The North American landscape during the thousand-year period 500 to 1500 comprised vast swaths of variable ter-rain traversed by hunter-gatherer bands, entire regions such as the Arctic
Trang 1topographic limiters or barriers (mountains, rivers, forests,
and so on); competition for space, resources, or power; the
rela-tionship of a dependent periphery to a central core; trade;
trib-ute; migration; warring; and, on a broad scale, climate change
New technologies allowed for expansion into previously
un-inhabitable areas, thereby shifting, expanding, or challenging
both borders and frontiers Any combination of these factors
contributed to the classification and continuous redefinition of
borders throughout the Americas Typically, however, the
liter-ature has had more to say about cultural and symbolic
bound-aries between groups than about the concrete, physical borders
between them Broadly speaking, because written
documenta-tion is unavailable, the exact nature of the political reality of
borders is unclear, but it is certain that people understood the
notion of territory as a thing to be defended or taken
The North American landscape during the
thousand-year period 500 to 1500 comprised vast swaths of variable
ter-rain traversed by hunter-gatherer bands, entire regions such
as the Arctic and the Pacific Northwest inhabited by
semised-entary groups moving between summer hunting and fishing
grounds and winter residences, and established agrarian
communities in the southeastern and southwestern regions
that depended on advanced irrigation techniques or plentiful
hunting and fishing to maintain settled communities
Various models have been suggested for understanding
the relationships of peoples in the Southwest, including the
Hohokam, Anasazi, and Mogollon in the period 500 to 1400
“Regional” and “macroregional” systems propose
interac-tion spheres tied together by long-distance exchange routes
While they were clearly interacting, relationships were not
always peaceful The extraordinary physical locations of the
14th-century Anasazi cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde and the
later Hopi mesa-top settlements are clearly defensive minded
and indicate regular border infractions by raiding and
war-ring parties
Border definition in the southeastern areas between
the 10th and 14th centuries is equally vague Similar to the
earlier Midwest-centered Hopewell culture (200 b.c.e.–400
c.e.) “sphere of influence,” the southeastern region is often
described as an “interaction sphere” or “interaction network”
within which large and small independent polities existed
The largest of the Mississippian centers, Cahokia, settled
near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers
With an estimated population reaching 40,000, Cahokians
directly controlled a large territory and had strong influence
on groups a thousand miles away, perhaps as far as the
Iro-quois region in the Northeast, though direct administrative
control was considerably less
Similarly, the Mesoamerican situation varied greatly over
time The dissolution of the central Mexican empire centered
at Teotihuacán by the eighth century created a vacuum and melted previous affiliations and borders Numerous Mayan polities existed independently, though extensive trade ties and even military affiliations were common The late rise of the Aztec Empire in the 13th century reconsolidated dispa-rate cultures and polities under a single authoritarian rule with genuinely adhesive borders
In the Late Classic Period (650–900) Mayan power poli-ties were divided among an increased number of centers, which suggests that the period was less centralized eco-nomically and politically Tikal in the northern Guatemalan jungles of the Petén, Yaxchilan in the Usumacinta region, Palenque in the southwestern region of Chiapas, and Copán
in the southeast just over the Honduran border with Guate-mala were all major centers that existed independently, each with various spheres of influence and border affinities Some evidence suggests that Yaxchilan was a military power that led an alliance of several primary centers, including possibly Tikal and Palenque
Increased fortification indicates antagonistic relations that challenged the sovereignty of borders Tikal occupied a strategic military position that offered natural defensive mea-sures that effectively safeguarded it against attack Swamps
to the east and west greatly limited threats from those di-rections The north and south were defended by a system of man-made earthworks, consisting of a shallow moat and an interior rubble wall, which may have been constructed during the Protoclassic Period (100–250) or early Classic Period (ca 250–550) and used throughout Tikal’s ascendancy until about
900 Trade contacts established earlier with Teotihuacán, the central Mexican empire from roughly the first to the seventh centuries, helped solidify its borders and frontiers
Similarly, the Mayan site of Becán showed defensive mo-tives Situated in the heart of the Yucatán Peninsula roughly
150 miles north of Tikal, Becán was named after its most distinctive feature, an encircling moat and rampart (from
becán, meaning “ditch filled with water”) Excavations
re-vealed that the moat was originally some 16 feet deep and more than 52 feet wide, with its interior rampart rising an-other 16 feet Ceramic evidence suggests Becán was settled around 550 in an area with promising agricultural potential
as well as control of local trade routes Subsequent fluctua-tions in population indicate shifting fortunes, and defensive facilities were built to maintain Becán’s political and eco-nomic control over the region
The central Mexican Aztec Empire founded at what is to-day Mexico City rose to prominence throughout the 14th and 15th centuries by overrunning one nearby city after the next, greatly extending their borders and eventually establishing a tribute empire encapsulating a wide swath of central Mexico borders and frontiers: The Americas 11