What Was The Impact Of Agriculture In Mesoamerica

The beginning of agriculture brought change and innovation around the world. It had various impacts, both good and bad that forced people to explore new areas and rethink their ways of life. These changes made by food production were necessary for the development of states. Through the emergence of agriculture, various characteristics arose coalescing small villages into powerful states. As the practice of food production grew, people became more sedentary. In order to continuously tend fields with constant attention, people had to settle down. This turn to settlement rather than nomadism of hunter-gatherer groups introduced many new focal points such as identity, ethnicity, and ancestry. These factors led way to the flourishing of religion,
Conflict was common among hunter-gatherers, but larger and more compact agricultural communities placed increased strains on inter-community relations. Allowing for a greater investment of personal wealth, community growth lead to an outburst of conflict and raids to obtain valuables kept in houses. This encouraged both organized violence and defense. Some smaller villages eventually coalesced into states in order to fend off military threats from neighbors. Besides becoming states as a defense mechanism, some came together to create empires and absorb smaller surrounding villages. This can be seen all throughout Mesoamerica, primarily with the Aztecs. What started as a small band of farmer-migrants driven to small islands eventually grew into a great empire centered around Tenochtitlán, the greatest metropolis of the pre-Columbian New World. By enlisting as mercenaries as well as overthrowing the powerful Tepanecs, this band of Mexica-Tenochca was able to create a triple alliance and extend their empire over 400 previously independent communities. From raids to conquest, farming communities faced far more times of conflict than hunter-gatherer bands. These times of war forced villages to come together, forming