Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica

Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica contained a succession of urban societies linked by trade, warfare, tribute, religious traditions and shared systems of writing and calendrical knowledge. Major cultures included the Olmec, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Toltec and Mexica.

Political authority was distributed among kingdoms, altepetl city-states and imperial alliances rather than a single continuous state. Maize agriculture, market exchange, craft specialisation and ritual centres supported large populations and extensive regional networks.

This context supports fiction about Indigenous Mesoamerican life before European conquest, including the social and political world from which the Aztec Empire emerged.