Portal:Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica (Spanish: Mesoamérica) is a region and cultural area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries.
As a cultural area, Mesoamerica is defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures. Beginning as early as 7000 BC the domestication of maize, beans, squash and chili, as well as the turkey and dog, caused a transition from paleo-Indian hunter-gatherer tribal grouping to the organization of sedentary agricultural villages. In the subsequent formative period, agriculture and cultural traits such as a complex mythological and religious tradition, a vigesimal numeric system, and a complex calendric system, a tradition of ball playing, and a distinct architectural style, were diffused through the area. Also in this period villages began to become socially stratified and develop into chiefdoms with the development of large ceremonial centers, interconnected by a network of trade routes for the exchange of luxury goods such as obsidian, jade, cacao, cinnabar, Spondylus shells, hematite, and ceramics. While Mesoamerican civilization did know of the wheel and basic metallurgy, neither of these technologies became culturally important.
Among the earliest complex civilizations was the Olmec culture which inhabited the Gulf coast of Mexico. In the Preclassic period, complex urban polities began to develop among the Maya and the Zapotecs. During this period the first true Mesoamerican writing systems were developed in the Epi-Olmec and the Zapotec cultures, and the Mesoamerican writing tradition reached its height in the Classic Maya Hieroglyphic script. Mesoamerica is one of only five regions of the world where writing was independently developed. In Central Mexico, the height of the Classic period saw the ascendancy of the city of Teotihuacan, which formed a military and commercial empire whose political influence stretched south into the Maya area and northward. During the Epi-Classic period the Nahua peoples began moving south into Mesoamerica from the North. During the early post-Classic period Central Mexico was dominated by the Toltec culture, Oaxaca by the Mixtec, and the lowland Maya area had important centers at Chichén Itzá and Mayapán. Towards the end of the post-Classic period the Aztecs of Central Mexico built a tributary empire covering most of central Mesoamerica.
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El Tajín is a pre-Columbian archeological site and one of the largest and most important cities of the Classic era of Mesoamerica. A part of the Classic Veracruz culture, El Tajín flourished from 600 to 1200 C.E. and during this time numerous temples, palaces, ballcourts, and pyramids were built. From the time the city fell in 1230 to near the end of the 18th century, no European seems to have known of its existence, until a government inspector chanced upon the Pyramid of the Niches in 1785.
El Tajín was named a World Heritage site in 1992, due to its cultural importance and its architecture. This architecture includes the use of decorative niches and cement in forms unknown in the rest of Mesoamerica. Its best-known monument is the Pyramid of the Niches, but other important monuments include the Arroyo Group, the North and South Ballcourts and the palaces of Tajín Chico. In total there have been 17 ballcourts discovered at this site. Since the 1970s, El Tajin has been the most important archeological site in Veracruz for tourists, attracting over 650,000 visitors a year.
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Bernardino de Sahagún (1499 – October 23, 1590) was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain (now Mexico). Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, he journeyed to New Spain in 1529, and spent more than 50 years conducting interviews regarding Aztec beliefs, culture and history. Though he primarily dedicated himself to the missionary task, his extraordinary work documenting indigenous worldview and culture has earned him the title “the first anthropologist.” He also contributed to the description of the Aztec language Nahuatl, into which he translated the Psalms, the Gospels and a basic manual of religious education.
Sahagún is perhaps best known as the author of Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España (in English: General History of the Things of New Spain (hereinafter referred to as Historia General). The most famous extant manuscript of the Historia General is the Florentine Codex. It consists of 2400 pages organized into twelve books with approximately 2,000 illustrations drawn by native artists using European techniques. The text in Spanish and Nahuatl documents the culture, religious cosmology (worldview), ritual practices, society, economics, and history of the Aztec people. In the process of putting together the Historia general, Bernardino pioneered new methods for gathering ethnographic information and validating its accuracy. The Historia general has been called “one of the most remarkable accounts of a non-Western culture ever composed,” and Bernardino has been called the father of American ethnography.
Did you know?
- ... that Antonio de León y Gama described in his 1792 book the discovery of the Aztec sun stone (pictured)?
- ... that the Maya archaeological site of El Tintal, in the northern Petén region of Guatemala, includes a triadic-style pyramid estimated to be 30 metres (98 ft) tall?
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Teotihuacan is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles (48 km) northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas. Apart from the pyramidal structures, Teotihuacan is also known for its large residential complexes, the Avenue of the Dead, and numerous colorful, well-preserved murals.
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- Age of consent in Mexico (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Kwamikagami (talk · contribs · new pages (16)) started on 2024-10-16, score: 42
- Yaxún (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Juan g. regino (talk · contribs · new pages (2)) started on 2024-10-16, score: 54
- El Palma (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Juan g. regino (talk · contribs · new pages (2)) started on 2024-10-16, score: 94
- Hunger in Honduras (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by ND902297307 (talk · contribs · new pages (1)) started on 2024-10-15, score: 32
- Sphaeropteris horrida (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Treeenthusiast (talk · contribs · new pages (8)) started on 2024-10-10, score: 40
- Campeche Light Rail (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by SleepTrain456 (talk · contribs · new pages (8)) started on 2024-10-11, score: 46
- Jorge Camberos Garibi (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Heterotrofo (talk · contribs · new pages (1)) started on 2024-10-11, score: 32
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- Nicoleño language (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Kepler-1229b (talk · contribs · new pages (3)) started on 2024-10-04, score: 28
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