social organization: The Americas 1041 or “Made People.” These were ritual leaders who earned their position through their skills and service to the community They served as intermediaries between the earthly and spiritual realms These people achieved their position by climbing through ranks or orders, starting with the “scalp” society and continuing through the “hunt,” “warm clown,” and “bear medicine” societies These “societies” were in the nature of fraternal orders At the bottom of the social order were the Dry Food People These were ordinary citizens who had no official position The Made People could choose to select ritual assistants from among the Dry Food People While serving as assistants these people acted as mediators between the Dry Food People and the Made People The key point is that rank and prestige were earned by service and skill, not birthright MESOAMERICAN SOCIETY The most extensive archaeological record in the Americas exists for the people of Mesoamerica (Mexico and parts of Central America) beginning about 2500 b.c.e., although the roots of these civilizations extended even farther back in time Some Mesoamerican civilizations were highly advanced They built immense cities—cities larger than were, for example, Paris or London at the time the first Europeans arrived in the Americas—and had many of the characteristics usually thought of as belonging to modern societies, including government bureaucracies, systems of writing, calendars, sophisticated art and architecture Because of the depth and detail of the historical and archaeological record, historians know more about the social organization of the Mesoamerican cultures than they about those of other ancient American civilizations Between roughly 5000 and 2500 b.c.e life in Mesoamerica began to change dramatically The major change was a shift from hunter-gatherer societies to societies whose major source of food was cultivated plants Plant cultivation required an entirely new way of life, for agriculture demands that people remain in one place for all or much of the year, rather than roaming from one place to another in search of game When people settle to grow food and tend plots of land, they form communities, and some of these communities eventually grow into cities The cities, however, cannot provide their own food, so they come to rely on the surplus grown by surrounding rural areas This surplus supports a larger and growing class of priests, artists, engineers, civil servants, and others who are not directly involved in the production of food Further, it supports the existence of an elite that holds power, making decisions for the community as a whole The result in the ancient Americas was the development among these cultures of a social order that differed from that of their hunter-gatherer ancestors, a social order that included a high-level class or ruling elites, a middle class of artisans and craftsmen, and a lower class of farmers and peasants Historians are not certain why this change took place One theory emphasizes population growth: A larger number of people rendered hunting and gathering no longer practical, for Double-spout-and-bridge vessel with pelican and fish, Nasca culture of Peru (ca 200 b.c.e.-ca 600 c.e.); birds played an important role for Nasca people, and bird feathers were used as ornaments for people of high social rank (© The Trustees of the British Museum) hunter-gatherer bands would be stumbling across one another, leading to competition and to the depletion of game Others attribute the shift to ecological change Much of the Mesoamerican region became more arid at this time, requiring people to find ways to produce and store their own food supply and to domesticate plants that could survive in the more desertlike climate The best example is corn, which was developed from a wild plant (though botanists are not sure which plant) Over time people experimented with seeds from corn plants, developed varieties that could grow in the area’s unique conditions, and turned corn into a major subsistence crop In discussing ancient Mesoamerica, historians conventionally identify three major periods The first, the Preclassic, extended from about 1800 b.c.e to about 150 c.e (The Classic and Postclassic Periods came later and gave rise to the great civilizations of the Aztec and the Maya.) The Preclassic Period itself is typically divided into three subperiods: the Early Preclassic, from 1800 to about 1200 b.c.e.; the Middle Preclassic, from 1200 to 400 b.c.e.; and the Late Preclassic, from 400 b.c.e to 150 c.e These dates are approximate, and each Mesoamerican culture underwent changes at its own pace The divisions, though, enable historians to make meaningful generalizations about the social organization and other characteristics of Mesoamerican culture During the Early Preclassic Period social organization remained much as it was during the region’s prehistory Cultures tended to be egalitarian, without any rigid social order