The name Tikal may be derived from ti ak'al in the Yucatec Maya language; it is said to be a relatively modern name meaning "at the waterhole". The name was apparently applied to one of the site's anc ...
It is likely the ancient name of Copán was Oxwitik pronounced , "Three Witik" (the meaning of witik remains obscure).Location Location of CopánCopán is located in western Honduras close to the bord ...
Another candidate for earliest writing system in Mesoamerica is the writing system of the Zapotec culture. Rising in the late Pre-Classic era after the decline of the Olmec civilization, the Zapotecs ...
Being visible from anywhere in the central part of the Valley of Oaxaca, the impressive ruins of Monte Albán attracted visitors and explorers throughout the colonial and modern eras. Among others, Gu ...
The proper derivation of the word Yucatán is widely debated. Hernan Cortes, in the first of his letters to Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, claimed that the name Yucatán comes from a misunderstand ...
The name "Guatemala" comes from Nahuatl Cuauhtēmallān, "place of many trees", a translation of K'iche' Mayan K'iche' , "many trees". This was the name the Tlaxcaltecan soldiers who accompanied Pedro ...
The official name of the state is Chiapas. The name derives from "Chiapan" or "Tepechiapan" the name of an indigenous population. The term is from Nahuatl and has been translated to mean "sage seed hi ...
The rise of the Epi-Olmec culture on the western edge of the Olmec heartland coincides with the depopulation of the eastern half of the Olmec heartland and the decline of the Olmec culture in general. ...
First human habitation The Valley of Mexico attracted early humans because the region was rich in biodiversity and had the capacity of growing substantial crops. Generally speaking, humans in Mesoamer ...
The name Teōtīhuacān is given by the Nahuatl-speaking Aztec centuries after the fall of the city. The term has been glossed as "birthplace of the gods", reflecting Nahua creation myths that were sa ...
The Zapotec dominated the valley and much of the Oaxacan highlands from the Early Formative through the end of the Classic period. They were succeeded by the Mixtec culture during the Postclassic peri ...
Zapotec civilization had its beginnings in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca in the late 6th Century BC. The three valleys were divided between three different-sized societies, separated by 80 km2 “no-ma ...
The earliest evidence for Olmec culture is found at nearby El Manatí, a sacrificial bog with artifacts dating to 1600 BCE or earlier. Sedentary agriculturalists had lived in the area for centuries be ...
The Olmec was one of the first civilizations to develop in the Americas. Chronologically, the history of the Olmecs can be divided into the Early Formative (1800-900 BCE), Middle Formative (900-400 BC ...
The name "Olmec" comes from the Nahuatl word for the Olmecs: ?lmēcatl (singular) or ?lmēcah (plural). This word is composed of the two words ōlli , meaning "rubber", and mēcatl , meaning "rope ...
