Teotihuacan

chinampas (chee-NAM-pahs)

Commercial center a Teotihuacan god Teotihuacan is located in present day Mexico (look under the word 'Mexico')
 * S || * elites: controlled state bureaucracy, tax collections, and trade
 * no power was in the hands of a single ruler
 * elites grew the labor-force
 * elites told the farming families what to do ||
 * P || * no power was in the hands of a single ruler elites grew the labor-force elites told the farming families what to do P no power was in the hands of
 * Oligarchy
 * ====probably didn't have strong military force because of lack of walls or other defensive structures====
 * ====later created a strong military force to protect long-distance trade routes and to compel peasant agriculturalists to transfer their surplus production to the city==== ||
 * I || * The rapid growth in urban population initially resulted from a series of volcanic eruptions that disrupted agriculture
 * As the city elite increased their power, they forced farm families from the smaller villages in the region to relocate to the urban core
 * More than two-thirds of the city's residents retained their dependence on agriculture, walking out from urban residences to their fields fields
 * The elite organized the city's growing labor resources to bring marginal lands into production, drain swamps, construct irrigation canals, and build terraces into hillsides
 * They also expanded the use of chinampas(chee-NAM-pahs), sometimes called “floating gardens.” These were narrow artificial islands constructed along lake shores or in marshes by farmers who heaped lake muck and waste material on beds of reeds and anchored them to the shore shore.
 * Chinampas permitted year-round agriculture—because of subsurface irrigation and resistance to frost—and thus played a crucial role in sustaining the region's growing population ||
 * C || religion-
 * polytheistic
 * dedicated the largest pyramids to the Sun and Moon and Quetzalcoatl (feathered serpent, a culture god believed to be the originator of agriculture and the arts)
 * also, storm god Tlaloc and a powerful female god associated with fertility
 * human sacrifice essential
 * caused a need for masses of food
 * chinampas ||
 * E || served as a large trading cente ras well as a religious center to bring in money ||