Occupied America chapter 1 review

In The first chapter of Occupied America by Rodolfo Acuna, Acuna introduces several types of cultures and civilizations. Rodolfo explains how the cultures had different methods of agriculture, believes and ways of surviving.Many of the cultures or civilizations were extremely advance in technology , we can say talking for their time period. It's amazing how they were advance in astronomy and their calendars were amazing. He also talks a lot bout many different civilizations that were around and how they would fight each others and conquer their territories.Its very interesting to get to know each and every single of those civilization. Each of them had their strives and downfalls and its amazing knowing how for instance how the Olmecs were master crafts men's they carved huge heads onto giants rocks with no high tech tools,or machines. Or the Mayans how advance this civilization was in astronomy for their time period. It's very interesting to know what their sacrifices meant to them, And why they did those sacrifices. They did many awful things but for them was a way to keep the gods happy and thus keeping the civilization alive. I'm very interested in this book and looking forward to more of this class and learning new and interesting facts.The main themes in chapter one of Occupied America by Rudolfo Acuna are Agriculture and civilization on how they lived and survived. The main them that appealed to me were the Olmec . They were known as the mother culture of mexico . They had so much production of maize in 2000BC that was enough to support a whole village then they also began pottery and it amazed me how the Olmec build thousands of large temples. The Olmec were the first tropical lowland civilizations. The olmec created the calender . They later on passed its organization forms, religion and art to the Maya, Teotihuancan, and aztecs.
The themes covered in chapter one consist of background into the rise and fall of several cultures that made up mesoamerica, one of the 6 cradles of civilization. The important role religion played and how that role changed or diminished as time went on was discussed as well as the important role corn had in the development of these cultures. For me the importance of corn to the start of mesoamerica is one of the most interesting things. I was also very interested in the olmeca, how advanced they were and all the mystery surrounding the culture and its alleged demise. In addition reading about the Zapoteca and Mixteca was fascinating to me mainly because of the relationship they had with one another. They were separate but shared art styles and other aspects of their cultures.