Interamericana

From Savagery to Civilisation: The Rise of the Aztecs

The Aztec transformation from humble nomadic warriors into one of Mesoamerica’s most complex civilisations is a story as fantastic as it is legendary. This comprehensive feature explores traces the rise of Mexico’s last great imperial force.

London Mayor hails Conquest of Mexico

The London mayor, Boris Johnson, recently penned an article on Aztec civilisation where he justified the conquest of Mexico on moral grounds. Whilst the mayor is doing a good job in promoting awareness of Mexico’s ancient cultures, I found his argument for genocide slightly wrong.

Palenque: Secret City of the Maya

Dense, exuberant rainforest shrouds this immense metropolis, abandoned for unknown reasons over a millennia ago. A sense of the lost, grandiose world of the ancient Mayans lingers in this city’s ruined plazas. Palenque is a testament to Mesoamerican civilisation at its height.

Late Formative, 400BC-200AD

As Chalcatzingo, La Venta and other Middle Formative polities collapsed during the last two centuries BC, the vast metropolises of Cuicuilco and Teotihuacán – both located in Central Mexico – emerged as dominant centres of Mesoamerican power. Both had huge temple complexes and buildings of truly monumental proportions. In the first century AD, Cuicuilco was [...]

The Middle Formative, 1200BC-400BC

The Middle Formative era of Mesoamerican development was dominated by the Olmec. The Olmec constructed the most advanced and powerful polities of their time, although relatively little is known of these ingenious and mysterious people. They are generally attributed with developing the first Mesoamerican calendars, as well as written glyphs. They spoke a Mixe-Zoquean language [...]

The Early Formative, 2000BC-1200BC

At the dawn of the Formative era, 2000BC, the evolution of teosinte to maize was complete, ushering in a new era of sedentism. Teosinte is the ancestor of maize and bears tiny, edible fruits. Over thousands of years, the early hunter-gatherers of Mesoamerica selectively bred the most productive teosinte plants until they were large enough [...]

The Formative Era in Ancient Mesoamerica, 2000BC – 200AD

The Formative period in ancient Mesoamerican history, also known as the Pre-Classic era, sees the establishment of all the key socio-political structures, symbols, technologies and religious ideas that define the subsequent ages of the Mesoamerican tradition. In essence, Mesoamerica defines itself. Scholars have divided it into 3 distinct (if unimaginatively titled) phases:

The early Formative (2000BC-1200BC)
The [...]

The Pleistocene Hunter-gatherers, 40000-8000BC

The first Mesoamerican peoples were nomadic hunter-gatherers possessing simple stone technologies and an appetite for mammoth. Scholars are divided over exactly when they first set foot upon American soil. It is believed that they appeared during the last ice age, also known as the Pleistocene epoch, at around 40000BC, give or take ten thousand years.
At [...]

The Archaic Era, 8000-2000BC

No event was more critical in the emergence of Mesoamerican civilisation than the domestication of plants, especially maize. This took place between 8000 and 2000BC in an era known as the archaic or proto-agricultural. Much of our knowledge of this era is owed to the work of Richard MacNeish, who discovered beans and gourds in [...]