• Olmec- 3500-2500 BP- site La Venta
• Classic Maya- 2000- 800 BP- sites Copan & Palenque

• Mexican Southern Gulf Coast-7000 sq. miles
• 3500 to 2500 BP
• Two environments & Agricultural methods
• Slash and burn agriculture- forested uplands
• Irrigation riverine agriculture- riverine lowlands- u-shaped stone drain lines.
• 2 or more crops per year
• Maize, beans, squash
• Lowland riverine populous became the elite
• Chiefdom societies- with centers populated at circa 1000 each- rulers, elite, craftspersons

• Olmec Sculpture defines the culture
• Shamanism
• Marine toad bones- hallucinogens
• Transformation themselves to communicate with animal spirits and to invoke their power for healing and divining the future
• 10 distinct deities- including fire, rain, corn, feathered serpent
• Were-Jaguar major focus
• Human and jaguar features
• Cleft-forehead - Spina bifida?
• Colossal Heads
• Alters/thrones
• Representatives of nobility believed they were born of jaguar & human woman

• Writing system but un-deciphered though indications of counting system- Maya used same counting system so this aspect is translatable.
• Highlands- obsidian, jade and Magnetite, cacao (drink for nobility)
• Lowlands- mollusk, turtle shell, sharks teeth, and pottery
• 4 major redistribution/ceremonial centers-
• San Lorenzo, La Venta, Tres Zapates, and Laguna de los Cerros

• Ceremonial Center located on an island-endangered by oil exploration
• Large Pyramid (110 Ft) - Largest in Mexico at this time.
• Served as Elite housing
• Possibly Functioned for Religious Pilgrimages
• Mound A
• Basalt Column Tomb
• 2 Juveniles buried with exotic items
• 16 Stone Figurines and Axes displaying a ritual activity
• 4 Giant Heads Found to the north of the pyramid
• La Venta was violently overthrown

• 2000-800 BP
• Mayan Region included southern Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador
• Dispersed populations living in small villages bonded by kinship
• Connected through ceremonial centers probably 18,000 persons represented per center
• City-States/Ceremonial centers with a divine rulers, bureaucratic elite, craft specialists, construction specialists, and servants

• Subsistence based on slash and burn terraced agriculture - dependent on maize, squash, beans, chilies, tomato, chocolate bean, vanilla, papaya
• Ramon nut
• Strong Association between House Mounds and the distribution of Ramon Trees
• 18 month storage
• Could support 450 persons per square arable mile (US 301 persons/sq. arable mile)

• Earliest texts on stone and later on bark paper
• Glyphs- pictorial logographs and syllables

• Witz/Mountain=Temples
• Cache of exotic materials- jade, stingray spines, shells, flint
• Worship of deities-blood sacrifices
• Text & Honorary Steale
• Tombs with psychoducts for communication with the ancestor
• Steps contain over 2000 glyphs detailing the history of the city

• Court Shaped like I
• 4 or more players two teams could not touch ball with hands or feet- aim was to get the ball through the hoop
• honored gods, movement of ball represents the sun and the moon, which ensure agricultural cycle
• Thought to be the entrance to the underworld
• Stele often in the center- macaw representing the sun- one of the twin heroes (other is the moon), who is continually struggling with the lords of the underworld.

• Elite Palaces
• Elite served as architectural planners, warfare, political administrators and scribes
• Multiroom structures, little furniture, courtyards, drainage system, throne rooms, administrative and storage rooms
• Palenque’s unique tower
• Decorated with carved stone reliefs of captives
• Sacbes- elevated roads 15’high by 60 feet wide

• A.D. 839 - 900 - A complete demographic, cultural, and social catastrophe
• Stresses include population pressure, disease
• Warfare-ritualized warfare became campaigns of expansion

THE AZTECS

• Originated from somewhere in NW Mexico (Aztlan).
• Inhabited the Basin of Mexico A.D. 1193
• Fierce Warriors that rapidly built a State
• 1-1.2 Million People in the Basin of Mexico at 1519
• Based on Chinampas Agriculture-raised field agriculture

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

• Membership by birth - Strict Caste System
• Calpulli - localized land-holding corporation with ritual functions
• elite members controlled land
• Each had its patron deity
• 20 division arranged into 4 quarters of the city
• Macehualtin- worked land, commoners
• Pipiltin-Noblemen- administrators
• Pochteca- long-distance merchants treated like nobility, gathered intelligence
• Teteuhctin-the rulers each of the 50 city-states was ruled by a king
• Received tribute
• Endogamous caste - Leaders exchanged women which formed alliances
• Religious Sacrifices

TENOCHTITLAN, THE VENICE OF THE NEW WORLD

• Built A.D. 1325 from an artificial island on Lake Texcoco (4.5 sq. miles)
• 120-200,000 People
• 25 Pyramid temples, 9 Priests Quarters, 7 Skullracks, 2 Ballcourts
• 6 Main Canals - Canoe Transportation
• Destroyed by the Spanish and is located below present-day Mexico City
• Temple Mayor - Found in 1978

TEMPLO MAJOR

• Templo Mayor
• Center of the universe and home of the principal myths
• Sun rose between the 2 shrines on the equinox
• Two sanctuaries- Dedication to the God of War - destiny as warrior people and to the fertility and life- needs of an agricultural people
• Extraordinary items of tribute
• Obsidian, flint, alabaster, and jade

War & Human Sacrifice

• Main goal of the state was war
• Everyone fought- priests and merchants alike
• Most glorious activity was to furnish captives or to die for
• Sword-club, bow and arrow, barbed darts, shields
• Goal to capture town and inhabitants for sacrifice
• Ripping out the heart with stone knife
• Decapitation,
• Gladiatorial
• Shooting with darts

THE SPANISH CONQUEST

• 1519 Hernan Cortes
• 400 vs. 11 million
• Weaponry
• War Tactics
• Help from Tlaxcallan warriors
• ** Infectious Diseases
• 1519 - 11 Million
• 1650 - 1.5 Million (Only 13.6 % of the Pre-Conquest Total).