Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Human sacrifice was a religious practice principally characteristic of pre-Columbian Aztec civilization, although other Mesoamerican civilizations like the Maya and the Zapotec practiced it as well. The extent of the practice is debated by modern scholars.
Agriculture in Mesoamerica dates to the Archaic period of Mesoamerican chronology (8000–2000 BC). [1] At the beginning of the Archaic period, the Early Hunters of the late Pleistocene era (50,000–10,000 BC) led nomadic lifestyles, relying on hunting and gathering for sustenance.
Maya stele in Copán.. The Mesoamerican Classic Period can be established from around 200 to 900 A. D. However, the chronology varies in each cultural area. The precursors to this period are found in the late Preclassic Period, at around 400 B. C, when an increase in efficiency of agriculture technology led to demographic growth, a greater division of labor and specialization, and the growth ...
Mesoamerica and its cultural areas. Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
During the Archaic period, Mesoamerican peoples slowly changed from being nomadic hunter-gatherers to semi-sedentary or sedentary foragers and farmers. [8] Based on research at sites on Mexico's gulf coast, central highlands, and coasts, it seems that people began settling in constructed, permanent villages between 3000 and 1800 BCE. [9]
Mesoamerican and Central America in the 16th century before the arrival of the Spanish. Of all prehispanic Mesoamerican cultures, the best-known is the Mexica of the city-state of Tenochtitlan, also known as the Aztecs. The Aztec Empire dominated central Mexico for close to a century before the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire (1519–1521).
The Maya relied on a strong middle class of skilled and semi-skilled workers and artisans which produced both commodities and specialized goods. [1] Governing this middle class was a smaller class of specially educated merchant governors who would direct regional economies based upon simple supply and demand analysis, and place mass orders for other regions.
The large market centers within major Mayan cities acted as redistribution centers in which merchants could obtain goods to sell in more minor cities. [25] Mostly subsistence items were traded within major city market center. Meanwhile, items for the elite class such as rare feathers, spondylus and jadeite were commissioned by the elite class. [26]