HISTORY20 - Ancient Mesoamerica

For years, I’ve studied and written about ancient civilizations in the southwestern U.S. and nearby northern Mexico.  It seems I’m always referring to “more advanced” civilizations to the south in central Mexico and central America.  So, I thought it was about time that I found out what those advanced civilizations were and what made them “advanced.”

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in North America that extends from approximately central Mexico south and east through Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. 

Geographically, Mesoamerica consists of two strongly contrasted regions: highlands and lowlands. The Mexican highlands are formed mainly by two Sierra Madre mountain ranges that sweep down on the east and west. Lying across them in central Mexico is a string of volcanoes stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  The high valleys and landlocked basins of Mexico were important centers of early Mesoamerican civilizations. In the southeastern part of Mesoamerica lie the partly volcanic Guatemala highlands. The lowlands are primarily coastal.   Particularly important for early Mesoamerican civilization was the littoral plain extending south along the Gulf of Mexico, expanding to include the Yucatán Peninsula.  Pico de Orizaba, about 150 miles east of today’s Mexico City, is the highest mountain in Mesoamerica at 18,491 feet elevation.

Geographical map of Mesoamerica.

Located on the isthmus joining North and South America, between 10 degrees and 22 degrees north latitude, Mesoamerica possesses a complex combination of climate systems. In the low-lying regions, sub-tropical and tropical climates are most common, as is true for most of the coastline along the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea (east of the Yucatan Peninsula).  The highlands show much more climatic diversity, ranging from dry tropical to cold mountainous climates; the dominant climate is temperate with warm temperatures and moderate rainfall.

First Inhabitants

The first human inhabitants of Mesoamerica were hunter-gatherers around 10,000 BC.  These Paleo Indians - presumably migrating from the north after their forebearers crossed a land bridge from Siberia into Alaska between about 45,000 BC to 12,000 BC - hunted large animals, like mammoths and sloths, and lived near rivers, swamps, marshes, and seacoasts that had good fishing, and attracted birds and game animals.  Their small, extended family groups moved from place to place as resources were depleted.

By the start of the Archaic Period (7,000 - 2,000 BC) in Mesoamerica, most large game animals had died off.  Native people adapted by supplementing their diet with smaller game and a variety of edible wild plants.  The middle of the Archaic Period saw the first developments in agriculture and the earliest sedentary villages.

The most important Archaic Period culture in Mesoamerica was the Tehuacán culture (5,000 - 2,300 BC) extending over the southeastern Puebla state and the northwestern Oaxaca state in today’s central Mexico.  Extensive excavations of caves and open-air sites from 1960-1965 found ample evidence of cultivation of corn, bottle gourds, pumpkins, squash, and beans.  Archaeologists also found stone bowls and Mexico’s first monochrome ceramic pottery.

Early Mesoamerican Civilizations

Mesoamerica is one of the five areas in the world where ancient civilizations arose independently, and the second in the Americas.  Norte Chico arose as an independent civilization in the northern coastal region of present-day Peru.  (The other three areas were the Fertile Crescent [ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia], ancient India, and ancient China.) 

Early Mesoamerican civilizations are defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures - traits such as agriculture (cultivating mainly corn, beans, and squash), a complex mythological and religious tradition, a numeric system based on 20 (instead of the decimal system), a complex calendar, a ball game played with a rubber ball (made from latex taken from rubber trees), and a distinct architectural style:  building temples on pyramids or platforms.  

Across Mesoamerica, villages began to become socially stratified and develop into chiefdoms.  Large ceremonial centers were built, interconnected by a network of trade routes for the exchange of luxury goods, such as obsidian (dark, glass-like volcanic rock), jade, cacao (from which chocolate is made), hematite crystals, and ceramics.  

Mesoamerica is one of only three regions of the world where writing is known to have independently developed (the others being ancient Sumer and China).

Ancient Mesoamerica was an area of extensive linguistic diversity, containing over a hundred different languages and seven major language families.

While Mesoamerican civilizations knew of the wheel and basic metallurgy, neither of these technologies became culturally important. 

Beginning about 1,500 BC, early Mesoamerican civilizations lasted until the Spanish Conquest in the 16^th and 17^th centuries.

Six important, early Mesoamerican civilizations are identified on the map below, showing their geographical extent at the peak of their history.  Note how some of the cultures overlap on the map, depending on the time period.  Note also that Teotihuacán is shown as a city only, while at its peak in about AD 400, the city controlled a large area of the central highlands of Mexico.

Early Mesoamerican civilizations with their extent shown at the peak of their history.

I’m going to discuss these six civilizations in the order of the time period they started:  Olmec, Maya, Zapotec, Teotihuacán, Toltec, and Aztec.  For reference, I include below a map of the current 31 states of Mexico.

Olmec (1,500 BC - AD 400).  The Olmecs are the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization, probably arising out of the earlier Tehuacán farming culture, and occupying the Mexican Gulf Coast’s lowland jungles, grasslands, and swamps of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco.

Personal note:  The Olmecs were located on the northern end of what is known today as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the narrowest part Mexico, that separates the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean.  In 1850, my grandfather, Eugene Ring, sailing to Panama for the winter from the gold fields of California, was abandoned with nine others on the Isthmus’ Pacific Coast, forced to trek across the Isthmus to Veracruz, losing four of the group to Cholera, before catching a boat to New Orleans.  In 2011, Pat and I hired a guide, and following Eugene’s diary, successfully retraced my grandfather’s route across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec - an adventure of a lifetime.

Over the years of the Olmec culture, villages evolved into large ceremonial and economic centers, and finally into cities.  Tribes evolved into complex social structures.  Crafts and handiwork evolved into art and architecture on both refined and colossal scales.  Ritual evolved into number and calendar systems.  Agriculture led to a network of trading partners.  This flowering of the culture of the Olmecs (a name derived from the rubber trees growing in the region) was to influence the later cultures of Mesoamerica.

The Olmecs constructed permanent city-temple complexes at San Lorenzo, La Venta, and Tres Zapotes (whose archaeological sites can be viewed today).  The complexes were built mostly of earth and clay, with perhaps some stonework for support of buildings and platforms.  Archaeologists have uncovered concentrations of monuments, sculptures, altars, burial mounds, buried offerings and tombs, and large plazas surrounded by raised platforms thought to be “stages” for ritual drama.

 

The Great Pyramid of La Venta, built up of earth carried in baskets, is approximately 100 feet high.

These cities were primarily centers for politics, religion, and culture.  The elite classes probably lived in the city itself, but most ordinary Olmecs did not.  Most common Olmecs were simple farmers and fishermen who lived in family groups or small nearby villages.  Homes were simple affairs made of earth packed around poles.

It is believed that La Venta at its peak, between 900 - 500 BC, supported around 18,000 people, including those who lived outside the city.  (Amazingly, there is no city in northern Mexico or the southwestern U.S. [ancient civilizations or otherwise] that reached a population of 18,000 until 2,400 years later in the early 1900s.)

The Olmecs farmed corn, beans, hot peppers, sweet peppers, avocados, and pumpkins. They developed an irrigation system.  The civilization was known for breeding turkeys for food and feathers.  The Olmecs also fished and hunted.

The Olmec rulers were subject to religious authorities, with fixed classes of priests, bureaucrats, merchants, and craftspeople.  The Jaguar (considered the god of the earth) was possibly the most important object of worship.  Other deities were the gods of fire, corn, death, and Quetzalcoatl (feathered serpent).

Olmec artisans produced jade masks, small sculptures of figures (people and jaguars) for rituals, but are most famous for enormous stone (basalt) heads with helmets that are believed to be monuments to favored leaders, warriors, and ancestors, possibly dressed in headgear for ceremonial ball games.  Eighteen of these gigantic heads have been found among four archaeological sites - the heads ranging from five to eleven feet in height and weighing up to 40 tons.

Olmec Head from San Lorenzo, 1,200-900 BC, just under six feet tall.

By around AD 400, the Olmec civilization had disappeared, and today there is no consensus among experts as to what happened.  But there were other civilizations about to arise in Mesoamerica.

Historical note:  The Olmec civilization was long thought to be the oldest major ancient civilization in the Americas, but has recently lost that title to the Norte Chico civilization in northern Peru, about 2,500 miles to the southeast, which flourished from about 3,500 - 1,800 BC.

Maya (1,000 BC - AD 1697).  The Maya occupied lands that are now eastern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador - a territory that covered a third of Mesoamerica.  The Maya inherited a rich cultural legacy from earlier Mesoamerican peoples, particularly the Olmec. 

As did the Olmecs, the Maya civilization arose out of earlier farming cultures - in this case in today’s Guatemala.  Between 1,000 - 400 BC, the first villages appeared along with the first monumental architecture (mounds).  There is evidence of contact with the Olmec culture.  From 400 BC - AD 250, the first massive palaces were built at urban Nakbe and El Mirador.  The first Mayan roads, water control, organized trade, and writing appear.

The period of Mayan dominance and highest culture occurred from AD 200 - 900.  City-states such as Tikal, Palenque, Copan, and Bonampak were established and prospered in the lowlands of what is now central Guatemala, southeastern Mexico, and Belize.  Tikal had some 3,000 structures, including six temple pyramids (up to 180 feet high) and covered over one square mile, with an estimated population of 100,000.  For unknown reasons, the lowland Maya culture fell into decay after AD 900, but Mayan culture continued to thrive to the south in the Guatemalan highlands.

 

Temple of the Great Jaguar (180 feet high) in the Mayan city-state of Tikal.

After about AD 1000, another strain of Mayan culture developed on the Yucatán Peninsula in what is now eastern Mexico.  The addition of Toltec people from the west (experts disagree on whether this was peaceful migration or military takeover) spurred this new culture, with the Toltec interbreeding with the Maya and adopting many of their cultural traits.  City-states such as Chichén Itzá, Tulum, and Mayapán reached their peak with many of the same traits as the earlier lowland sites, such as elaborate stone architecture and carvings.  Mayapán, the last great city-state that served as a regional capital, suffered a revolt in AD 1450, permanently fragmenting the Yucatán Maya.

Mayan greatness resulted not so much from innovation but from refinement of existing cultural traits, such as an intricate mathematical system, intricate astronomy and calendar systems, hieroglyphic writing on tree-bark paper, realistic art styles in both painting and relief carving, and elaborate stone architecture, including steep-sided pyramids, marbled vaults, and sacred roof comb structures atop their pyramids.

The Mayan world, like that of the Olmec, revolved around ceremonial centers; more than 100 sites are known.  Most of these centers consisted of magnificent stone structures:  temple pyramids, astronomical platforms or observatories, palaces, monasteries, baths, plazas, bridges, aqueducts, reservoirs, and ball-courts.

The priests were keepers of knowledge and performed their functions within the centers.  Hereditary leaders were in charge of commerce, taxation, justice, and public maintenance.  Craftspeople worked in and around the center complexes: stoneworkers, painters, jewelers, potters, and clothiers, who fashioned decorative cotton-and-feather garments.  Outside the civic center were the farmers, living in one-room pole-and-thatch dwellings. 

The Maya had a varied diet.  Crops included corn, beans, squash, peppers, cassava, and cotton.  Mayans were fond of turkey; ate ducks and bird eggs; hunted and ate monkeys, dear, and boars; and consumed pig meat, apples, pineapples, papaya, fish, guavas, tomatoes, vanilla beans, avocados, chocolate, turtles, and more.

Maya religious beliefs were formed on the notion that virtually everything in the world is sacred.  As with the Olmec, the Mayan worshipped many gods including the god of creation, and gods associated with daily life, e.g., sun, rain, etc.  As a part of their religion, the Maya practiced human sacrifice.

The Maya civilization produced highly sophisticated art, using both perishable and non-perishable materials, including wood, jade, obsidian, ceramics, sculpted stone monuments, stucco, and finely painted murals.

Stone carving of a Mayan priest.

Although Mayan society was rigidly structured into classes, there were no overarching rulers uniting the many population centers.  Each city-state was ruled by a semi-divine king.  There never was a common sense of identity or political unity among the distinct populations.

The Maya established far-reaching trade routes with other Mesoamerican civilizations.  The Mayans traded both luxury items and objects designed for everyday use:  feathers, gold, jade, amber and quartz, animal pelts, vegetable dyes, tree resin incense, herbal medicines, dried chile peppers, and household ceramics.  They even transported heavy items, commodities such as mortars, pestle, and bags of salt.

The Yucatán Maya had several contacts with Europeans before Hernán Cortés landed at today’s Mexican Gulf Coast in AD 1519 and began the Spanish Conquest of Mesoamerica.  In AD 1502 a Maya trading canoe met a Spanish ship under Christopher Columbus in the Gulf of Honduras.  In AD 1511, two Spaniards survived a ship wreck off the northernmost point of the Yucatán Peninsula, at Cape Catoche, were rescued by Maya natives, and remained there to live with them.  In AD 1517, after the first intentional landing by the Spanish in Mesoamerica, also ironically at Cape Catoche, Spanish explorers got into a battle with local natives and soon departed.  Finally, there was another brief exploration of the Yucatán coastland in AD 1518.

Subsequent Spanish colonization of Mayan territory was sporadic and incomplete because of the inaccessibility of Mayan population centers and villages in the dense jungles.  But the Spanish persisted in the eradication of Mayan culture, stealing or destroying their ceremonial objects and burning their writings.  Disease and forced labor also took their toll.   It would take over 170 years, following the Spanish defeat of the Aztecs in 1521, for the Spanish to establish full control of the Maya homelands, which extended from northern Yucatán to Guatemala.  The downfall of the Maya city-state of Tavasal in Guatemala in 1697 brought an end to the Maya civilization.  Yet today, several million people, especially in northern Yucatán and the Guatemalan highlands, continue to speak Mayan dialects.

Zapotec (500 BC - AD 900).  The Zapotecs, known as the cloud people (because they thought they were descended from supernatural beings inhabiting clouds), occupied the southern highlands of central Mexico in the Valley of Oaxaca, just southwest of the Olmec civilization.  They emerged from agricultural communities in that area around 500 BC. 

Early on, the Zapotecs established trade with the nearby Olmec people and constructed an impressive mountain-top capital site at Monte Alban, just outside today’s Oaxaca city.  They went on to dominate the region - and interact with other Mesoamerican regional states to the north.  Besides Monte Alban, the Zapotecs had other significant settlements in surrounding valleys, including 15 elite palaces.  When Monte Alban began to decline in AD 750 and was abandoned, the Zapotecs built a second capital city, Mitla, 24 miles southeast of Oaxaca city, which lasted under Zapotec control until AD 900, when warlike Mixtec people from the north began to take control of the region. Throughout their rule, Zapotecs demonstrated a high level of sophistication in architecture, the arts, writing, knowledge of astronomy, and engineering projects like canal irrigation systems.

At first, the Oaxaca Valley had a fragmented political setup - a number of independent states, each of which had its own seat of power.  But Monte Alban became the center of power, with a king the sole authority over the other communities.  The priestly class rose to prominence.  Other classes consisted of artisans such as goldsmiths and silversmiths, astronomers, and farmers.

Monte Alban was built on an artificially-leveled ridge (meaning the people painstakingly leveled the mountain top), about 1,300 feet above the valley floor.  In addition to the monumental core, the city was characterized by several hundred artificial terraces, a dozen surrounding clusters of mounds, several pyramids, and a huge ball court with spectator stands.   Monte Alban had palaces, temples, and residential quarters for the elite around a huge central plaza.   The oldest temple was decorated with reliefs of dancing figures; other relief stones from the temple exhibit written texts, but as yet not completely deciphered.  The relief stones also show a system of numbers represented by dots, bars, and glyphs for an early Mesoamerican calendar. The city also contained magnificent tombs and grave goods of fine gold jewelry.

Part of the ruins of the Zapotec mountain-top capital of Monte Alban.

Everything in the city was built of stone.  Most of the city residents (commoners) probably lived on the terraced hillsides in stone and mortar buildings. 

Like other Mesoamerican civilizations, the Zapotecs worshiped deities for such human conditions as rain and lightning, sun, wind, earth, war, corn and fertility, seeds, hunting and fishing, justice, love, oceans, and creation.  Offerings, prayer and sacrifices were offered to these deities in hope of their favorable intervention in Zapotec affairs.

Zapotec art included fine silver and gold jewelry;  pottery, usually made with a fine gray clay, sometimes with incised figures, and typically in the form of spouted vases; sculptures, including single effigy and group figures; funeral urns; jade goods; and numerous carved stone slabs that feature bas-relief art depicting humans in various striking poses.

Large Zapotec Monte Alban figure effigy urn, ca. AD 500-750.

At its peak around AD 200, Monte Alban reached a population of up to 30,000 and the city ruled over some 1,000 settlements spread across the valley.  Besides being one of the earliest cities of Mesoamerica, Monte Alban was important for over 1,000 years as the pre-eminent Zapotec socio-political and economic center.

After Monte Alban’s decline, Mitla, the Zapotec’s second capital became the Zapotec main religious site.  The invading Mixtec took control of Mitla around AD 1000, though the area remained populated by many Zapotec. (Monte Alban was adopted by the Mixtec as a sacred site and place of burial for their kings.)  The Mixtec sort of filled in behind the Zapotec, expanding to cover part of today’s Mexican states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Puebla.

When the Spanish Conquest reached the Valley of Oaxaca in 1521, Mitla was still occupied by Mixtec and Zapotec inhabitants and operated as the region’s main religious center. The valley contained hundreds of independent village-states of Mixtec and Zapotec.

The Zapotecs survived wars with other ancient Mesoamerican civilizations, the Spanish Conquest and Colonial Period, and almost 200 years of Mexican rule.  Their present-day population is estimated at approximately 800,000 - 1,000,000 people, concentrated in Mexico’s state of Oaxaca.

Personal note: The Zapotecs had a pre-Hispanic weaving tradition and are today world famous for fine tapestries, wall hangings, and wool rugs woven on a foot-loom in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca.  I have several contemporary Zapotec rugs in my home, including a large one inside my front door entry.

Teotihuacán (200 BC - AD 700).  Teotihuacán, located in the Basin of Central Mexico, in today’s state of Mexico, 25 miles northeast of modern-day Mexico City, was one of the largest, most influential, and most revered cities in the history of the New World.  While the Maya flourished to the east, people of Teotihuacán attained their own cultural heights; cross-cultural influences between the two peoples played a part in the greatness of both.

The city formed around 200 BC, probably with multi-ethnic groups from Central Mexico.  Starting as a religious center, Teotihuacán became the first true city of Mesoamerica, a well-planned metropolis, situated at about 7,500 feet altitude, covering eight square miles, with an estimated maximum population of 125,000 or more, during its peak in the fourth and fifth centuries.  Residents built plazas, boulevards, parks, canals, drain conduits, market places, workshops, apartment houses (adobe-and-plaster-block one-storied, multi-roomed structures), and temple pyramids.  Two massive pyramids - the 200-foot high Pyramid of the Sun and the smaller Pyramid of the Moon - were connected by the city’s main thoroughfare, the three-mile long Avenue of the Dead.  The Citadel - a large square enclosure of buildings, including the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, also adjoined the avenue.

 

The Pyramid of the Sun God at Teotihuacan.

Painted murals throughout the city, on the walls of apartment compounds, depicted a wide range of images of gods of weather events and agricultural fertility.

Painted mural at Teotihuacan.

Religion and politics were entwined in Teotihuacán stratified society.  Its building housed religious leaders, as well as merchants and craftspeople, with neighborhoods determined by occupation.  Most farmers lived in surrounding villages.

A plentiful supply of spring water, channeled through irrigation, and the natural local attributes of soil and climate, enabled cultivation of crops such as corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, avocados, prickly pear cactus, and chili peppers. Crops were grown in a system of raised, flooded fields.  Turkeys and dogs were husbanded for food, and wild plants, insects, frogs, and fish supplemented a diverse diet.

From this dynamic center of religion, commerce, and art, Teotihuacán culture fanned out over much of Mesoamerica:  glyph writing (more rudimentary than the Maya), calendar systems, architectural styles, agricultural techniques, and the worship of particular gods, such as Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc (the rain god), as well as the practice of human sacrifice. 

The city also exported many finely crafted goods:  tools; utensils; clothing; textiles; carvings, especially of obsidian; and thin-walled orange pottery.

At its peak between AD 375-500, the city-state controlled a large area of the central highlands of Mexico. 

Mysteriously, around AD 600, the major buildings of Teotihuacán were deliberately destroyed by fire and artworks and religious sculptures were smashed - for reasons and by people unknown.  After this climactic event, the wider city remained populated for another century, but its regional dominance ended.

Toltec (AD 900 - 1150).  The Toltec culture was centered in the city-state of Tula, in the Tula Valley, in what is now the southwest of the Mexican state of Hidalgo, about 45 miles north of Mexico City, at an altitude of 6,630 feet.  The Toltec empire arose from independent states in the region, established earlier by nomadic people from the north.  Tula became the Toltec capital in AD 987 and replaced Teotihuacán as the dominant city-state in central Mexico, although never approaching the size or influence across Mesoamerica that Teotihuacán had enjoyed.  The Toltecs were religious warriors who spread the cult of their god, Quetzalcoatl, to all corners of their empire.  The Toltecs began to decline after AD 1000 due to incursions from nomadic peoples from the north, creating ethnic strife and wars, which eventually resulted in the city’s collapse. 

The ceremonial center of Tula was located on a limestone outcropping, with steep banks on three sides, making it defensible.  The main structures included two pyramids, a large palace, two Mesoamerican ball courts, and several other large buildings, one with a series of columns which faced a large plaza.  On three sides, there were long meeting halls with over 3,300 feet of benches, which had stone reliefs depicting warriors.

Ruins of the two pyramids at the Tula archaeological site.

War and sacrifice were prominent themes in the ceremonial center, with frescos representing warriors such as jaguars and coyotes, as well as eagles eating human hearts.  There are also images of serpents eating skeletal figures and skulls in various areas.  There were reclining stone warriors clutching a vessel on their stomach to receive sacrificial offerings, including human sacrifices, for the gods.   

The Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl was a five-tiered structure, about 33 feet high.  At the top of the pyramid were four massive sculptures, carved in the likeness of Toltec warriors, which supported the roof of the temple.  Each warrior-figure was of basalt, 13 feet high, with a spear thrower, incense, a butterfly shaped chest plate, and a back plate in the shape of solar disk.  A columned walkway fronted the pyramid and connected it to nearby buildings.

The four warrior column sculptures atop the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl at Tula.

Surrounding these major structures was a dense area of urban housing, arranged in groups of up to five flat-roofed residences, with each group centered on a courtyard with a single altar and the whole group surrounded by a wall.

Tula society is thought to have consisted of a king, a ruling elite class, a craftsmen class, a merchant class, and a large number of farm workers.  Typically, most of the farmers lived outside the city, with most of the other classes in the city.  Again, typically, for Mesoamerica, crops included corn, beans, chili peppers, and squash. Toltecs were also credited with producing natural colored cotton of red, yellow, green, and blue.  The Toltecs also domesticated turkeys and dogs.

Tula’s economic base was agriculture and the mining and crafting of obsidian, used for blades and arrows.  It appears the craft was practiced by about half of the inhabitants, along with the working of travertine (a form of limestone) and ceramic pottery.  Other artisans produced stone sculptures, stone reliefs, painted or sculpted friezes, and textiles.

From their homeland in the Tula Valley, the Toltecs established an extensive trade network including contemporary cultures in central Mexico, the Gulf Coast, the Yucatan Peninsula, and even reaching southeast all the way to Nicaragua. 

At its height Tula probably covered five and a half square miles, with a population of about 60,000, and another 20,000 - 25,000 within 20 miles of the city.  Its political sphere is thought to have included most of the present state of Hidalgo, eastward into the Valley of Mexico, and a considerable distance westward.

Two hundred and fifty years after the collapse of Tula, Aztecs from the Valley of Mexico (see below) systematically looted the ruins of Tula and burned Toltec history books, thereby greatly reducing the number of artifacts available to modern archaeologists, and losing much of Toltec history.

This leaves two major mysteries regarding the Toltec civilization.  The first is the founding and fall of Tula.  Who exactly founded the city-state?  Who caused the end of Tula, with violent destruction, including burning and burying many of its monuments?

The second mystery is Tula’s (and the Toltec) relation to the Mayan city of Chichén Itzá, in the Yucatan Peninsula, about 900 miles southeast along the Gulf Coast from Tula.  There is an undeniable connection between the two cities, that share architectural and art similarities, e.g., the Temple of the Warriors at Chichén Itzá (constructed between AD 900-1000) is very similar to the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl in Tula.  The latest explanation by experts is that when the lowland Maya civilization collapsed around AD 900, about the same time as Tula was being overrun, and with these two contemporary cultures familiar with each other, exiled Toltec rulers from Tula, settled with the Maya in Chichén Itzá, bringing their culture with them.

Aztec (AD 1325 - 1521).  The Aztecs, who probably originated as a nomadic tribe in northern Mexico, arrived in Mesoamerica around the beginning of the 13^th century.  From their magnificent capital city, Tenochtitlán in the Valley of Mexico, the Aztecs emerged as the dominant force in central Mexico, developing an intricate social, political, religious, and commercial organization that brought many of the region’s city-states under their control by the 15th century.  Spanish invaders overthrew the Aztec Empire by force and captured Tenochtitlán in 1521, bringing an end to Mesoamerica’s last great native civilization.

Around AD 1325, the Aztecs founded two settlements on swampy islets in Lake Texcoco - Tlatelolco and Tenochtitlán - on the site of today’s Mexico City, at an altitude of 7,350 feet.  Eventually Tenochtitlán conquered and absorbed Tlatelolco and fought their way to dominance over the valley’s competing city-states.

The Aztecs revered the past Toltec civilization, so much so that Aztec rulers claimed to be descended from royal Toltec lines.  Aztecs adopted many aspects of Toltec culture, including the worship of Quetzalcoatl and human sacrifice.

Tenochtitlán became a city that covered 3.1 - 5.2 square miles, with an estimated 200,000 inhabitants. The city was connected to the mainland by bridges and causeways, and interlaced with a series of canals, so that all sections of the city could be visited either on foot or via canoe.  Two aqueducts, each more than 2.5 miles long, provided the city with fresh water from springs on the mainland. 

In the center of the city were hundreds of buildings, including public buildings, temples, and palaces.  Inside a walled square, 1,640 feet on a side, was the ceremonial center, including the 200-feet high Templo Mayor pyramid, dedicated to the Aztec patron deity (god of war, sun, and human sacrifice), Huitzilopochtli, and the Rain God, Tlaloc; the temple of Quetzalcoatl, a ball-game court; the Sun Temple; a building dedicated to warriors and the ancient power of rulers; platforms for gladiatorial sacrifice; and other minor temples.

 

Painting of the Great Pyramid, the Templo Mayor, and surrounding buildings in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. 

By the early 16^th century, the Aztecs had come to rule up to 500 small states, and some five to six million people, either by conquest or commerce.  The Aztec Empire extended from central Mexico, far south to today’s Mexican state of Chiapas and Guatemala, and spanning from the Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans.

Conquest and reconquest served two purposes for the Aztecs.  First, it maintained their trading empire.  The conquered tribes had to pay tributes to the Aztecs, guaranteeing another source of food and goods.  The second motive for continued military activity was the taking of captives for human sacrifices, which the Aztecs practiced at a fanatical level.

Religion permeated Aztec life.  Each of their gods - many of the same gods worshipped by earlier Mesoamerican people, such as Quetzalcoatl, had its own cult.  Huitzilopochtli (god of war, sun, human sacrifice, and patron of the city of Tenochtitlan), demanded the most tribute.  Thousands of prisoners were slain at the top of temple pyramids in his honor.  The Aztecs did not originate human sacrifice in Mesoamerica, but they carried it to new extremes.

The priests, although central to Aztec society, were not all-powerful as in some other Mesoamerican civilizations.  At the top of the class system was the Chief of Men, selected from a royal lineage by nobles.  In addition to the Chief of Men, the priests, clan representatives, wealthy merchants, and war chiefs shared in power.  Below them were commoners, including craftspeople and farmers, as well as unskilled laborers.

Aztec clothing revealed social status, from the fur and feather tunics, and jeweled accessories of the Chief of Men, to the brightly colored-cloaks of the nobles, the white cotton cloaks of the merchants, animal skins for warriors, to breech clothed, barefoot workers and farmers who were forbidden to wear bright colors.

Aztec houses were also determined by social class.  The Chief of Men and the wealthiest nobles had two-story, multi-roomed palaces, with stone walls and log and plaster roofs.  Less wealthy nobles and merchants had one-story houses.  Commoners lived in small, mostly one-room huts, made from clay bricks or from pole frames and plant stems packed with clay.

The Aztecs had a varied diet.  Typical Aztec crops, grown on intensively cultivated, canal-irrigated land, included corn, beans, squashes, potatoes, tomatoes, chili peppers, and avocados.  An important source of protein was insects such as grasshoppers, worms, and ants.  They also supported themselves through fishing and hunting local animals such as rabbits, armadillos, snakes, coyotes, and wild turkey.  The Aztecs made a beverage from chocolate, vanilla, and honey; and also made beer and wine from different plants.

The Aztec calendar, common in much of Mesoamerica, was based on a solar cycle of 365 days and a ritual cycle of 260 days.  The calendar played a central role in the religion and rituals of Aztec society.

Aztec art was extensive and varied.  Metal work in gold and silver was a particular Aztec skill, producing fine jewelry.  Other art included sculpture in wood and stone of figures representing the extensive family of gods; turquoise in mosaic form to cover sculpture and masks; ceramic hollow figures and urns; and frescoes.

Aztec Sun Stone, also known as the Calendar Stone, c. AD 1427.

There was a huge marketplace at Tenochtitlán, where there were items for sale from all parts of the empire and beyond.  On its busiest days, there were over 50,000 people there buying and selling.

The Aztecs had extensive trade networks and a special class of people, called the pochteca, to conduct long-distance trade.  (Significant trade among neighbors existed in ancient Mesoamerica from the time of the Olmec.  The great city of Teotihuacán (200 BC - AD 700) had long distance trade routes from central Mexico that reached as far as modern-day Guatemala and the American Southwest.) 

The Aztec pochteca traded the products of central Mexico across long distances in exchange for exotic items.  To faraway lands they would bring cloth, embroidered clothes, rabbit’s-hair blankets, obsidian knives, fine copper and gold jewelry, medicinal herbs, and cochineal dye.  They would bring back to central Mexico rare and expensive items such as sea shells, emeralds, tropical bird feathers, translucent jade, jaguar pelts, tortoiseshell, amber, and cacao.  There were no beasts of burden in Mesoamerica, so all merchandise was carried on the backs of porters.

In AD 1519, at the height of the Aztec civilization, Spanish conquistadors, led by Hernán Cortés, landed at today’s Gulf Coast site of Vera Cruz, about 200 miles from Tenochtitlán, allied themselves with city-states opposed to the Aztecs, and began the conquest of the Aztecs.  Over a period of almost 28 months, Cortés, resupplied several times with additional men, mounted a campaign against Aztec lands on his way to the capital at Tenochtitlán, where in AD 1521, he eventually defeated the Aztecs, weakened by a long siege that cut off the city’s food and water, and a devastating smallpox epidemic.  Some 240,000 people were believed to have died in the city’s conquest. 

The Spanish sought to eradicate Aztec culture, destroying temples and pyramids, melting down sculptures into base metals to be shipped back to Spain, and burning Aztec manuscripts - effectively ending the Aztec civilization.  After the conquest, Cortés immediately began building Mexico City on the Aztec capital’s ruins.

Conclusions/Personal Observations

Remembering why I started this project, I constructed the table below as a little reminder summary of what I learned about the “more advanced” civilizations of Mesoamerica.  I’m satisfied that these civilizations were “way more” advanced than contemporary civilizations in southwestern America and northern Mexico, namely the Anasazi, Hohokam, and Mogollon.

Mesoamerica’s major ancient civilizations.

Civilization	Time Period	Capital/Largest City	Max Population	Comments re Mesoamerica
Olmec	1,500 BC - AD 400	La Venta	18,000	First major civilization; much influence    on following civilizations.
Maya	1,000 BC - AD 1697	Tikal	100,00	Longest lasting and most  widely              distributed civilization.
Zapotec	500 BC - AD 900	Monte Alban	30,000	Along with Olmec, candidate for first writing.
Teotihuacán	200 BC - AD 700	Teotihuacán	125,000	Most extensively planned city in New World.
Toltec	AD 900 - 1150	Tula	60,000	Considered as example of height of craftsmanship and civilization by later central Mexican societies.
Aztec	AD 1325 - 1521	Tenochtitlán	200,000	Destroyed at the peak of their power and influence.

Given that humans supposedly crossed a land bridge from Siberia to Alaska between 45,000 - 12,000 BC, and then gradually, generation by generation, moved east and south to  populate the Americas, one might have thought that the more northern region, southwestern America and northern Mexico, would have developed before Mesoamerica, far to the south.   

But the northern region was comparatively rugged, generally infertile terrain of mountains, mesas, canyons, and deserts, with little rain - much less suitable for the early development of agriculture (the key to early civilization growth and success) than Mesoamerica, where conditions for agriculture were ideal.  

So, civilizations in the southwest U.S. and northern Mexico developed later than those in Mesoamerica - but were greatly influenced by those civilizations in the form of shared agricultural developments (e.g., introduction of corn), technology (e.g., irrigation methods), crafts (e.g., pottery), social stratification, sacred structures (e.g., effigy mounds), ritual dances, recreation (e.g., ball courts), religious concepts and icons, and trade opportunities.