Central American
Civilizations
Major Central American Cultures
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OLMEC ca. 1200-300 bce
ZAPOTEC ca. 500 bce- 1000 ce
TEOTIHUACAN flourished 100-650 ce
MAYAN
Preclassic 2000 bce-100 ce
 Classic 100 -900 ce
 Postclassic 900 ce-1500 ce
 TOLTEC 900-1526 ce
 AZTEC 1350-1519 ce
Olmec
ca. 1200-300 bce
Olmecs
 Established the first major Mesoamerican civilization.
 Often regarded as the Mother Culture of later Middle
American civilizations,the Olmec people called themselves Xi
 First to use stone architecturally and sculpturally
 Clever mathematicians and astronomers who made accurate
calendars
 Highly developed technical skills
magnetic compass
skill with iron ores
complex drainage system
 First writing in North America
Lord of the Two Scrolls
 Monumental sculptures
and ruins suggest a
highly stratified society
with rulers,
administrators,
engineers, foremen and a
large peasantry
 Destruction and burial
of monuments and
sculpture suggest the
need to harness
uncontrolled power
Olmec heads glorified the rulers when they
were alive and commemorated them as revered
ancestors after death
Made of basalt, they range from 5 to 11 feet high
Quarried stone needed to be transported 65 miles
from Tuxtla Mts. via log rollers, wooden sleds and
rafts
Olmec Religion
 Olmecs recognized at least 10 gods
including a jaguar god, a serpent god, a fire
god, a rain god, a corn god, and the
Feathered Serpent
 Prodigious offerings were given in the form
of mosaic pavements of jaguar masks, jade
sculptures, and possibly human sacrifices
 Four ceremonial sites uncovered:
San Lorenzo ca. 1200-900 bce
Laguna de los Cerros ca. 1000-600 bce
La Venta ca. 1000-600 bce
Tres Zapotes ca. 300 bce
Shamanism
 The most well-known aspect of
shamanism in Mesoamerican religion
- and in the whole of Native
American shamanism - is the ability
to assume the powers of animals
associated with the shaman.
 Such animals are called nahuales,
and in Olmec art the most common
of these is the jaguar.
 The spirituality and intellect of
man and the ferocity and strength
of the jaguar are all combined in
the shaman and his jaguar nahuale.
The Jaguar Child may
exemplify this
combination. This is a very
common representation in
Olmec art, and it often
includes .slitted eyes and
a curved mouth.
Olmec influence on
Central-American Civilizations
Art
Religious symbolism
Hieroglyphic writing
Bar and dot
numbering system
 Calendar
 Bloodletting ritual
 Ball game
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Olmec Glyph shows the World
Tree sprouting out of Creation
Mountain
Zapotecs
ca. 500 bce-1000 ce
 Carried on traditions of Olmecs
Ruled by powerful aristocrats
Aggressive conquerors
Human sacrifice
Developed hieroglyphic script to record conquests
Fast and dangerous ball game
 First great stone pyramid builders in Central
America
 Center of civilization at Monte Alban
Agriculture nurtured by extensive irrigation
systems led to great population growth
Teotihuacan
flourished 100-650 ce
 Named by the Aztecs: place of the gods
 Writing and language did not survive
 Primary manufacturing center of Central America:
obsidian
Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
MAYANS
Although there was never such a thing as a Mayan
Empire, the diverse peoples and politico-religious
formations that in the past occupied Yucatán and
modern day Belize, Chiapas, Guatemala and
Honduras, all had common cultural characteristics:
a highly developed calendar
a rich complex writing system, and sophisticated
mathematics.
Archeologists and historians recognize several
periods in the history of these cultures:
 Preclassic 2000 bce-100ad
 Classic 100 -900 ad
 Postclassic 900 ad-1500 ad
Mayan
Royal
Audience
Mayan
Ball
Game
Mayan Hieroglyphics
 The unit of the Maya writing system is the glyphic
cartouche, which is equivalent to the words and sentences
of a modern language.
 Maya cartouches included at least three or four glyphs
and as many as fifty.
 There is no Maya alphabet.
 Writing considered to be a sacred gift from the gods.
 Knowledge of reading and writing was jealously guarded
by a small elite class, who believed that they alone could
interact directly with the gods
Glyphs representing, from left to right:
the sky, an ahau (king), a house, a child, and the city of Palenque
The Maya wrote using 800 individual signs or glyphs, paired in
columns that read together from left to right and top to
bottom. Maya glyphs represented words or syllables that could
be combined to form any word or concept in the Mayan
language, including numbers, time periods, royal names, titles,
dynastic events, and the names of gods, scribes, sculptors,
objects, buildings, places, and food.
Maya glyphs were also
painted on codices
made of either deer
hide or bleached figtree paper that was
then covered with a
thin layer of plaster
and folded accordionstyle.
Record rituals,
chronologies and
important events.
Most were burned by
the Spanish during
the 16th c.
Codices
4 Extant Codices:
Dresden, Madrid, Paris,
Grolier
Toltec
ca. 900-1526 ce
 The Toltecs, a Nahuatl-speaking people, ruled much of
Maya central Mexico from the 10th-12th centuries ad.
 About AD 900 they sacked and burned the great city of
Teotihuacan. They formed a number of small states of
various ethnic origins into an empire later in the 10th
century.
 Last dominant Mesoamerican culture before the Aztecs, and
inherited much from Maya civilization.
 The Toltec capital was at Tula
 The most impressive Toltec ruins are at Chichen Itza in
Yucatan, where a branch of Toltec culture survived beyond
the civilization's fall in central Mexico.
Chichen Itza: Chac-Mool
The advent of the
Toltec marked the rise of
militarism in Mesoamerica.
They were also noted as
builders and craftsmen
and have been credited
with carved human and
animal standard-bearers,
and peculiar reclining
Chac-Mool figures.
Beginning in the 12th
century the invasion of
the nomadic Chichimec:
among the invaders were
the Aztec, or Mexica,
who destroyed Tula about
the mid-12th century.
Tula:
Toltec Warriors
Aztecs
1350-1519 ce
 Aztecs came into the Valley of Mexico
during the 12th and 13th century A.D.,
and rose to be the greatest power in the
Americas by the time the Spaniards
arrived, in the 16th century.
 According to myth, Huitzilopochtli told
Tenoch to lead his people to a place of
refuge on a swampy island in Lake
Texcoco. When they reached their
destination, they were to look for an eagle
perched on a cactus.
 At that location, they were to build their
city and honor Huitzilopochtli with human
sacrifices. The city they built was called
Tenochtitlán: the city of Tenoch.
Aztec
Calendar Stone
Offerings to the Gods
Images of the gods Huehueteotl-Xiuhtecuhtli,
together with Tlaloc, presided over most of
the offerings found in the Templo Mayor.
Representing fire and water respectively, this
pair of deities probably symbolized the
concept of "burning water," a metaphor for
warfare
Human Sacrifice
Human sacrifice was conducted on a
sacrificial stone, a flint knife and a
recipient to deposit heart offerings, called
cuauhxicalli.
Invested with great importance because it
was a way to insure that life follow death,
mirroring nature
By way of human sacrifice, the most
precious thing in life was offered, namely
blood and life itself, so that by way of
death arose life anew.