Ancient civilizations of the Andes / by Philip Ainsworth Means.

  • Means, Philip Ainsworth, 1892-1944.
Date:
1931
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ancient civilizations of the Andes / by Philip Ainsworth Means. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    earth and of the atmosphere, the Mayas resorted to a sys¬ tematic burning-off of the trees and shrubs upon their planta¬ tions. Although the charred remnants of the woody growths entered the soil and benefited it, the very burning which pro¬ duced them consumed the humus in the soil itself with the result that, after each successive burning, a longer and longer period became necessary in order to permit the trees and shrubs to grow anew in the fields. There was, consequently, a perennial conflict between the benefit derived from the charred ashes of the burnt trees and the harm arising from the destruction of humus by the fire.10 The up-shot of all these factors in combination was that the region occupied by the Old Empire became intolerable to a highly civilized agricultural people during the course of the seventh century A. D. It need not surprise us, therefore, that, beginning about 450 and continuing onwards until nearly 700, there should have been an increasingly strong centrifugal movement from the Old Empire. At first, no doubt, this movement was in the nature of a colonial enterprise, the prod¬ uct of a strong and proud people’s wish to win new territories for themselves; but, as time wore on, and as the conditions already described became more and more overpowering, the colonial off-shoots ceased to be, as it were, imperialistic ges¬ tures and became the despair-engendered move of a doomed people away from a habitat that had become obnoxious. Prop¬ erly regarded this process is a sophisticated version of that whereby the primordial migrants were impelled to enter Amer¬ ica from Asia and to distribute themselves over the face of the continent. In the present case, however, the degree of sophistication was great. Although fear was its main motive it was not a movement without order and plan; rather, it was true colonization, determined by social and economic consid¬ erations and carried out by an excellently organized govern¬ mental machine. In this respect, at least in its inception, the colonizing period of the Old Empire Mayas was more nearly akin to the colonial enterprizes of the ancient Greeks than to the fortuitous wanderings of the first settlers of America.