subject: Pre Classic Period In Maya Tribes [print this page] Pre Classic Period In Maya Tribes Pre Classic Period In Maya Tribes
Teotihuacan ("The City of the Gods" in Nahuatl) had its origins toward the end of the Preclassic period ca 100 CE. Very little is known about its founders, but it is believed that the Otom had an important role in the city's development, as they did in the ancient culture of the Valley of Mexico, represented by Tlatilco. At first, Teotihuacan competed with Cuicuilco for hegemony in the area. In this political and economic battle, Teotihuacan was aided by its control of the obsidian deposits in the Navaja mountains in Hidalgo. The decline of Cuicuilco is also still a mystery, but it is known that a large part of the former inhabitants resettled in Teotihuacan some years before the eruption of Xitle, which covered the southern town in lava.
Once free of competition in the area of the Lake of Mexico, Teotihuacan experienced an expansion phase that made it one of the largest cities of its time, not just in Mesoamerica, but in the entire world. During this period of growth, it attracted the vast majority of those then living in the Valley of Mexico.
Teotihuacan was completely dependent on agricultural activity, primarily the cultivation of maize, beans and squash, the Mesoamerican agricultural trinity. However, its political and economic hegemony was based on outside goods for which it enjoyed a monopoly: Anaranjado ceramics, produced in the Poblano-Tlaxcalteca valley, and the mineral deposits of the Hidalgan mountains. Both were highly valued throughout Mesoamerica, and were exchanged for luxury merchandise of the highest caliber, from places as far away as New Mexico and Guatemala. Because of this, Teotihuacan became the hub of the Mesoamerican trade network. Its partners were Monte Albn and Tikal in the southeast, Matacapan on the Gulf coast, Altavista in the north, and Tingambato in the west.
Teotihuacan refined the Mesoamerican pantheon of deities, whose origins dated from the time of the Olmec. Of special importance were the worship of Quetzalcoatl and Tlloc, agricultural deities. Trade links promoted the spread of these cults to other Mesoamerican societies, who took and transformed them. It was thought that Teotihuacan society had no knowledge of writing, but as Duverger demonstrates, the writing system of Teotihuacan was extremely pictographic, to the point that writing was confused with drawing.
The fall of Teotihuacan is associated with the emergence of city-states within the confines of the central area of Mexico. It is thought that these were able to flourish thanks to the decline of Teotihuacan, though things may have occurred in the opposite order: the cities of Cacaxtla, Xochicalco, Teotenango, and El Tajn could have first increased in power, and then were able to economically strangle Teotihuacan, trapped as it was in the center of the valley without access to trade routes. This occurred around 600 CE, and even though people continued to live there for another century and a half, the city was eventually destroyed and abandoned by its inhabitants, who took refuge in places such as Culhuacn and Azcapotzalco, on the shores of Lake Texcoco.
