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Aridoamerica
Aridoamerica denotes an ecological region spanning Northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States, defined by the presence of the culturally significant staple foodstuff '' Phaseolus acutifolius'', a drought-resistant bean.Pratt and Nabhan 419 Its dry, arid climate and geography stand in contrast to the verdant Mesoamerica of present-day central Mexico into Central AmericaCordell and Fowler 85 to the south and east, and the higher, milder "island" of Oasisamerica to the north. Aridoamerica overlaps with both. Because of the relatively hard conditions, the pre-Columbian people in this region developed distinct cultures and subsistence farming patterns. The region has only to of annual precipitation. The sparse rainfall feeds seasonal creeks and waterholes.Bye and Linares 273 The term was introduced by American anthropologist Gary Paul Nabhan in 1985, building on prior work by anthropologists A. L. Kroeber and Paul Kirchhoff to identify a "true cultural entity" for th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aridoamerica (orthographic Projection)
Aridoamerica denotes an ecological region spanning Northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States, defined by the presence of the culturally significant staple foodstuff ''Phaseolus acutifolius'', a drought-resistant bean.Pratt and Nabhan 419 Its dry, arid climate and geography stand in contrast to the verdant Mesoamerica of present-day central Mexico into Central AmericaCordell and Fowler 85 to the south and east, and the higher, milder "island" of Oasisamerica to the north. Aridoamerica overlaps with both. Because of the relatively hard conditions, the pre-Columbian people in this region developed distinct cultures and subsistence farming patterns. The region has only to of annual precipitation. The sparse rainfall feeds seasonal creeks and waterholes.Bye and Linares 273 The term was introduced by American anthropologist Gary Paul Nabhan in 1985, building on prior work by anthropologists A. L. Kroeber and Paul Kirchhoff to identify a "true cultural entity" for the des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oasisamerica
Oasisamerica is a term that was coined by Paul Kirchhoff (who also coined "Mesoamerica") and published in a 1954 article, and is used by some scholars, primarily Mexican anthropologists, for the broad cultural area defining pre-Columbian southwestern North America. It extends from modern-day Utah down to southern Chihuahua, and from the coast on the Gulf of California eastward to the Río Bravo river valley. Its name comes from its position in relationship with the similar regions of Mesoamerica and mostly nomadic Aridoamerica. The term ''Greater Southwest'' is often used to describe this region by American anthropologists. As opposed to their nomadic Aridoamerican neighbors, the Oasisamericans primarily had agricultural societies. List of peoples * Ak Chin, Arizona * Southern Athabaskan **Chiricahua Apache, New Mexico and Oklahoma **Jicarilla Apache, New Mexico **Lipan Apache, Texas **Mescalero Apache, New Mexico **Navajo (Navaho, Diné), Arizona and New Mexico **San Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Mexico
Northern Mexico ( es, el Norte de México ), commonly referred as , is an informal term for the northern cultural and geographical area in Mexico. Depending on the source, it contains some or all of the states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo León, Sinaloa, Sonora and Tamaulipas. There is no specific border that separates the northern states from the southern states in Mexico. For some authors, only states that have a border with the United States are considered as northern Mexico, i.e. Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Sonora and Tamaulipas. Others also include Durango, Sinaloa and Baja California Sur. Other people consider that the north starts above the Tropic of Cancer, but this description would include some parts of Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí that are not considered northern states. History Before colonization It is not known exactly when the first settlers came to Northern Mexico. The harsh cli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nahua People
The Nahuas () are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador. The Mexica ( Aztecs) were of Nahua ethnicity, and the Toltecs are often thought to have been as well, though in the pre-Columbian period Nahuas were subdivided into many groups that did not necessarily share a common identity. Their Nahuan languages, or Nahuatl, consist of many variants, several of which are mutually unintelligible. About 1.5 million Nahuas speak Nahuatl and another million speak only Spanish. Fewer than 1,000 native speakers of Nahuatl remain in El Salvador. It is suggested that the Nahua peoples originated near Aridoamerica, in regions of the present day Mexican states of Durango and Nayarit or the Bajío region. They split off from the other Uto-Aztecan speaking peoples and migrated into central Mexico around 500 CE. The Nahua then settled in and around the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chichimeca
Chichimeca () is the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who were established in present-day Bajio region of Mexico. Chichimeca carried the meaning as the Roman term "barbarian" that described Germanic tribes. The name, with its pejorative sense, was adopted by the Spanish Empire. For the Spanish, in the words of scholar Charlotte M. Gradie, "the Chichimecas were a wild, nomadic people who lived north of the Valley of Mexico. They had no fixed dwelling places, lived by hunting, wore little clothes and fiercely resisted foreign intrusion into their territory, which happened to contain silver mines the Spanish wished to exploit." In spite of not having temples or idols, they practiced animal sacrifice, and they were feared for their expertise and brutality in war. The Spanish invasion resulted in a "drastic population decline of all the peoples known collectively as Chichimecas, and to the eventual disappearance as peoples ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Within this region pre-Columbian societies flourished for more than 3,000 years before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Mesoamerica was the site of two of the most profound historical transformations in world history: primary urban generation, and the formation of New World cultures out of the long encounters among indigenous, European, African and Asian cultures. In the 16th century, Eurasian diseases such as smallpox and measles, which were endemic among the colonists but new to North America, caused the deaths of upwards of 90% of the indigenous people, resulting in great losses to their societies and cultures. Mesoamerica is one of the five areas in the world where ancient civilization arose independently (see cradle of civ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-Columbian Era
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the Migration to the New World, original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization of the Americas, European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, the era covers the history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous cultures until significant influence by Europeans. This may have occurred decades or even centuries after Columbus for certain cultures. Many pre-Columbian civilizations were marked by permanent settlements, cities, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, major earthworks (archaeology), earthworks, and Complex society, complex societal hierarchies. Some of these civilizations had long faded by the time of the first permanent European colonies (c. late 16th–early 17th centuries), and are known only through archaeology of the Americas, archaeological investigations and oral history. Other civi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agave Americana
''Agave americana'', common names century plant, maguey, or American aloe, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to Mexico and the United States in Texas. It is cultivated worldwide as an ornamental plant, and has been naturalized in many regions, including parts of the West Indies, South America, Mediterranean Basin, Africa, Canary Islands, India, China, Thailand, and Australia. Despite the common name "American aloe", it is not in the same family as aloe, though it is in the same order, Asparagales. Description Although it is called the century plant, it typically lives only 10 to 30 years. It has a spread around with gray-green leaves of long, each with a prickly margin and a heavy spike at the tip that can pierce deeply. Near the end of its life, the plant sends up a tall, branched stalk, laden with yellow blossoms, that may reach a total height up to . Its common name derives from its semelparous nature of flowering only once at the end ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nopal
Nopal (from the Nahuatl word for the pads of the plant) is a common name in Spanish for ''Opuntia'' cacti (commonly referred to in English as ''prickly pear''), as well as for its pads. There are about 114 known species in Mexico, where it is a common ingredient in numerous Mexican cuisine dishes. The nopal pads can be eaten raw or cooked, used in marmalades, soups, stews and salads, as well as being used for traditional medicine or as fodder for animals. Farmed nopales are most often of the species ''Opuntia ficus-indica'' or ''Opuntia matudae'' although the pads of almost all ''Opuntia'' species are edible. The other part of the nopal cactus that is edible is the fruit, called the in Spanish and the "prickly pear" in English. Nopales are generally sold fresh in Mexico, cleaned of thorns, and sliced to the customer's desire on the spot. They can also be found canned or bottled as nopalitos, and less often dried, especially for export. Cut into slices or diced into cubes, n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Century Plant
''Agave americana'', common names century plant, maguey, or American aloe, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to Mexico and the United States in Texas. It is cultivated worldwide as an ornamental plant, and has been naturalized in many regions, including parts of the West Indies, South America, Mediterranean Basin, Africa, Canary Islands, India, China, Thailand, and Australia. Despite the common name "American aloe", it is not in the same family as aloe, though it is in the same order, Asparagales. Description Although it is called the century plant, it typically lives only 10 to 30 years. It has a spread around with gray-green leaves of long, each with a prickly margin and a heavy spike at the tip that can pierce deeply. Near the end of its life, the plant sends up a tall, branched stalk, laden with yellow blossoms, that may reach a total height up to . Its common name derives from its semelparous nature of flowering only once at the end ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uto-Aztecan
Uto-Aztecan, Uto-Aztekan or (rarely in English) Uto-Nahuatl is a family of indigenous languages of the Americas, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The name of the language family was created to show that it includes both the Ute language of Utah and the Nahuan languages (also known as Aztecan) of Mexico. The Uto-Aztecan language family is one of the largest linguistic families in the Americas in terms of number of speakers, number of languages, and geographic extension. The northernmost Uto-Aztecan language is Shoshoni, which is spoken as far north as Salmon, Idaho, while the southernmost is the Pipil language of El Salvador and Nicaragua. ''Ethnologue'' gives the total number of languages in the family as 61, and the total number of speakers as 1,900,412. Speakers of Nahuatl languages account for over 85% of these. The internal classification of the family often divides it into two branc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tepary Beans
''Phaseolus acutifolius'', also known as the tepary bean, is a legume native to the southwestern United States and Mexico and has been grown there by the native peoples since pre-Columbian times. It is more drought-resistant than the common bean (''Phaseolus vulgaris'') and is grown in desert and semi-desert conditions from Arizona through Mexico to Costa Rica. The waters requirements are low. The crop will grow in areas where annual rainfall is less than . Description The tepary bean is an annual and can be climbing, trailing, or erect with stems up to long. The specific epithet, , is derived from Latin (pointed, acute), and (-leaved). A narrow leafed, variety ''tenuifolius'', and a broader leafed, variety ''latifolius'', are known. Domestic varieties are derived from ''latifolius''. Observation of "a limited number" of wild specimens suggested that "the flowers concur with the summer rains, first appearing in late August, with the pods ripening early in the fall dry season ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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