Page 206 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

warfare—pre-columbian mesoamerica and north america 1983

the archaeological record is richer.) The creation of settle- into their heartland on the southern Veracruz/northern
ments paralleled the growth of political complexity and Tabasco gulf coast. One suggestion as to why this hap-
specialized weapons, which do not emerge in isolation pened is that the invention of irrigation in the highlands
but require complex social support.The earliest evidence led to a competitive disadvantage for the Olmecs that
of such weaponry occurs with the Olmecs of the south- they had previously enjoyed owing to the greater fertility
ern Mexican Gulf coast after 1150 BCE. of the coastal lowlands. Following the Olmec withdrawal
Hunting tools such as atlatls were used, but it was after 500 BCE, thrusting spears dominated elite warfare in
clubs, maces, and stone-tipped spears that emerged as the Mesoamerica. Clubs persisted among nonurban groups,
most important weapons. Clubs, maces, and spears used but along with maces they became less common as the
as staff weapons (a blade set on a staff, such as a halberd use of helmets and large wood, cane, and leather shields
in Europe) are quintessentially martial arms, whose spread. Faced with these defenses, warriors turned from
expert use is not readily adapted from ordinary life. clubs and maces to longer, lighter cutting and penetrat-
Designed to capture and kill people, these arms required ing arms. Armor also reduced the effectiveness of slings,
specialized training. which ceased to be used as elite arms, though they per-
These weapons also emphasized hand-to-hand com- sisted as tools.The appearance of large bodies of oppos-
bat; spears were used for thrusting and slashing rather ing soldiers also suggests the emergence of formations.
than throwing, and clubs and maces were used as crush- Specialized fortifications also emerged: There were forti-
ers. Hand-to-hand shock weapons, not projectiles, dom- fications at smaller sites for protection, but larger ones
inated early Olmec battlefields. Defensive arms—shields, arose to dominate local regions.Walls at least tripled the
helmets, and armor—were rare among the Olmecs, per- strength of defenders, minimized logistical problems,
haps reflecting their monopoly on dedicated weapons of and permitted the use of a larger percentage of the pop-
war.Whether the Olmecs employed their forces individ- ulace.Walls give defenders a major advantage over attack-
ually or in organized formations is unknown, but given ers by giving them places from which to fight with
the low populations of Olmec settlements—with maxi- maximum protection—and with food and other supplies
mum populations of about 1,500 to 2,500 people per close at hand—while forcing the attackers to expose
settlement—Olmec armies were almost certainly small. themselves with little or no protection. Some walls were
Some soldiers may have accompanied merchants travel- accompanied by extensive dry moats, but many were hill-
ing throughout Mesoamerica, though they were for the top fortifications whose altitude multiplied the difficulty
most part employed domestically, a fact that is more eas- of assaults.
ily understood when one realizes that typical march rates
without roads averaged approximately 19 kilometers Organizational Innovation
per day. Even merchants used dirt trails because formal at Teotihuacan
stone roads had yet to be developed.The appearance of The next major development was organizational, com-
slings and spherical stone and clay shot by 900 BCE gave bining units with reinforcing arms. At Teotihuacan, the
the Olmecs an effective projectile capability, which, com- great city of central Mexico that flourished from approx-
bined with their shock tactics, let them dominate the bat- imately 150 CE to between 650 and 750, some soldiers
tlefield for the next half millennium.And their way of war used thrusting spears and bucklers that increased mobil-
spread with them. ity, while others wielded atlatls and darts with rectangu-
The Olmecs had spread over much of central Mexico lar shields that offered less mobility but greater pro-
and down the Pacific coast as far as El Salvador, but tection. These shock and projectile weapons units
around 550-–500 BCE, they began withdrawing from reinforced each other, firing on the enemy from a distance
these outlying settlements and apparently retreated back (the effective range of an atlatl was approximately 53 to