Compare And Contrast The Early Horizon Styles Of Olmec And Hopewell

The early horizon styles of Olmec, Chavín, and Hopewell convey how complex societies exchange culture. Culture is either exchanged intentionally or not, and in the case of Hopewell, it was not intentionally spread. The Hopewell horizon participated in conspicuous consumption to show neighbors who had a stronger tribe. In order to do this, they needed to trade for high prestige goods from far off places. According to Milner, this caused these people to travel long distances to find rare goods to complete lavish burial rituals. The Olmec horizon purposely shared their culture with others, trying to expand their state in order to gain prestige goods. According to Quilter, the culture of the Chavin horizon traveled via missionaries and their religion

The Olmec ran a state that is similar to those in Europe. The state was highly differentiated, with elites holding exorbitant amounts of power. This is demonstrated through the Red “Palace”, the home of an elite that is twenty times the size of any house excavated in San Lorenzo. This indicates a large amount of social stratification in the society. These elites justified their power by saying they were descended from jaguars. Jaguars were symbolic of power in this horizon, which meant that the elites were the most powerful. The Chavin horizon had no difference between government and religion. According to Quilter, this is not what Westerners think of as a state, but more like a conglomeration of people who share beliefs and follow the rituals of the religion. Hopewell and Adena are similar to Big Man groups. There would be one person who organized people to create mounds, and conspicuously consume resources, but he did not have real power. Instead, he would use the rules of reciprocity to make sure that people would respect him. Archaeologically there is no evidence that these leaders lived in higher luxury than anyone else, but they did have a more lavish burial than anyone

Coe and Koontz argue that all rain gods in Mesoamerica are based off of the Olmec rain gods, implying that the Olmec influenced several people. They built a lot of temples and performed multiple rituals. One ritual included burying a mosaic beneath a plaza, to create a sacred space. Hopewell buries objects during rituals as well, however, they do so in burial mounds. Hopewell does not seem to have many deities, so it is possible that they believed in a system similar to animism. Chavin built its entire culture off of religion, meaning that it was of great importance. Large temples of carved stone were built to worship their gods. Quilter says that they mixed performance and religion together, creating a new blend out of something very old. This is similar to the Catholic Church during the time of Louis