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In a very general way, we can sum up prehistoric cultural development in Costa Rica as follows: starting c. 1000 B C. a few small and sedentary communities, in which pottery and perhaps a northern South American subsistence pattern, i.e., mostly root cropping, were followed by a rapid increase in population and social complexity, perhaps stimulated by developing maize agriculture, complemented by polycropping (in regions of fertile, alluvial soils and abundant rain) and hunting. A culmination occurred around the time of Christ in sedentary, fairly large nodes of population, which were characterized by stratified society with complex ritual connections to Mesoamerican trade networks, and probably a redistributive hierarchy. In Guanacaste-Nicoya, a gradual shift to coastal foci occurred, accentuated markedly after c. 800 A.D.; it continued, with variable links (spiritual and commercial) to Mesoamerica, revealed by the transition from "Mayoid" to "Mexicanoid" iconography and art styles. Eventually, Greater Nicoya was defined as a buffer zone between Mesoamerica and tropical-forest cultures of southern origin. In the Central Highlands-Atlantic Watershed and (probably) the Diquis zones, the first five or six centuries A.D. saw sporadic intergroup resource competition and warfare, with head hunting and sacrifice of captives possibly indicating population pressure; the apparent intromission, c.500-700 A.D., of foreign (probably southern) peoples and tradition; changes in house and tomb forms; and the gradual degradation of ceramics, although not of other prestige items (gold replaces jade). The "balkanization" of these zones took place in the late period; they broke into relatively small, agglomerated, rudimentary-architecture settlements, for political control and defensive strategy, with occasional strong leaders who organized several centers into a site hierarchy or alliance for brief periods. Why did the cultural evolutionary process in Costa Rica (and the Intermediate Area in general), similar in its early stages to that observed in Mesoamerica and Peru, sputter and stall? Why did no "urban" centers with large pyramid complexes appear? Robert Carneiro believes that historical evidence shows that no autonomous socio-political unit, large or small, will voluntarily relinquish sovereignty in the name of cooperation or the "greater social good." Only through forceful domination (war) are states and empires forged. Betty J. Meggers postulates that endemic warfare in an "open" environment like Amazonia. overtly waged for reasons like revenge, supernatural mandates, and the taking of exogamous marriage partners, is, in reality, a regulatory device for human population in an area with a precarious ecological balance. Warfare in Costa Rica may have functioned in this fashion, and may have been even more intense, given greater population densities. Why did this conflict not result in the amalgamation of larger, more complex socio—political structures, as it apparently did in parts of Mesoamerica and Peru? The answer is that oppressed populations could successfully flee the threatened domination, emigrating to other, similar localities instead of being incorporated by force into the larger or more powerful conquering group. William Sanders and Barbara Price, in their essay on the development of "civilization" in Mesoamerica, note that it is not the lack of productive potential in tropical-forest areas like Amazonia that prevented the development of a complex society, but, rather, the presence of huge amounts of at least nominally agricultural land acting as an incentive to successful emigration. The juxtaposition of very different environments in Mesoamerica produced a cycle of competition and cooperation between "symbiotic regions," with growth and expansions trends in all participating "environmental niches", culminating in a socio-political whole bigger than the sum of its parts. Ironically, the abundance -- not the lack -- of viable ecozones may have stifled the cultural evolutionary development of much of the area between Mesoamerica and the Andes. In no way, however, did this detract from the graphic expression of a complex mythological "world view", which, in Costa Rica, combined elements of pervasive cultural traditions from both Middle and South America. Next »
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