DISCOVERING ANCIENT MESOAMERICAN CIVILIZATIONS and chili peppers were other early crops By 1500 BCE some Mesoamerican farmers were producing enough food that the people were ready to live a fully settled life The Mother Culture The Olmec The first great civilization in Mesoamerica was that of the Olmec These people settled along the hot humid coast of the Gulf of Mexico in what are today the Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco By about 1200 BCE their simple farming villages had evolved into a civilization The Olmec built large towns where they came together to trade and hold reli gious ceremonies The most important were San Lorenzo La Venta and Tres Zapotes San Lorenzo the oldest site is famous for its The Venta extraordinary Olmec settlement of La stone on the Gulf coast of Mexico was monuments La Venta originally built on an island in the Tonalá River Today it is part is marked by great of a large swamp A 100 foot 30 meter high clay mound shaped like a fluted cone towers over the site Some archaeologists believe that it represents a volcano IO
THE STORY OF MESOAMERICA mounds a narrow plaza and several other ceremonial enclosures Between about 800 and 400 BCE it was the most important set tlement in Mesoamerica Olmec culture faded by about 400 BCE Its influence however spread north to cen tral Mexico and south to Central America Classic Civilizations As the Olmec declined other civilizations rose Several reached their peak during what is called the Classic era of ancient Mesoamerican civilization This period lasted from about 100 to 900 CE The Zapotec made their home in the mountains of southern Mexico In about 500 BCE they established a political and cultural center at Monte Albán near the present day city of Oaxaca The ancient city had pyramids temples elaborate tombs underground passageways and a ball court Monte Albán reached its height between 300 and 900 CE After that Zapotec influ ence declined as the Mixtec civilization ascended As Monte Albán flourished in Oaxaca Teotihuacán emerged in central Mexico II
The photograph shows a view of Teotihuacan from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun the third largest pyramid in the world Located near present day Mexico City it was the greatest city in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans At its height in about 500 CE it may have housed more than 150 000 people At the time it was one of the largest cities in the world Teotihuacan contained great plazas temples palaces of nobles and priests and some 2 000 single story apartment compounds Its culture spread throughout much of Mesoamerica Around 750 CE the main part of the city burned possibly in a rebellion or a civil war 12
THE STORY OF MESOAMERICA Although parts of the city were occupied after that event much of it fell into ruin While these cultures rose and fell in the highlands the Maya established a great civ ilization in the lowlands of what are now Southern Mexico Guatemala Belize and Honduras By about 250 CE the villages of the Maya had developed into cities contain ing temples pyramids palaces ball courts and plazas At its height Mayan civilization consisted of more than 40 cities each with a population between 5 000 and 50 000 Among the main cities were Tikal Copán Bonampak Palenque and Rio Bec The peak Mayan population may have reached 2 million people The great Mayan cities of the lowlands declined after 900 CE No one knows why though warfare and This tower in Chichen Itzá rising high above the trees was a Mayan observatory the exhaustion of Archaeologists named it EI Caracol the farmland may have snail because of its spiral stairway 13
