Historical Antecedents of STS in The World 1
Historical Antecedents of STS in The World 1
Historical Antecedents of STS in The World 1
Mayan civilization lasted for more than 2,000 years, but the period from about 300 A.D. to
900 A.D., known as the Classic Period,
They developed a written language of hieroglyphs and invented the mathematical concept
of zero.
With their expertise in astronomy and mathematics, the Maya developed a complex and
accurate calendar system.
Maya Rituals
During the festivals, humans and animals were sometimes sacrificed to please the gods.
The Mayans sacrificed iguanas, turtles, crocodiles, dogs, jaguars, and turkeys in large
numbers.
The supreme sacrifice, however, was that of human beings.
Was performed in order to communicate with ancestors.
In the case of the Maya, bloodletting was constrained to the royal line.
HUMAN SACRIFICE
The sacrifice of a living creature was a powerful offering and a human sacrifice was the ultimate
one. Usually, only high-status prisoners of war were sacrificed while other captives were used as
the labor force.
MAYAN CALENDAR
CULTURE
The Maya had a polytheistic religion, which means they worshipped many gods, including
Itzam Na (Creator God), Kinich Ahau (Sun God), Ah Puch (one of several death gods),
and Buluc Chabtan (War God).
They practiced animism, which is the belief that all things, including inanimate objects, had
a soul.
The Maya wrote what we call hieroglyphs (glyphs for short). Their writing is a logosyllabic
system in which some signs called logograms represent words or ideas (like “shield” or
“jaguar”).
TECHNOLOGY
They built complicated looms for weaving cloth and devised a rainbow of glittery paints
made from mica, a mineral that still has technological uses today.
Maya was producing rubber products about 3,000 years before Goodyear received his
patent in 1843.
Maya began to use it in a variety of ways: to make water-resistant cloth, glue, bindings for
books, figurines and the large rubber balls used in the ritual game known as Pok-A-Tok.
ASTRONOMY
The pyramid at Chichén Itzá in Mexico, for example, is situated according to the sun’s
location during the spring and fall equinoxes The pyramid at Chichén Itzá in Mexico, for
example, is situated according to the sun’s location during the spring and fall equinoxes.
Understanding about celestial bodies, such as predicting eclipse and using an astrological
cycle in planting and harvesting.
Mayan Calendar
The largest empire ever seen in the Americas and the largest in the world at that time.
The Inca civilization (c. 1400-1533 CE) is among the most vital of South America in terms
of its cultural influence and legacy. The Inca began as a small tribe who steadily grew in
power to conquer other peoples all down the coast from Columbia to Argentina. They are
remembered for their contributions to religion, architecture, and their famous network of
roads through the region. Here are ten facts about the Inca you need to know.
Quipu
A Quipu (khipu) was a method used by the Incas and other ancient Andean cultures to
keep records and communicate information using string and knots.
Quipu were also used to record imperial conquests and royal blood-lines. They were ideal
for recording the census data for provinces, i.e., total numbers, specific numbers of males
and females, children, married and unmarried, etc.
Other kinds of data that quipu was used to record included accounts, stores, taxes (paid in
kind), livestock, land measurements, armies and their equipment, astronomy, and
calendars. Quipu were also used, along with a short oral description, by Inca postal
messengers (chaski).
The Incas apparently used two different calendars, one for daytime and one for nighttime
(Morris and von Hagen 1993: 180-183). The Incas apparently used two different
calendars, one for daytime and one
The daytime calendar was based on the solar cycle and was approximately 365 days
long. It was used for economic activities such as agriculture, mining, warfare, and
construction.
Incas’ nighttime calendar was developed to mark important ceremonies to the moon and
stars, which were sacred deities of the Incas. It had only 328 days, which equals twelve
months of 27.33 days each. The latter almost corresponds to a lunar month, which is 28
days long.
Over time, the city of Cusco became a very important cultural center, where Inca and
Spanish cultures mixed. And it was at that moment when Garcilaso de la Vega, a Spanish
writer and historian born in Peru, coined the term “Navel of the World” in his chronicles
called “Royal Commentaries of the Incas,” a term he coined based on the function that the
Inca capital served as the navel of that great empire of the four directions
The Incas excelled in ceramics, goldsmiths and textiles but without reaching the levels of
other cultures such as the Chimú, whose artisans were transferred to Cusco to transmit
their knowledge
Among the main divinities of Tahuantinsuyo we have the Sun, Wiracocha, Pachacamac
and the Keel or moon. The maximum priest of the sun was Villac Umu and also the
worship of the gods was destined for the dead or the Malquis or mummified bodies of the
ancestors.
TECHNOLOGY
ASTRONOMY
The Incas not only identified constellations and individual stars, but they also assigned
each a purpose. They believed that everything in and around our world was connected.
Astronomy was used for agricultural purposes. Cusco for example lies on a radial plan,
mimicking the sky and pointing to specific astronomical events on the horizon.
Machu Picchu was a sacred ceremonial site, an agricultural experimentation center, and
an astronomical observatory.
Calendar with 12 months.
The Aztecs were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the
postclassic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of
central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who
dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries.
Highly accomplished in agriculture and trade, the last of the great Mesoamerican
civilizations was also noted for its art and architecture.
Chinampa
Chinampa, also called floating garden, small, stationary, artificial island built on a
freshwater lake for agricultural purposes.
Chinampa is a technique used in Mesoamerican agriculture which relies on small,
rectangular areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the
Valley of Mexico.
They are built up on wetlands of a lake or freshwater swamp for agricultural purposes, and
their proportions ensure optimal moisture retention.
CULTURE
Aztec boys, at about the age of 15, were sent to schools which were called Telpuchcalli
schools, meaning “House of youth”.
Boys were taught various subjects related to history and religion. Additionally, Aztec
education at these schools included the art of war and fighting as well as education in law
and civic duties.
There were military competitions between different schools which sometimes even led to
fighting between them.
There were different schools for Aztec children from the nobility and those of commoners.
Both schools gave an education in history, religion, and military training.
Aztec education for the children of the nobility included further subjects such as law,
medicine, engineering, hieroglyphics, construction, and omen interpretation.
These schools for the children of the nobility were attached to temples and were run by
the priests and priestesses. A lot of children who aspired to be priests were also educated
at these schools.
Aztec education and routine at these schools for the nobility was difficult as students were
subjected to strict discipline.
TECHNOLOGY
They made drills which were made of reed or bone. One of the innovative weapons used
by the Aztecs was called Macuahuitl which was a wooden club having sharp pieces of
volcanic glass. It was used to disable an enemy soldier without killing him.
Aztec technology used for making weapons mainly relied on the use of stone and copper.
Aztecs has developed special boats called canoes which made transportation through
streams and rivers easier.
Aztec technology for agriculture was the farming method called “chinampa”
ASTRONOMY
The Aztecs made use of two calendars one of which was exclusively reserved for tracking
of religious ceremonies and festivals.
This calendar was called tonalpohualli or “day count” and had 260 days.
The other calendar was using for tracking of time and was called Xiuhpohualli or “solar
year”. This one had 365 days having 18 months of 20 days each.
Both calendars coincided after each 52 years.
The Olmec lived along the Gulf Coast of Mexico in the modern-day Mexican states of
Tabasco and Veracruz.
The Olmec society lasted from about 1600 BCE to around 350 BCE, when environmental
factors made their villages unlivable.
The Olmec are probably best known for the statues they carved: 20-ton stone heads,
quarried and carved to commemorate their rulers.
The name Olmec is an Aztec word meaning the rubber people; the Olmec made and
traded rubber throughout Mesoamerica.
Monumental sacred complexes, massive stone sculptures, ball games, the drinking of
chocolate, and animal gods were all features of Olmec culture passed on to those peoples
who followed this first great Mesoamerican civilization.
The Olmec were the oldest civilization in the Mesoamerican region.
CULTURE
Religion
The Olmecs were polytheists (they worshipped many gods). The jaguar was considered
one of the major gods. They considered themselves descendants of the jaguar.
Another important god was Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent god of maiz.
Art
The Olmecs carved stone, jade, and the volcanic rock basalt (used for the great stone
heads). The stone was quarried and imported.
We can see similar types of sculpture as far away as central Mexico (the land of the
Aztecs) and the states of Oaxaca, Morelos, Guerrero, perhaps even farther.
The colossal heads are representations of human heads. It is unknown who they are, or
what was the purpose.
They are at least seventeen and they measure approx. 1.8 mts. But they may vary in size.
The Olmecs created the beginning of an urban ceremonial calendar that began with the
development of astronomical knowledge, which founded and established a pictographic
script. They think they started numbering knowledge, calendar and writing, as seen in
several of his monuments and sculptures.
It was a sport with ritual associations played since 1,400 B.C.by the pre- Columbian
peoples of Ancient Mexico and Central America. The sport had different versions in
different places during the millennia, and a modern version of the game, this ball game, is
still played in a few places by the local indigenous population.
The jaguar god: is the most important god, God of life, represented by an animal half jaguar, half-
serpent.
TECHNOLOGY
ASTRONOMY
This Long Count calendar begins on August 13, 3114 B.C. Although some have claimed
that the date suggests the actual time when the calendar was created, modern
scholarship believes that the date was arbitrarily fixed by an Olmec priest when creating
the Long Count
Consequently, the use of a Long Count calendar among the epi-Olmec people is regarded
as evidence enough to suggest that such a calendar was originally invented by the
Olmecs.
Olmec Long Count calendar is one of the most remarkable inventions of the civilization,
something which was extensively used by the later Mayan civilization.
Paradigm Shift
Paradigm is basically a set of ideas, usually unwritten. That people have learned and developed
through education and experiences that defines the conventional methods about the rules of nature
and life (J.F. Cali, 1993).
A paradigm shift is a way of looking at something differently. We are stepping "outside the box".
When we make a paradigm shift, we can see, think, feel and behave differently.
Example:
Copernicus believed the sun was the center of the universe. (a paradigm shift occurred)
A paradigm shift is a phenomenon conceptualized and explored by Thomas Kuhn and is not just a
small modification to an existing scientific theory. Instead, it wholly changes the scientific theory
itself and radically modified how it seeks to understand reality.
SOCIETY/ETHICS
1. Copernican Revolution
For the first time in 16th century, a man named Copernicus bravely challenged the
Ptolemaic model of heavens – geocentric. It described the cosmos as having the Earth
stationary at the center of the universe and everything revolves on it.
Copernicus proposed new model, heliocentric, showing sun as the center of the solar
system.
The Catholic church were against him, so his ideas did not prosper at once. His books
and he, himself, were denied by the society.
Few centuries have passed before the world started to acknowledge his greatness
through Galileo Galilei – the man who picked up all Copernicus had left. Until then, the
sun stands out in the center of the solar system, and everything on it. All the species of
animal and plants now in existence were thought to have been created in their final
form at the time of the Creation. Then one mind questioned it all – Charles Darwin. The
increased in the scientific awareness during his time was fueled by the interest in fossils.
He focused on geological change and presented a classic explanation of development
over millions of years.
COPERNICAN REVOLUTION
Nicholas Copernicus
Revolutionary astronomer
Claudius Ptolemy
The center of the solar system is not the Earth but actually the sun
Started the birth of modern astronomy/
scientific revolution/ transformation of society's thoughts and beliefs
Darwinian Revolution
According to the bible, God had created the world and everything on it. All the
species of animals and plants now in existence were thought to have been
created in their final form at the Creation time.
Then one mind questioned it all – Charles Darwin. Interest in fossils fueled the
increase in scientific awareness during his time.
He focused on geological change and presented a classic explanation of
development over millions of years. He had persuaded most people that
‘transmutation’ was an acceptable scientific explanation of the geological past.
However, he had not necessarily persuaded them that natural selection was the
cause of it.
Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection: This theory explained how species
change over time through a process of differential survival and reproduction
based on heritable traits that provide advantages in a given environment.
DARWINIAN REVOLUTION
Charles Darwin
An English naturalist, biologist and geologist.
all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor: the birds and the
bananas, the fishes and the flowers all related.
Published his book, On the Origin of Species.
complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors naturally over time
FREUDIAN REVOLUTION
Sigmund Freud
was the founding father of psychoanalysis, a method for treating mental illness
and also a theory which explains human behavior.
FREUD’S THEORY
Freudian Revolution
Freud’s revolution may be viewed as discovering a way of locating in the mind
objective entities that can be studied like material things.
When Freud introduced the unconscious realm concept, the mind’s mode of
operation had been a subject of confusion and debate in the scientific
community.
Freud was mostly responsible for elevating our interpretations of human
behavior to the rational ideas of reason and science.
After years of analysis and research, Freud reached a simple conclusion that
changed the face of intellectual history and proved to be amongst his most
significant gifts to the twentieth century.
Unconsciousness is held responsible if the symptoms were not consciously
created with a physical basis.