Agriculture and the Theocratic State in Lowland Southeastern Mexico

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Abstract
Shifting cultivation, which is the technique commonly followed by tropical agriculturists, while wasteful of land use in requiring a long fallowing period, will support variable population densities depending upon crops grown, farming tools used, and soil fertility. Twenty persons per square kilometer is accepted as the density for the region around the Preclassic La Venta site which was begun about 800 B.C. and abandoned about 400 B.C. The occupation area of the La Venta culture group is believed to lie between the Coatzacoalcos and Tonalá rivers and amounts to about 900 square kilometers, thus yielding a population figure of about 18,000, of which 3600 are family heads. The total man-days of labor required to build the La Venta site is estimated to be 1,100,000, and the four major rebuildings of the site features are suggested as having been done at completion of 52 and 104 year calendar rounds.

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