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.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
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.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
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 [...]
Saturday, August 15, 2009
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 [...]
Saturday, August 15, 2009
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 [...]
Saturday, August 15, 2009
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 [...]
Saturday, August 15, 2009
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. [...]
Saturday, August 15, 2009
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 [...]
Interamericana is an intrepid new travel blog about the people and places surrounding the Carretera Interamericana - a 6000 kilometre stretch of highway that links Mexico and the seven nations of Central America. Created by guidebook writer and journalist Richard Arghiris, Interamericana combines photography, video and the best in alternative travel writing. |
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Located in Nicaragua’s most remote and disconnected province – the North Atlantic Autonomous Region – the diminutive settlement of Waspam is the centre of the Miskito universe. This short video clip, featuring music from Miskito musician Li Lamni, was shot on take-off from town’s modest airstrip.
Mr Edgar ‘Rasta’ Coulsen is a native of the Caribbean town of San of Juan del Norte – an end of the world settlement perched at the mouth of the Rio San Juan. In this short video interview, Interamericana talked to him about the changes that have taken place in the region since his childhood.
One day, me and my compadres took a trip up the Río Istiam – a tranquil waterway that meanders inland at the isthmus between Ometepe’s two volcanoes, Concepción and Maderas. The river is home to abundant bird life, caimans, turtles and herds of indolent livestock. Many thanks to Jennifer Kennedy and the three Matts – Barwick, Hicks and Ashford, who appear in this video clip.
Via Via is something of a León institution, attracting Nicas and foreigners alike with its buzzing multi-cultural atmosphere, dirt-cheap bottles of rum and rousing Friday night music sets. Amalgama, featured in this video, are an institution in themselves, playing everything from rock ballads to crowd-pleasing revolutionary classics. In this clip they are accompanied by itinerant musician Richard Crandell and his Zimbabwean imbira.
As a poor chele, or white boy, rhythm was never going to come naturally to me. Nonetheless, my militant salsa instructor, Angel, patiently tried to teach me to dance. And when he could be patient no longer, he simply ordered me to the nearest disco…
Granada’s international poetry festival kicked off yesterday, 14th February 2010, with a belting set from Katia Cardenal. Performing at the Plaza Independencia, Katia sang a mixture of rousing folk songs and revolutionary ballads, including a superb homage to the Miskito people of the Atlantic coast (2nd song featured, actually in the Miskito language). Turn up the volume, pour yourself a rum, kick back and enjoy…
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009
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