Which mesoamerican cultures developed last

The influences of the region known as Mesoamerica can be seen as close by as any kitchen. Words like "avocado," "chocolate," and "tomato" come from the Nahuatl language of Mexico, originating as "ahuacatl," "chocolatl," and "tomatl. They and many other Mesoamerican groups lived in Mexico before the arrival of European explorers.

The name "Mesoamerica" was coined by anthropologist Paul Kirchkoff in The region has a diverse physical geography; found within the borders of the area known as Mesoamerica are coastal regions, deserts, mountains, and tropical areas with high levels of humidity.

Many different civilizations live in this region, but they did share some common characteristics. Their religious practices included multiple deities, and they all used a similar day calendar. They ate a lot of the same foods, including beans, maize, and squash, and they built similar structures. Mesoamerican history is usually divided into different periods. These periods end when the Spanish entered Tenochtitlan the Mexica capital in , although some Mesoamerican culture did persist beyond that year.

Historians and older textbooks sometimes refer to these periods as "pre-Columbian. The people of Mesoamerica spoke at least languages, not just one. Even in a single civilization, there was linguistic diversity; for instance, the Maya people spoke languages including K'iche and Tzotzil.

Meanwhile, the Mexica, who were ethnically Nahua, typically spoke Nahuatl. Some of these could be grouped into language families, such as Mayan, Mixe-Zoquean, or Otomanguean languages. Different Mesoamerican cultures developed different types of writing. For instance, groups like the Mixtec and Nahua adopted rebus writing systems, which were picture-based, much like Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Most Mesoamerican languages were written with such pictographic systems, but the Maya developed a type of writing more like ours, with letters representing different sounds that combine to form words.

Mesoamerican cultures used two calendars: a day calendar, consisting of 20 months with 13 days each, and a day calendar, which included 18 months of 20 days each and five extra days at the end.

The day calendar was used by farmers, while the day calendar was used to plan religious rituals. Every 52 years, the two different calendars would start on the same day, and this would be an occasion for special rituals. For instance, the Mexica would hold a ritual known as the New Fire Ceremony, which was intended to bring on the start of another year cycle by renewing the sun; if the ritual failed, it was said that the sun and moon would die and the world would end.

Mesoamerican religions were polytheistic. Each culture had its own deities, though some did overlap between groups.

The Maya had the most advanced hieroglyphic writing in Mesoamerica and the most sophisticated calendrical system. In Mayan culture, we also see one of the earliest systems of art patronage. Kings and queens employed full-time artists in their courts, many of whom signed their work. Mayan relief sculpture from Palenque, Mexico : The Mayans were among the most advanced cultures of Mesoamerica. Most of their art represents of mortal rulers or mythic deities. In Palenque, Mexico a prominent Mayan city in the Classical period , the ruler Lord Pakal commissioned a grouping of large structures that stand on high ground in the middle of the town.

One of those buildings, the Temple of the Inscriptions, is a nine-level pyramid that is 75 feet high. The layers of the structure probably reflect the Mayan belief that the underworld had nine levels. Inscriptions line the back wall of the temple, giving the building its name.

Mayan civilization was in decline by the time of the Spanish Conquest in the early 16th century, and by then the Aztecs controlled much of Mexico.

The rise of the Aztec was quick. Once a migratory people, they arrived in the Basin of Mexico in the 13th century where they eventually settled on an island in Lake Texcoco; they called their new home Tenochtitlan.

In only a few centuries, the Aztecs aggressively expanded their territory and transformed Tenochtitlan into a capital so grand that the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes remarked on its beauty en route to invade the city in November Metalwork was a particular skill of the Aztecs.

Unfortunately, very few examples of their characteristic small gold and silver objects survive. When the Spanish arrived, most were melted down for currency. Stone sculpture and wood figurines fared much better during the Conquest. Aztec sculpture, most of which took the form of human figures carved from stone and wood, were not religious idols as one might suspect. These sculptures are the source of stories told by Spanish conquistadors of huge statues splattered with blood and encrusted with jewels and gold.

The Olmec culture of the Gulf Coast of Mexico produced the first major Mesoamerican art and is particularly known for the creation of colossal stone heads. The art of the Olmec, which emerged during the preclassic period along the Gulf of Mexico, was the first major Mesoamerican art. Across the swampy coastal areas of the modern Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco, the Olmec constructed ceremonial centers on raised earth mounds.

These centers were filled with objects made from materials including jade , clay, basalt, and greenstone. Most of these objects were figurines or sculptures that resembled both human and animal subjects. While Olmec figurines are found abundantly in sites throughout the Formative period, monumental works of basalt sculpture, including colossal heads, altars, and seated figures are the most recognizable feature of this culture.

The huge basalt rocks for the large sculptures were quarried at distant sites and transported to Olmec centers such as San Lorenzo and La Venta.

The colossal heads range in height from 5 to 12 feet and portray adult males wearing close-fitting caps with chin straps and large, round earspools. The fleshy faces have almond-shaped eyes, flat, broad noses, thick, protruding lips, and downturned mouths. Each face has a distinct personality, suggesting that they represent specific individuals. Olmec Head No. These massive basalt boulders were transported from the Sierra de los Tuxtlas Mountains of Veracruz.

When originally displayed in Olmec centers, the heads were arranged in lines or groups; however, the method used to transport the stone to these sites remains unclear. Given the enormous weight of the stones and the manpower required to transport them over large distances, it is probable that the colossal portraits represent powerful Olmec rulers.

The discovery of a colossal head at Tres Zapotes in the nineteenth century spurred the first archaeological investigations of Olmec culture by Matthew Stirling in Seventeen confirmed examples are traced to four sites within the Olmec heartland on the Gulf Coast of Mexico.

An additional monument at Takalik Abaj in Guatemala is a throne that may have been carved from a colossal head. This is the only known example from outside the Olmec heartland.

Dating the monuments remains difficult because of the movement of many from their original contexts prior to archaeological investigation. The smallest weighs six tons, while the largest is estimated to weigh 40 to 50 tons, although it was abandoned and left unfinished close to the source of its stone.

At its height, Teotihuacan was one of the largest cities in the world with a population of , It was a primary center of commerce and manufacturing. Located some 30 miles northeast of present-day Mexico City, Teotihuacan experienced a period of rapid growth early in the first millennium CE.

By CE, it emerged as a significant center of commerce and manufacturing, the first large city-state in the Americas. At its height between and CE, Teotihuacan covered nearly nine miles and had a population of about ,, making it one of the largest cities in the world.

One reason for its dominance was its control of the market for high-quality obsidian. This volcanic stone, made into tools and vessels , was traded for luxury items such as the green feathers of the quetzal bird, used for priestly headdresses, and the spotted fur of the jaguar, used for ceremonial garments.

Ceremonial center of the city of Teotihuacan, Mexico, Teotihuacan culture, c. The Pyramid of the Sun is at the middle left. The avenue is over a mile long. The people of Teotihuacan worshipped deities that were recognizably similar to those worshipped by later Mesoamerican people, including the Aztecs, who dominated central Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest.

Its focal point was the pyramidal Temple of the Feathered Serpent. This seven-tiered structure exhibits the taludtablero construction that is a hallmark of the Teotihuacan architectural style. The sloping base, or talud , of each platform supports a vertical tablero , or entablature , which is surrounded by frame and filled with sculptural decoration.

The Temple of the Feathered Serpent was enlarged several times, and as was characteristic of Mesoamerican pyramids, each enlargement completely enclosed the previous structure like the layers of an onion. The flat, angular, abstract style, typical of Teotihuacan art, is in marked contrast to the curvilinear style of Olmec art. Temple of the Feathered Serpent, the Ciudadela. Sometime in the middle of the seventh century disaster struck Teotihuacan. The ceremonial center burned and the city went into a permanent decline.

Nevertheless, its influence continued as other centers throughout Mesoamerica and as far south as the highlands of Guatemala borrowed and transformed its imagery over the next several centuries.

The site was never entirely abandoned as it remained a legendary pilgrimage center. The much later Aztec people c. Mayan art includes a wide variety of objects, commissioned by rulers, that depict scenes of both elite and everyday society.

The most sacred and majestic buildings of Mayan cities were built in enclosed, centrally located precincts. The Maya held dramatic rituals within these highly sculptured and painted environments. On Stele H, Rabbit wears an elaborate headdress and ornamented kilt and sandals.

He holds across his chest a double-headed serpent bar, symbol of the sky and of his absolute power. His features, although idealized, have the quality of a portrait likeness.

The Mayan elite, like the Egyptian pharaohs, tended to have themselves portrayed as eternally youthful. The dense, deeply carved ornamental details that frame the face and figure stand almost clear of the main stone block and wrap around the sides of the stele.

The stele was originally painted, with remnants of red paint visible on many stelae and buildings in Copan. Stele H portraying the ruler Rabbit. Great Plaza at Copan, Honduras.

Many small clay figures from the Classic Mayan period remain in existence. These free-standing objects illustrate aspects of everyday Mayan life. As a group, they are remarkably life-like, carefully descriptive, and even comic at times. They represent a wider range of human types and activities than commonly depicted on Mayan stelae.

Ball players, women weaving, older men, dwarves, supernatural beings, and amorous couples, as well as elaborately attired rulers and warriors, comprise one of the largest groups of surviving Mayan art. Many of the hollow figurines are also whistles. They were made in ceramic workshops and painted with Maya Blue, a dye unique to Mayan and Aztec artists. Small clay figures found in burial sites were made to accompany the Mayan dead on their inevitable voyage to the Underworld.

Painted clay, 6. The Maya painted vivid narrative scenes on the surfaces of cylindrical vases. A typical vase design depicts a palace scene where an enthroned Mayan ruler sits surrounded by courtiers and attendants. The figures wear simple loincloths, turbans of wrapped cloth and feathers, and black body paint. These painted vases may have been used as drinking and food vessels for noble Maya, but their final destination was the tomb, where they accompanied the deceased to the Underworld.

They likely were commissioned by the deceased before his death or by his survivors, and were occasionally sent from distant sites as funerary offerings.

The Maya had complex architectural programs. They built imposing pyramids, temples, palaces, and administrative structures in densely populated cities. Describe the characteristic style and functional elements of Maya architecture in the Classic and Postclassic periods. In Palenque, Mexico, a prominent city of the Classic period, the major buildings are grouped on high ground. The central group of structures includes the Palace possibly an administrative and ceremonial center as well as a residential structure , the Temple of the Inscriptions, and two other temples.

Most of the structures in the complex were commissioned by a powerful ruler, Lord Pakal, who reigned from to CE, and his two sons, who succeeded him. Mayan culture, late 7th century. The Temple of the Inscriptions is a nine-level pyramid that rises to a height of about 75 feet.

The consecutive layers probably reflect the belief, current among the Aztec and Maya at the time of the Spanish conquest, that the underworld had nine levels. Priests would climb the steep stone staircase on the exterior to reach the temple on top, which recalls the kind of pole-and-thatch houses the Maya still build in parts of the Yucatan today.

The roof of the temple was topped with a crest known as a roof comb , and its facade still retains much of its stucco sculpture. Inscriptions line the back wall of the outer chamber, giving the temple its name. Across from the Temple of Inscriptions is the Palace , a complex of several adjacent buildings and courtyards built on a wide artificial terrace.

The Palace was used by the Mayan aristocracy for bureaucratic functions, entertainment, and ritual ceremonies. Numerous sculptures and bas-relief carvings within the Palace have been conserved. Like many other buildings at the site, the Observation Tower exhibits a mansard roof.

The Palace was equipped with numerous large baths and saunas which were supplied with fresh water by an intricate water system. An aqueduct constructed of great stone blocks with a six-foot-high vault diverts the Otulum River to flow underneath the main plaza. As the focus of Maya civilization shifted northward in the Postclassic period, a northern Maya group called the Itza rose to prominence. At the spring and fall equinoxes, the setting sun casts an undulating, serpent-like shadow on the stairways, forming bodies for the serpent heads carved at the base of the balustrades.

The Great Ball Court northwest of the Castillo is the largest and best preserved court for playing the Mesoamerican ball game, an important sport with ritual associations played by Mesoamericans since BCE.

The parallel platforms flanking the main playing area are each feet long. The walls of these platforms stand 26 feet high. Rings carved with intertwined feathered serpents are set high at the top of each wall at the center. At the base of the interior walls are slanted benches with sculpted panels of teams of ball players. In one panel, one of the players has been decapitated; the wound spews streams of blood in the form of wriggling snakes.

This small masonry building has detailed bas-relief carving on the inner walls, including a center figure with decorative carvings that resemble facial hair.