Ancient civilizations of the central America
When, on April 21, 1519, Hernan Cortes arrived with his 500 soldiers on a beach on the east coast of Mexico, near today's Vera Cruz, the region was dominated by the warlike Aztecs, who had ruled Mexico for a century, and the magnificence of their capital, Tenochtitlan, deeply affected the Spanish conquerors. Here resided the court of the Aztec emperor Montezuma, who imposed taxes on millions of subjects.
With its temples and palaces lined up along a network of canals, Tenochtitlan was a spectacular Venice of the New World; but the most surprising aspect of the life of the Aztec city was the importance attached to religion and especially to ritual practices. It was precisely for having understood the Aztec worldview that Cortes was able to defeat Montezuma: in fact, fatalism was as responsible as the firearms of the rapid collapse of the Aztec empire and the practically total annihilation of his people. In fact, already on November 8 of the same year Mexico was practically conquered.
The Aztecs awaited the return of the god Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, who after having created men from the bones of the dead and sprinkled with his blood and given them the knowledge of agriculture and crafts had succumbed to the call of death and sailed on a raft of snakes to an enchanted land. Cortes exploited the prophecy that he would someday return and led the Aztecs to believe that the bearded, fair-skinned god marched with the Spaniards.
This complex deity had been the tribal god of the Toltecs, the most important warrior people of Mexico before the rise of the Aztecs. As successors of the Toltecs, the Aztecs were happy to make the god Quetzalcoatl their own to justify their military power but radicalized the Toltec practice of human sacrifice to the point of making ferocious the cult of the Feathered Serpent and the other deities worshiped with him. They believed, in fact, that the sovereign sun god should be incessantly fed on human hearts and blood, so that one of the main purposes of the war was the capture of prisoners to be sacrificed in the temples of Tenochtitlan.
Archeology has revealed that the roots of Central American civilization are far more remote than the Aztecs. At an unspecified time, between 10,000 and 11,000 years ago, the polar ice caps were much larger and the sea level was 36 meters lower than today, as more water was accumulated in the glaciers. It was at this time that some populations of Asia crossed the land bridge (the current Bering Strait) covered with ice that existed between Asia and America, populating Alaska and gradually the whole continent. Already around 6,000 BC there were crops of wheat and the ancient inhabitants began to produce tools and pottery. From 1500 BC the inhabitants began to gather in villages not only to cultivate and harvest wheat but also to defend themselves. The first known people is that of the Olmecs, whose civilization flourished, around 1000 BC, on the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico in a territory corresponding to the current sites of Tabasco and Vera Cruz. Although their mythology and legends have not survived, the gigantic statues and stone heads they have left are a tangible sign of their existence. The heads up to three meters high, usually depict plump young men with helmets, while the statues represent animals, such as the jaguar and the snake or human beings. The most important urban and ceremonial centers were San Lorenzo, a city that flourished between 1200 and 900 BC and the sites of La Venta and Tres Zapotes, in vogue between 900 and 500 BC.
Among the peoples who succeeded the Olmecs, the best known are the Zapotecs, the Maya, the Toltecs and the Aztecs.
Around 800 BC some Olmec tribes migrated west to the Oaxaca valley where, on the summit of Monte Alban, they erected an important city. Around 300 BC, the Zapotecs ousted the Olmecs and settled permanently in what became the most important ceremonial center in the area.
The magnificent city of Teotihuacan , city of priests and temples, located 20 km north of present-day Mexico City, rose suddenly around 200 BC, enlarged up to 400 AD but was abandoned around 700 AD.
Around 900 AD, the Toltecs established their capital in Tollan, present-day Tula. Their empire included most of today's Mexico and extended as far as northern Yucatan, home of the Mayans, where a Toltec colony had settled in Chichen Itza shortly before 987.
It is not unlikely that the conquest of the Yucatan peninsula by the Toltecs accelerated the decline of the Maya, who since the sixth century controlled the current area of Guatemala, Belize and the Mexican provinces of Yucatan, Chiapas and Tabasco, a region still today scattered with their imposing Templar platforms and pyramids.
The Mayan civilization developed in three clearly distinct geographical areas: the "Highlands of the South", corresponding to southern Guatemala; a central area, true cradle of civilization, called "Terre Basse del Sud" (Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, Chiapas and Tabasco), with the rainforest-rich Petan region in the center; the "Terre Basse del Nord", corresponding to the Yacatan, more arid. These are ecologically diverse areas, each with specific environmental characteristics and different natural resources. This diversity favored commercial exchanges between distant regions and stimulated the interdependence between rural areas and city centers. With the passing of time, in the major cities, together with places of worship, important market places were formed.
In the highlands of the South, mighty volcanic formations predominate: together with the presence of regular rains, they are the main responsible for the fertility of the soil. In part of this area cocoa is grown, the seeds of which represented, in the times of the Maya, a kind of international currency. The slopes of the reliefs are covered with pine forests and many plateaus are partially occupied by lakes. In these areas obsidian was extracted, the precious black volcanic glass with which knives, spear points and mysterious figures depicting human and fantastic beings were made that testify to the unparalleled skill of the Mayan artisans in this prehistoric technique. Other mountains in the South supplied the Maya with minerals such as jade, serpentine, pyrite and hematite.
The Highlands of the South, despite the favorable climate and wealth of natural resources, remained on the periphery of the Mayan civilization. The most important cities instead developed in the Terre Basse del Sud and in the Peten area, crossed by tortuous rivers such as the Usumacinta and the Motagua and dotted with lakes and marshes. The area is rich in mahogany, Spanish cedar and vanilla plants, palm trees, bread trees, resins and rubber; the monkey, the deer, the rabbit, the eagle, the turkey, the jaguar, the wild pig (peccary) and the tapir live there. In rivers, the Maya could collect large pebbles of their precious jade.
The Yucatec north is more arid, covered by a poor and low forest and inhabited by deer and wild pigs. In the Yucatan, natural waters collect in underground channels and cisterns naturally dug into the limestone: typical of the area are large cavities called cenotes, originating from the breaking through of the vault of large caves opened in the limestone substrate. Some of these natural wells became places of worship, usually intended for supernatural entities called by the collective name of chaac, deity of rain and rivers. On the coasts, the Maya could collect sea shells, used to produce jewelry and refined inlays, but also extract and refine the precious sea salt, a commodity in great demand by the people of the hinterland.
