On Thursday the 20th we learned about the "early formative" period in Mesoamerica. The transition of cultures from archaic to formative includes the domestication of crops and a switch from hunter-gatherer communities to agricultural populations. We discussed what was needed to transition people into sedentary groups; there is a conundrum, does agriculture lead to sedentism or does sedentism lead to agriculture? Some of the necessary materials that helped transition the people of Mesoamerica to sedentism were: corn, beans and squash, tools made of stone and obsidian, the invent of ceramics, and jade, all of which would have lead to the separation of "classes" of people; who has it and who doesn't. The development of religion would have influenced the progression of community structures as well, with the furthering of class differentiation taking place as religious figure heads (ex, priests and kings) would come into greater power in the community.
In hieroglyphics class we talked about variation in glyph design and some of the important people in the field of glyph studies. We talked about Morley, Tatiana Proskouriakoff, and Ian Graham.
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