The Archaeology of Mesoamerica

The chronology of Mesoamerica is vast and has been filled with numerous different cultures over the past 1000s of years since the first colonisation of America over the Bearing Straight.

We currently divide the history of Mesoamerica into multiple periods. Mainly: the Paleo-Indian (which is the first human habitation up until 3500 BC); the Archaic Period (before 2600 BC), the Preclassic (also called Formative) (from 2500 BCE – 250 CE), the Classic (250–900 CE), and the Postclassic (900–1521 CE); as well as the post European contact Colonial Period (1521–1821), and Postcolonial, or the period after independence from Spain (1821–present).

The periodisation of Mesoamerica is based on archaeological, ethnohistorical, and modern cultural anthropology research dating to the early twentieth century. As we continue to work, we develop cultural histories of the region even more.

However, before we get into the history overview, we need to discuss some basic terms to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Terminology

First off, "Middle" America is a geographical area stretching from the US Southwest to the Isthmus of Panama:

"Central America" is a political area encompassing Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, and sometimes Mexico depending on who draws the map:

"Mesoamerica" is a cultural area that includes most of present- day Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and the western parts of El Salvador & Honduras. It was defined by Kirchoff (1952) through a series of shared traits among the people living there, especially corn cultivation.

A Quick Note on Geography & Cultures

The area of Mesoamerica that we're considering here starts with West Mexico & does not include the Northwestern Frontier. The best known peoples of Michoacan are the Tarascans, or Purepecha (as they call themselves). The Tarascans were never conquered by the Aztecs.

The Central Highlands includes the Basin (or Valley) of Mexico, home of the Aztecs; it also includes the states of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala.

I don’t really use the term "southern highlands", it's generally much better to refer to this area as Oaxaca, home of the Zapotecs and Mixtecs. The Tehucan Valley is an area of early domestication but it lies largely in Puebla.

I usually refer to the Gulf Coast lowlands as a whole (since it combines the four areas distinguished above). The ‘Isthmus’ refers to the narrowed land that lies between Oaxaca and the Maya region.

We can divide the Maya region into: Pacific coastal plain, highlands, lowlands (North & South). SE Mesoamerica refers to Honduras, El Salvador and here, the Pacific coast of Nicaragua.

Palaeo Indian Period (18,000 - 8000 BC)

Evidence of human occupation in Mesoamerica consistent with a date of around 14,000 BP has been presented, debated, and more or less accepted, but is still under renewed debate. Fluted points have been found north of Mesoamerica in the states of Sonora and Durango as well as in central Mexico, with proof of a mammoth hunt being uncovered at Santa Isabel Iztapan. 

Pleistocene-age bone artifacts have been found at Los Reyes La Paz and human presence during this period has been further documented by cranial finds at Peña, Xico, Tepexpan, Santa Maria Astahuacan, and San Vicente Chicoloapan. 

The Archaic Period (8000-2000 BC)

During the Archaic period of Mesoamerica, we mainly see the rise of domesticates. Agriculture was developed in the region and permanent villages were established. Later on in this era, pottery and loom weaving became common, and class divisions began to appear. Many of the basic technologies of Mesoamerica in terms of stone-grinding, drilling, pottery etc. were established during this period.

There is much less evidence from the Palaeoindian period and Archaic than from the later Formative period (called Preclassic in the Maya region). So it's hard to reconstruct anything with certainty outside of a few key sites.

The Pre Classic Period (2000 BC-250 AD)

We can divide the Pre Classic (also called the Formative) into Early, Middle & Late Pre Classic to make things easier. The dominant culture of this time is without a doubt the Olmec.

The Olmec are sometimes called the “Mother Culture” of Mesoamerica. These inhabitants of the swampy Gulf Coast were the first people to exhibit most of the material culture we associate with Mesoamerica, especially monumental art and architecture, and portable art in precious materials.  Olmec artifacts outside the Gulf Coast are poorly understood though.

They flourished at such sites like La Venta and San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, before eventually being succeeded by the Epi-Olmec culture between 300–250 BCE. 

They were the first Mesoamerican civilization, and laid many of the foundations for the civilizations that followed. Among other "firsts", the Olmec appeared to practice ritual bloodletting and played the Mesoamerican ballgame, hallmarks of nearly all subsequent Mesoamerican societies. The aspect of the Olmecs most familiar now is their artwork, particularly the aptly named "colossal heads".

Moving into the Late Pre Classic, the Zapotec civilisation arose in the Valley of Oaxaca & the Teotihuacan civilisation arose in the Valley of Mexico. The Maya civilization began to develop in the Mirador Basin (in modern-day Guatemala) and the Epi-Olmec culture in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (in modern-day Chiapas), later expanding into Guatemala and the Yucatan Peninsula.

By the Late Pre Classic (300 BC), we have urbanism throughout Mesoamerica. This period is therefore defined by large-scale ceremonial architecture, writing, cities, and states. Many of the distinctive elements of Mesoamerican civilisation can be traced to this period, including the dominance of corn, the building of pyramids, human sacrifice, jaguar-worship, the complex calendar, and many of the gods.

The Classic Period (300-800 AD)

The Classical Period of Mesoamerica is defined by flourishing urbanism and is really the Golden Age of the cultural zone. It was dominated by numerous independent city-states in the Maya region and also featured the beginnings of political unity in central Mexico and the Yucatán. 

Regional differences between cultures grew more manifest. The city-state of Teotihuacan dominated the Valley of Mexico until the early 8th century, but little is known of the political structure of the region because the Teotihuacanos left no written records. 

What do we know about Teotihuacan?

By the Terminal Pre Classic, most regions of Mesoamerica had developed large, complex civic-ceremonial centres. Sahagun (a later Colonial Friar) records the Aztecs saying that Teotihuacan was where the gods had their beginning. The largest and most famous structures had been established by A.D. 250, but the most magnificent building is the Pyramid of the Sun, built around 100 AD.

It was designed to face the setting sun and two days a year face the horizon point where the sun sets. This thing is HUGE, it is a 1 million cubic meter single construction effort, and thus the largest single-phase structure in the pre-Columbian world. However, while that sounds intense, to put it in perspective, a labour force of 6,000 workers could have done it in 10 years working only 100 days per year.

As well as the Pyramid of the Sun, we also had the Pyramid of the Moon & the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, along with the Ciudadela. What's really cool is that a lot of these buildings are surrounded by numerous smaller ceremonial and civic areas throughout the city, all of which were organised around plazas or patios. One thing that seems to have been vital is that the city was a major centre for obsidian production and trade.

We have apartment compounds around the central area, which would have housed residents but many compounds occur in the city centre that must have housed elites (rulers, priests, specialists, etc.) As well as the main temples and pyramids, there are also various ‘temples’, shrines and religious centres that occur throughout the city and in residential compounds.

The builders evidently had a standardised unit of measurement (TMU), to which everything was built. It equates to about 83cm or 32.68 inches today. They also evidently had some kind of ‘Storm God’ who appears to have been the central deity or force of worship.

Even though we know a lot about the city, we still don't know some key things. For one, we do not know who the people were ethnically... nor do we know what language they spoke, although some scholars think it might have been an early form of Nahuatl. Dr. Helmke favours an Otomanguean language.

Regardless, Teotihaucan is the largest city in Mesoamerica. Its population estimates vary from between 80,000, 150,000 to 200,000 (probably even more with LiDAR). The city began to decline in the mid- to late 6^th century (late 500s) and we have evidence of considerable burning at that time—the Great Fire. But we still don't know 100% why.

The fall of Teotihuacan evidently had repercussions throughout all Mesoamerica. It is claimed in some of the indigenous histories (codices) that elites (rulers) of Teotihuacan fled to the area where the city of Tula later arose in the Postclassic (ca. A.D. 950) – known as the Culhua and Teotihaucan shares symbolism in some ways with the rest of Mesoamerica but in some ways the symbols and art style are very different from, for example, Olmec or Zapotec or Maya art.

Moving onwards...

The city-state of Monte Albán dominated the Valley of Oaxaca until the late Classic, leaving limited records in their script, which is as yet mostly undeciphered. Highly sophisticated arts such as stuccowork, architecture, sculptural reliefs, mural painting, pottery, and lapidary developed and spread during the Classic era.

In the Maya region, under considerable military influence by Teotihuacan after the "arrival" of Siyaj K'ak' in 378 AD, numerous city states such as Tikal, Uaxactun, Calakmul, Copán, Quirigua, Palenque, Cobá, and Caracol reached their height. 

Each of these polities was generally independent, although they often formed alliances and sometimes became vassal states of each other. The main conflict during this period was between Tikal and Calakmul, which fought a series of wars over the course of more than half a millennium. Each of these states declined during the Terminal Classic and were eventually abandoned.

Post Classic Period (900-1520 AD)

When the Post Classic rolled round, many of the great nations and cities of the Classic Era had collapsed, although some continued, such as Oaxaca, Cholula, and the Maya of Yucatan, such as at Chichen Itza and Uxmal. This is sometimes thought to have been a period of increased chaos and warfare.

There were some major changes that differentiated the Classic from the Post Classic, mainly:

There seems to have been a regionalization of cultures (yet some shared aspects), where people got more private and secular. This was accompanied by a rise in militarism and warfare (although it's not like today, most Mesoamerican cultures did not kill in battle, but instead took prisoners and then ritually sacrificed them afterwards). We can see this through the number of new friezes emphasising war and the Chacmool ritual altar and tzompantli skull rack:

During the Post Classic there also seems to have been widespread use of what we call the ‘Calendar Round’, but not the Long Count as the Classic-period dynasties and groups lost power. This is a cycle of ‘weeks’ & months of a ‘year’.

Interestingly, feathered serpent imagery becomes more widespread in the Post Classic, reflecting the increased importance of figures like Kulkukan.

While some people see the Post Classic as a time of cultural decline, it was also a time of technological advancement in architecture, engineering, and weaponry. Metallurgy (introduced around 800AD) came into use for jewellery and some tools, with new alloys and techniques being developed in a few centuries. 

There was also a lot of movement and political shifts and population growth—especially in Central Mexico post-1200—and of experimentation in governance. For instance, in Yucatan, 'dual rulership' apparently replaced the more theocratic governments of Classic times, while oligarchic councils operated in much of central Mexico. Likewise, it appears that the wealthy pochteca (merchant class) and military orders became more powerful than was apparently the case in Classic times. This afforded some Mesoamericans a degree of social mobility.

The Toltec for a time dominated central Mexico in the 9th–10th century, then collapsed. The northern Maya were for a time united under Mayapan. Oaxaca was briefly united by Mixtec rulers in the 11th–12th centuries.

The Rise & Fall of the Aztecs

The Aztec Empire arose in the early 15th century and appeared to be on a path to asserting dominance over the Valley of Mexico not seen since Teotihuacan. By the 15th century, the Mayan 'revival' in Yucatan and southern Guatemala and the flourishing of Aztec imperialism evidently enabled a renaissance of fine arts and science. Examples include the 'Pueblan-Mexica' style in pottery, codex illumination, and goldwork, the flourishing of Nahua poetry, and the botanical institutes established by the Aztec elite.

The Aztecs were the last of the urban civilisations in Mesoamerica before Europeans arrived. Their history is a mixture of real events and mythological accounts; as with any ‘history’ it is difficult to separate fact from propaganda. 

From what we can tell, the Mexica (the first rulers of the Aztec Empire) were newcomers from the north. They supposedly came from the Ancestral Land of Aztlan, the Place of the Herons, from which they take their name.

Now, Aztlan is a bit strange. It's a mythical ish city or lost land mentioned in several ethnohistorical sources dating from the Colonial Period, and while they each cite varying lists of the different tribal groups who participated in the migration from Aztlan to central Mexico, the Mexica who went on to found Mexico-Tenochtitlan are mentioned in all of the accounts.

Historians have speculated about the possible location of Aztlan and tend to place it either in northwestern Mexico or the Southwestern United States, although there are doubts about whether the place is purely mythical or represents a historical reality.

It may have been only 100km north of the Basin or as far as the US Southwest. Aztec migration tales themselves say it took 200 years (after AD 1111) for their people to get to central Mexico, so NW Mexico is a reasonable guess. More grounded in reality, the Mexica were likely of Chichimec ancestry. 

We know they stopped frequently on their journey to Central Mexico, first in the northern Basin and later at Tula in 1163. They arrived in the Valley of Mexico around A.D. 1250. Now... bear in mind, there were already people in the Valley who considered themselves descended from Teotihuacan, the Place of the Gods, known as the Culhua. The Culhua traced their ancestry to Tula, which it is said was repeatedly destroyed by the Chichimecs. So these two group had an ancestral blood feud from the offset.

Over time, the Aztecs were finally accepted by the Culhua. Eventually the Aztecs began as ‘mercenaries’ for the Culhua and they requested a marriage with the daughter of the tlatoani (king). When they got it, they threw a big party with all the Culhua nobility and the main event was…the ‘sacrifice’ of the daughter of the Culhua king . . . or so the story goes.

The Culhua weren't too...... pleased..... so as you can imagine, war erupted, and the Mexica fled to the marshes around Lake Texcoco. According to legend, their patron god told them to settle when they saw an eagle on a prickly pear cactus by a lake—and they did. This settlement became their capital city of Tenochtitlan.

Tenochititlan was built on an island in one of these lakes, which was about 2.2 m deep and the city was intercut by canals. Despite the lakes, the Valley was a dry environment. On land, only one crop a year was possible. But the Aztecs were genius farmers and didn't let that stop them...

Along the shores, the lake bottom was scooped up to create artificial islands on which crops were grown.

These were known as Chinampas and were very productive, hosting several harvests a year. Plants were germinated on floating mats hence the inaccurate term floating gardens for chinampas. Still, famine occurred, once around 1450 and early frosts were followed by two years of drought.

From Tenochititlan, this time they served as mercenaries for the Tepanecs of                                                           Azcapotzalco and together they conquered other cities. Under the Mexica leader Itzcoatl they defeated the Tepanecs in 1428 and the Triple Alliance was formed with the Acolhua of Texcoco and the Tepanecs of Tlacopan and over the next 90 years they created an empire of several million people.

In 1430, under the influence of Tlacaelel (advisor to the ruler Itzcoatl), many books were burned and the Aztecs rewrote their history, tracing their heritage to the Toltecs of Tula, as did the  the Tepanecs.

They also adopted a more aggressive ‘territorial’ expansion ‘to feed the principal (patron) god’, Huitzilipochtli. What did he represent?  War probably... Despite that, the Late Aztec period, AD 1350- 1519, is their cultural peak.

Gods & Sacrifice

Trigger Warning. Do not read this section if you're squeamish or have issues with blood or self harm. Please skip and scroll down to the Colonial Period.

When the Aztecs conquered people they often absorbed their gods so their pantheon is complex, but we can see three main preoccupations as far as deities go:

Creation (Huehueteotl the fire god, New Fire Ceremony)

Rain and Fertility (Tlaloc the rain god)

War (e.g. Tonatiuh the sun god)

They also were very frequent practitioners of human sacrifice. See, death was instrumental in the perpetuation of creation, and gods and humans alike had the responsibility of sacrificing themselves in order to allow life to continue. As described in the myth of creation, humans were understood to be responsible for the sun's continued revival, as well as for paying the earth for its continued fertility. 

The earth was not your "usual" nice mother figure here (in fact, it isn't in most world mythologies, the idea of Earth being kind is a very modern one, even among the Inca, child sacrifice was done to Pachamama as in the Capacocha Ritual). Instead, the Earth to the Aztecs was a monster that -if she ever woke, would devour us and cause earthquakes. So the constant flow of blood kept her sleeping.

Blood sacrifice in various forms was conducted. Both humans and animals were sacrificed, depending on the god to be placated and the ceremony being conducted, and priests of some gods were sometimes required to provide their own blood through self-mutilation. 

Side Note (TRIGGER WARNING IGNORE IF SQUEAMISH),- from a phenomenological stance on Mysticism and altered states of consciousness here (which is what I am primarily interested in), it would appear that the act of bloodletting in Aztec ritual would occasionally go as far as to create an adrenaline fuelled change of consciousness brought about by extreme blood loss that would in theory produce visions & trance states.

It is known that some rituals included acts of cannibalism, with the captor and his family consuming part of the flesh of their sacrificed captives, but it is not known how widespread this practice was.

While human sacrifice was practiced throughout Mesoamerica, the Aztecs, according to their own accounts, brought this practice to an unprecedented level. For example, for the reconsecration of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, Aztec and Spanish sources later said that 80,400 prisoners were sacrificed over the course of four days, reportedly by Ahuitzotl, the Great Speaker himself. 

This number, however, is considered by many scholars as wildly exaggerated. Other estimates place the number of human sacrifices at between 1,000 and 20,000 annually.

Their gods encouraged this too... Xipetotec for example was a fertility god often shown dressed in flayed human skin.

We still don't know why exactly the Aztec were so sacrifice happy, but the main working theory is ideological. The public spectacle of sacrificing warriors from conquered states was a major display of political power, supporting the claim of the ruling classes to divine authority. It also served as an important deterrent against rebellion by subjugated polities against the Aztec state, and such deterrents were crucial in order for the loosely organized empire to cohere.

However, there are also arguments that since the Aztec diet lacked animal proteins generally speaking, human cannibalism may have provided other amino acids. Although this is albeit unlikely.

Tigger Warning Over. 
You're safe now!

Colonial Period (1521-1821 AD)

The Colonial Period in Mesoamerica was initiated with the Spanish conquest (1519–1521), which ended the hegemony of the Aztec Empire. It was accomplished with Spaniards' strategic alliances with enemies of the empire, most especially Tlaxcala, but also Huexotzinco, Xochimilco, and even Texcoco, a former partner in that Aztec Triple Alliance. 

Although not all parts of Mesoamerica were brought under control of the Spanish Empire immediately, the defeat of the Aztecs marked the dramatic beginning of an inexorable process of conquest in Mesoamerica and incorporation that Spain completed in the mid-seventeenth century. Indigenous peoples did not disappear, although their numbers were greatly reduced in the 16th century by new infectious diseases brought by the Spanish invaders; they suffered high mortality from slave labor, and during epidemics. 

Finally, the fall of Tenochtitlan marked the beginning of the three-hundred-year Colonial Period and the imposition of Spanish rule. 

Spaniards' re-established the fallen Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan as Mexico City, which became the seat of government for the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The great initial project for Spanish conquerors was converting the indigenous peoples to Christianity, the only permitted religion. This endeavor was undertaken by Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian friars immediately after conquest.

Spaniards classified all indigenous peoples as "Indians" (indios), a term that the indigenous peoples never embraced. They were classified legally as being under the jurisdiction of the República de Indios. They were legally separated from the República de Españoles, which comprised Europeans, Africans, and mixed-race castas. In general, indigenous communities in Mesoamerica kept much of their prehispanic social and political structures, with indigenous elites continuing to function as leaders in their communities. These elites acted as intermediaries with the Spanish crown, so long as they remained loyal.

Post Colonial (1821-2023 AD and onwards)

Mexico became independent from Spain again in 1821, with some participation of indigenous in decade-long political struggles, but for their own motivations. With the fall of colonial government, the Mexican state abolished distinctions between ethnic groups. The new sovereign country made, in theory at least, all Mexicans citizens of the independent nation-state rather than vassals of the Spanish crown.