Member of an ancient American Indian people who ruled much of Mexico and Central America in the 10th-12th centuries, with their capital and religious centre at Tula or Tollán, northeast of Mexico City.
The culture of ancient Mexican natives inhabiting the tropical coastal plain of the contemporary states of Veracruz and Tabasco, between 1300 and 400 B.C.
From Africa and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History
Despite some technological limitations, a few Native American civilizations had achieved a high level of development before the arrival of European explorers.
Name given to those people who built mounds in a large area from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mts.
From Encyclopedia of Archaeology: History and Discoveries Coined in 1943 by the scholar Paul Kirchoff, the name Mesoamerica is used to describe the culture area of the ancient civilizations of central and southern Mexico and northern Central America.
Ancient commercial and religious center in the central valley of Mexico. The largest (c.7 sq mi/18.1 sq km) and most impressive urban site of ancient America.
From Encyclopedia of North American Indians Cahokia was a major Mississippian urban center. Occupied between about AD 700 and AD 1250, the core of the site covered more than two hundred acres and was surrounded by a wooden palisade containing in excess of twenty thousand logs.
From Encyclopedia of North American Indians
The largest known serpent effigy in the world, Great Serpent Mound is located in rural Ohio. The mound's form is of an undulating serpent, uncoiling and opening its mouth to swallow a large oval.
From Encyclopedia of North American Indians Before the Christian era many Indian cultural groups of North America cultivated plants of Mesoamerican and indigenous origin. By a.d. 1000 corn (maize), beans, and squash were their most important cultivated food plants.
From Encyclopedia of North American Indians Indian architectural traditions reflected the diversity of tribal economic patterns, social organizations, historical experiences, religious systems, and worldviews.
From Encyclopedia of Mexico: History, Society & Culture Important Mesoamerican religious themes: cosmic topography, power-filled inhabitants, calendrically determined transformation, and sacrifice.
From Concise Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature The Maya were the only people of America's high cultures who developed a glyph-writ language (a partly ideographic, partly phonetic mode of writing) capable of recording events.
From Iberia and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History Quipu is an Andean mnemonic device consisting of primary and secondary cords (spun of llama or alpaca wool) of various colors on which are several types of variously spaced knots.
