User:Lesanonymous/History of Mexico

Order of things

• Prehistory (Migration, Stone age)

Prehistory

Main article: Pre-Columbian Mexico

Archaeological sites of Chichén-Itzá, one of the New Seven Wonders of the World

• Known dates of inhabitation: El Cedral 30,000 BP. Valsequillo and Tlapacoya 22,000 BP. Tehuacán Valley 12,000 BP.

• The diet of ancient Mexico was varied, including corn (or maize), squashes such as pumpkin and butternut squash, common or pinto beans, tomatoes, peppers, cassava, pineapples, chocolate, and tobacco. The Three Sisters (corn, squash, and beans) constituted the principle diet.
  • Not terribly different from today
• Indigenous peoples in western Mexico began to selectively breed maize (Zea mays) plants from precursor grasses (e.g., teosinte) around 8000 BC, and intensive corn farming began between 1800 and 1500 BC in Tehuacán Valley.

Religion

• The Mesoamericans had a belief where everything represented a manifestation of the supernatural.
  • To what extent is this similar or different from other pre-Colombian belief systems?
• (Image on right) Gods and goddesses are often depicted in stone reliefs, pottery decoration, wall paintings and in the various Maya, Aztec and Mixtec codices.

Aztec calendar Sun Stone on display in Museo Nacional de Antroplogía

• • This can be implied, but explain the significance of the sun stone, or use other example, of religious decoration on artifacts

Many of the deities depicted are common to the various civilizations and their worship survived over long periods of time. Despite differences of chronology or geography, the crucial aspects of this religious pantheon were shared amongst the people of ancient Mesoamerica.

• • Which deities? How long? Common to various meso-american civilizations, common Mexican civilization?
• Great masks with gaping jaws and monstrous features in stone or stucco were often located at the entrance to temples, symbolizing a cavern or cave on the flanks of the mountains that allowed access to the depths of Mother Earth and the shadowy roads that lead to the underworld.
  • Good for image caption
• Cults connected with the jaguar and jade especially permeated religion throughout Mesoamerica.
  • Cults? How so? Or more "mainstream" religions? Were there cultures that did not have any special emphasis on one or the other or both?
• Jade, with its translucent green color was revered along with water as a symbol of life and fertility.
  • Caption
• The jaguar, agile, powerful and fast, was connected with warriors and as spirit guides of shamans.
  • Caption
• Thus, this quality of acceptance of new gods to the collection of existing gods may have been one of the shaping characteristics for the success during the Christianization of Mesoamerica.
  • Place in the Christianity/Conquest area
• New gods did not at once replace the old; they initially joined the ever growing family of deities or were merged together with existing ones that seemed to share similar characteristics or responsibilities.
  • Needs better source

Writing

• Mesoamerica is the only place in the Americas where indigenous writing systems were invented and used before European colonization.
  • Citation needed.
• While the types of writing systems in Mesoamerica range from minimalist "picture-writing" to complex logophonetic systems capable to recording speech and literature, they all share some core features that make them visually and functionally distinct from other writing systems of the world.
  • Clarify.

The great civilizations

Ancient Mexico can be said to have produced five major civilizations: the Olmec, Maya, Teotihuacan,Toltec, and Aztec. Unlike other indigenous Mexican societies, these civilizations (with the exception of the politically fragmented Maya) extended their political and cultural reach across Mexico and beyond. They consolidated power and exercised influence in matters of trade, art, politics, technology, and religion. Over a span of 3,000 years, other regional powers made economic and political alliances with them; many made war on them. But almost all found themselves within their spheres of influence.

The Olmec (1400-400 BC)

Main article: Olmec

A Jade Olmec Mask from Tabasco State.

The Olmec first appeared along the Atlantic coast (in what is now the state of Tabasco) in the period 1500-900 BC. The Olmecs were the first Mesoamerican culture to produce an identifiable artistic and cultural style, and may also have the society that invented writing in Mesoamerica. By the Middle Preclassic Period (900-300 BC), Olmec artistic styles had been adopted as far away as the Valley of Mexico and Costa Rica.

The Maya

Main article: Maya Civilization

Mayan cultural characteristics, such as the rise of the ahau, or king, can be traced from 300 BC onwards. During the centuries preceding the classical period, Mayan kingdoms sprang up in an area stretching from the Pacific coasts of southern Mexico and Guatemala to the northern Yucatán Peninsula. The egalitarian Mayan society of pre-royal centuries gradually gave way to a society controlled by a wealthy elite that began building large ceremonial temples and complexes. The earliest known long-count date, 199 AD, heralds the classic period, during which the Mayan kingdoms supported a population numbering in the millions. Tikal, the largest of the kingdoms, alone had 500,000 inhabitants when the Spaniards came they brought disease guns and steel. With those tools they wiped out most of their civilization. (though the average population of a kingdom was much smaller—somewhere under 50,000 people). ...

The Mayan Glyph for "Cocoa."

The Teotihuacan

Main article: Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, 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. Additionally, Teotihuacan produced a thin orange pottery style that spread through Mesoamerica.

The city is thought to have been established around 100 BCE and continued to be built until about 250 CE. The city may have lasted until sometime between the 7th and 8th centuries CE. At its zenith, perhaps in the first half of the 1st millennium CE, Teotihuacan was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas. At this time it may have had more than 200,000 inhabitants, placing it among the largest cities of the world in this period. Teotihuacan was even home to multi-floor apartment compounds built to accommodate this large population. The civilization and cultural complex associated with the site is also referred to as Teotihuacan or Teotihuacano. Although it is a subject of debate whether Teotihuacan was the center of a state empire, its influence throughout Mesoamerica is well documented; evidence of Teotihuacano presence can be seen at numerous sites in Veracruz and the Maya region. The Aztecs may have been influenced by this city. The ethnicity of the inhabitants of Teotihuacan is also a subject of debate. Possible candidates are the Nahua, Otomi or Totonac ethnic groups. Scholars have also suggested that Teotihuacan was a multiethnic state.

The Toltec

Main article: Toltec

The Toltec culture is an archaeological Mesoamerican culture that dominated a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo in the early post-classic period of Mesoamerican chronology (ca 800-1000 CE). The later Aztec culture saw the Toltecs as their intellectual and cultural predecessors and described Toltec culture emanating from Tollan (Nahuatl for Tula) as the epitome of civilization, indeed in the Nahuatl language the word "Toltec" came to take on the meaning "artisan". The Aztec oral and pictographic tradition also described the history of the Toltec empire giving lists of rulers and their exploits. Among modern scholars it is a matter of debate whether the Aztec narratives of Toltec history should be given credence as descriptions of actual historical events. While all scholars acknowledge that there is a large mythological part of the narrative some maintain that by using a critical comparative method some level of historicity can be salvaged from the sources, whereas others maintain that continued analysis of the narratives as sources of actual history is futile and hinders access to actual knowledge of the culture of Tula, Hidalgo. Other controversy relating to the Toltecs include how best to understand reasons behind the perceived similarities in architecture and iconography between the archaeological site of Tula and the Maya site of Chichén Itzá - as of yet no consensus has emerged about the degree or direction of influence between the two sites.

The Aztec Empire (1325-1521 AD)

Main article: Aztec Empire

The Nahua peoples began to enter central Mexico in the 6th Century AD. By the 12th Century, they had established their center at Azcapotzalco, the city of the Tepanecs.

The Mexica people arrived in the Valley of Mexico in 1248 AD. They had migrated from the deserts north of the Rio Grande over a period traditionally said to have been 100 years. They may have thought of themselves as the heirs to the prestigious civilizations that had preceded them. What the Aztec initially lacked in political power, however, they made up for with ambition and military skill. In 1325, they established the biggest city in the world at that time, Tenochtitlan.

'Aztec religion was based on the belief that the universe required the constant offering of human blood to continue functioning; to meet this need, the Aztec sacrificed thousands of people. This belief is thought to have been common throughout Nahuatl people. To acquire captives in times of peace, the Aztec resorted to a form of ritual warfare called flower war. The Tlaxcalteca, among other Nahuatl nations, were forced into such wars.

Aztec warriors as shown in the Florentine Codex.

In 1428, the Aztec led a war of liberation against their rulers from the city of Azcapotzalco, which had subjugated most of the Valley of Mexico's peoples. The revolt was successful, and the Aztecs became the rulers of central Mexico as the leaders of the Triple Alliance. The alliance was composed of the city-states of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan.

At their peak, 350,000 Aztec presided over a wealthy tribute-empire comprising 10 million people, almost half of Mexico's estimated population of 24 million. Their empire stretched from ocean to ocean, and extended into Central America. The westward expansion of the empire was halted by a devastating military defeat at the hands of the Purepecha (who possessed weapons made of copper). The empire relied upon a system of taxation (of goods and services), which were collected through an elaborate bureaucracy of tax collectors, courts, civil servants, and local officials who were installed as loyalists to the Triple Alliance.

By 1519, the Aztec capital, Mexico-Tenochtitlan, the site of modern-day Mexico City, was one of the largest cities in the world, with a population of 30,000 (estimates range as high as 60,000).

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Sources

The pre-history of Mexico is known through the work of archaeologists and epigraphers.

Accounts written by the Spanish at time of their conquest (the conquistadors) and by indigenous chroniclers of the post-conquest period constitute the principal source of information regarding a) Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest and b) the conquest itself.

While relatively few parchments (or codices) of the Mixtec and Aztec cultures of the Post-Classic period survive, progress has been made in the area of Mayan archaeology and epigraphy.