Teotihuacan Culture Essay

Mesoamerica is the term for the region that today is well known as Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and the Pacific coast of El Salvador. This region was the homeland of several pre-Columbian civilizations – cultures that flourished before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492- (Kleiner, 366). This area is characterized by a variegated landscape that according to Kleiner have much to do with the diversity of ethnic and linguistic in its native population (366). The standard chronology of Mesoamerican culture is divided into three periods The Preclassic from 2000 BCE to 30 CE, The Classic from 300 to 900 CE and The Postclassic from 900 to Spanish conquest (Kleiner, 366). Some of the more famous pre-Columbian cultures are the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Maya and Aztec. All these cultures reached a high level of social complexity and technological developments as the construction of cities, roads, bridges and irrigation and drainage
They served as ceremonial centers with religious temples and palaces and had separate areas for trade. The common people lived separately from the ceremonial centers in surrounding areas and made their living as farmers. They provided labor for the ceremonial centers as well as food and goods to the ruling elite. The farmers gathered periodically in the ceremonial centers for religious or governmental celebrations. The farmers belonged to the lower classes in the newly forming class structure. There was a tremendous gap between their condition and that of the upper classes that is apparent in the difference between the lavish burials of the Olmec elite and humble burials of the farmers (“Early Civilizations in the Americas Reference Library”).
This organization would be adopted and developed by later Mesoamerican cultures (Kleiner, 366). The art in Olmec culture was complex and the most recognized aspect of them are the Colossal heads and the hollow baby-faced