appreciated today. There is a petroglyph in the so-called Court of Antiquity in Washoe
County, Nevada, which he interprets as Arabic Ku, giving instructions on how to nd the area of a circle
by dividing it into six equal sectors and then rearranging them. The method gives an approximation of "pi"
at 3.0. At that time painted pottery was becoming more and more complex in the Mogollon area of southern
New Mexico and Chihuahua. (Ref. 64, 66, 210)
1.2 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA
Various small, non-urban centers of civilization continued in Mexico, with the Toltec period probably just
beginning. The Zapotecs had deserted Monte Albans and the Classic Mayan central lowland sites were pretty
well abandoned in this century. The northern part of this lowland culture did not decline as rapidly as the
southern portion, but one by one the major ceremonial centers were abandoned and their stelae mutilated
and calendars discontinued. Although the Yucatan cities lasted into the next century, the Mayan civilization
was doomed to collapse as had the Olmec and Teotihuacan before them. Archeological studies give no real
evidence of natural calamity, pestilence, massive slaughter or starvation and the real cause still eludes us.
Some still feel that there may be some connection to the persistence of endemic, contagious disease, possibly
yellow fever, which was called "black vomit" in the Maya pictograms. (Ref. 45, 215, 125)
Further support to the possibility of disease factors is given indirectly by the works of John L. Stephens
(Ref. 204, 205), who explored the Yucatan peninsula in the early l9th century. He found that the entire area
of the old Maya ruins was unbelievably infested with mosquitoes and severe fevers, undoubtedly both malaria
and yellow fever. In addition, the area was made almost unbearable by a small tick-like insect, Garrapatas,
which, in addition to the seriousness of their multiple bites, could well have been disease carriers.
Still another possible reason for the disappearance of the civilization is suggested by Stephens's writings,
in that the entire area is almost devoid of drinking water for several months each year. In place after place
the only source of water which the Indians had was a well hidden away in the depths of a cave, sometimes
several miles from the Indian village. For example: the village of Bolonchen, with 7,000 people, had to go
down 1,400 feet into a cave to get their water during 4 or 5 months each year. It would seem within the
realm of possibility that if two or three drought years occurred together, even such a dicult cave well supply
system might have failed and the people would have had to leave.
It must be admitted, however, that most modern writers tend to attach a political and sociological
signicance to the Maya decline. The theory is that an aristocracy controlled the great temples and religious
centers and taxed the surrounding peasants up to a point where the latter rebelled and destroyed not only
the aristocracy but their material eects - the temples and pyramids, etc., as well.
The Yucatec Society, which seems to have sprung from the original, lowland, parent Mayan Society, was
generally inferior to the latter but did have considerable metallurgic advancements and extensive geographical
locations on the peninsula. As early as 1840 Stephens had uncovered 44 ancient cities, including such
as Merido, Mayapan, Uxmal, Tankuche, Xcoch, Kabah, Chack, Skabachtshe, Labna, Kewick, Xampon,
Chunhuhu, Hiokowitz, Kuepak, Zekilna, Labphak, Iturbide, Macoba, Bolonchen and Chichen Itza. A few
further details about some of these ruins, as Stephens found them, may be of interest.
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Mayapan was situated on a great plain, thickly overgrown with vegetation. The circumference of the area
of the remnants was about 3 miles. Included was a pyramid 60 feet high, 100 feet square at the base, with
4 grand staircases. This was the original capital of the Maya when the entire peninsula was united under
one king. Supposedly Mayapan was destroyed by warring chiefs in 1420, only 270 years after the founding of
the city1 Uxmal had very elaborate hieroglyphics over doorways and great numbers of subterranean cisterns,
plaster-lined, apparently for storage of water. Ruins near Tankuche Hacienda had fabulous paintings in red,
green, yellow and blue colors. In the remains of the city of Xcoch there was a well of great depth in a cave,
with a deep track worn in the rock, made by long continued tread of thousands of people. This cave was
known by the local Indians in the 19th century and ascribed to remote people they called "antiguos". In
Kabah there were beautifully carved heiroglyphics on lintels, done so nely that it is dicult to know how it
was accomplished without metal instruments. At Chack there was another well in a deep, many layered cave
as the only water supply over a three mile area. The well was some 1,500 feet down from the cave entrance.
Ruined cities were found about every 9 miles, as Stephens trudged through the jungle. At Sachey there was
a paved road of pure white stone and the Indians said that it had originally run from Kabah to Uxmal, for
couriers carrying letters written on leaves or bark. This was a recurring legend. (Ref. 205)
The National Geographic (Ref. 155) calls A.D. 900 the end of the Classic Period of Mesoamerican
society. The people of this society shared a common heritage of shared customs, beliefs and artifacts, such
as hieroglyphic writing, a ritual ball game played in an I-shaped court, blood oerings in the forms of both
self-mutilation and human sacrices, temples on pyramid platforms, arithmetical systems using a base of 20,
use of a calendar of 365 days, with a 200 day ritual calendar besides, and some common gods. About the
only point of dierentiation between the Yucatan and the Mexican peoples was language. Absent were the
keystone arch, plow, alphabetic writing, glass, explosives, the wheel for transport and iron. Copper and gold
had appeared only about A.D. 700. (Ref. 88, 205) Additional Notes (p. 3)
1.3 SOUTH AMERICA
We mentioned in the last chapter that both the Huari and Tiahuacaco had developed great empires. The
extent of the latter one is indicated by Engle's 1974 excavation of a 23 foot raft in the far south of Peru
containing typical Tiahuanaco decorations. It was composed of several cylindrical reed rollers, held together
by small ropes. The appearance of Tiahuanacoid motifs in the coastal valleys corresponded with the disappearance of the Mochica themes farther north and the Maranga and Nazca ones farther south. Neither of
the great empires had very long lasting eects, however, and by the end of this 9th century decadence had
already reappeared in some areas as the old coastal traditions again began to dominate. (Ref. 62)
note: The Late Classic period of Central America (A.D. 600-900) shows another active time of
tool making in the region of Colha, Belize. Twenty work-shops of this period have been excavated,
identied by mounds of waste akes and broken tools. Some of these mounds are 1.5 meters deep
and cover up to 500 square meters. The end of the Late Classic may have been a violent period of
Colha. There is a skull pit containing 28 decapitated heads of men, women and children, with the
skulls placed on fragments of Terminal Classic polychromes. The pit was covered with debris from
the burning and destruction of adjacent buildings. (Ref. 304)
Forward to America: A.D. 901 to 1000
Choose Dierent Region
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Intro to Era
Africa
Central and Northern Asia
Europe
The Far East
1 All
of Stephens's dates seem to be more recent than current dating processes indicate.
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6. The Indian Subcontinent
7. The Near East
8. Pacic
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