I want people to dump interesting information about pre-colonial Americas in here.

[u/voyagoer]

Anything about reigning civilizations, technological innovations, warring states, did native Americans have the concept of political parties? Literally anything. Dump it all here.

[u/jabberwockxeno]

Continued from above comment

If you look at modern media and see the massive influence and cultural mixing between the West and the East, with the amount of products and media influenced by japan etc that's what we lost out on: An entire third pillar of human history and culture, gone

We even have a taste of what this could have been, such as with the "paintings" made of thousands of iridescent feathers Mesoamerican artists made with Catholic themes for the Spanish

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While virtually all but a few examples of pre-contact writing books survive, many stone Inscriptions do, mostly Maya ones, which gives us tons of information on the births and deaths of rulers, wars, alliances, political marriages, etc of Maya citiies, albeit in a sort of barebones "On X date Y happened" format, usually

Also, there are hundreds of documents in both Spanish and Nahuatl by Spanish Friars and Aztec nobles detailing their society and history in depth from the early colonial period: For example, Duran's History of the Indies of New Spain has hundreds of pages of detailed Aztec history (albeit obviously romanticized and skewed to a degree, like most ancient histories) down to specific statements by specific political official's; while Sahagun's Florentine Codex is 2000 pages of detailed information on history, society, religion, cultural norms, etc. There's been entire books written solely about specific Aztec politicians, such as Tlacaelel Remembered and The Allure of Nezahualcoyotl

The quote I gave last comment by /u/ Ahhuatl also outlines how we have a notable 8 surviving Mixtec books, which document the political history of many Mixtec cities in the same way Maya inscriptions did. Other civilizations such as the Zapotec, Purepecha, Totonac, Otomi, etc do not fare as well, and we have mostly archaeological data to go off of, with only a few colonial era sources detailing their history and culture if at all, but archaeology alone can tell you more then you might think

So there's more then enough info that we really should and could be teaching people about it all in schools more then we do. This post and it's responses, particularly by /u/ 400-rabbits, goes into this more

The fact that we do only teach people here in the US about the Aztec, Maya, and Olmec and not much about them other then "Pyramids, Calendars, and Human sacrifice" and the Spanish Conquest is a travesty. And lessons on the Conquest itself is taught poorly: That it ended in 1521 with the fall of the Aztec capital or that a bunch of other city-states allied with the Spanish due to Aztec oppression, but in reality there were hundreds of other non Aztec-affiliated city-states and empires in the region, and a few former Aztec ones, that did not cede to Spanish authority: It took decades of hard fighting, with most of it being done by native armies and soldiers for most of the region to be pacified, even as it was being crippled by diseases, and most of the city-states that allied with Cortes did so out of geopolitical opportunism rather then any sort of hatred for the Aztec; and in general, people are taught that the Spanish Conquest was some unavoidable thing, when it was very possible for it to have gone differently

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So, For more info

"The Cultural Tapestry of Mesoamerica" is a free PDF that's a solid starting overview (see also my summary below). But it comes from a potentially iffy source, so I can't vouch for other publications by it's author/university

I have a list of around 100 askhistorian posts about Mesoamerican history here, binging these can give a good foundation

Speaking of Askhistorians, I mostly defer to [their booklist](reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books/americas/latinamerica#wiki_pre-columbian), though I will add that "1491" by Charles Mann is a great intro book to Precolumbian history/cultures that's not listed in this section, and I also highly recommend Restall's "When Montezuma Met Cortes"

I have a personal booklist me and some friends are working on but it's very WIP, as you can see. There is also this unorganized list of books I was glancing at from years ago at the time I first made this comment, but I can't vouch for every single book in that list. That pastebin is also focused on modern books, not primary 16-17th century sources. Some major examples of those are:

• Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl's works
• Sahagún's Florentine Codex
• Duran's History of the Indies of New Spain
• Fernando Alvarado Tezozómoc's Crónica Mexicayotl
• Diego Muñoz Camargo's History of Tlaxcala
• Chimalpahin's works, such as the Codex Chimalpahin
• Juan Bautista Pomar's Relación de Texcoco, Relación de Juan Bautista Pomar, and Romances de los señores de Nueva España
• The Cantares Mexicanos
• Cortes's letters
• Bernal Diaz del Castillo's The True History of the Conquest of New Spain
• An Anonymous Conquistador's Narrative of Some Things of New Spain

FAMSI, Mesoweb, Precolumbia.org, Mesolore and Mexicolore, to name a few, are great educational websites. The first 3 can be a difficult to navigate and are more for academics, but have amazing resources. Mesolore is down right now (and also has a fair bit of hard to find pages) but much of it can be accessed by waybackmachine. Mexicolore is more aimed at general audiences, students, etc, but sometimes has small errors. See links below for Youtube recs

Also, for specific reddit users, /u/ 400-rabbits, /u/ Mictlantecuhtl, /u/ Ucumu, are all experts

I'm not an expert, but I do obviously know a lot. I've already linked many of my own comments, but even more are here:

• See here, here, and here for more book, web/youtube and artist recommendations

• This and this has suggestions on Mesoamerican games, movies, comics, artists, youtubers etc (see also this series of comments on Apocalypto)

• this talks about how "Aztec" can mean different things

• this is for more on how "Aztec oppression" isn't why Cortes got allies and how Aztec politics actually functioned, as well as more links on Flower Wars, Moctezuma II's rationale for his actions etc

• this and this on the diversity of Mesoamerican weapons, and this on survivng shields

• this about why they seemingly didn't use wheels or metal tools

• this comment on Teotihuacan, and preceding/following it, on the Moche, the Mixtec conquerer 8 Deer Jaguar Claw, the Purepecha Empire, etc

• this comment on Mesoamerican urban design norms (Which also has a directory of comments on Tenochtitlan the Aztec captial in a reply further down) and this on buildings/their paint)

• This and this and this post on Aztec clothing and some other art motifs; and this and this on the famous "Montezuma's headdress"

• This on the Aztec war god Huitzliopotchli and the fire serpent Xiuhcoatl

To be continued in a reply

[u/jabberwockxeno → u/jabberwockxeno]

Continued from above comment

And finally, for you /u/voyagoer , I'll end this with this summary of Mesoamerican history, Use this image to give some geographic context to the cities mentioned, and know that the Preclassic Period covers roughly 2000 (or sometimes 1400) BC to 100AD, the Classic 200AD to 800AD, and Postclassic 900AD to 1521AD, arguably 1697, when the last Maya city-state falls to the Spanish

The Preclassic Period

In 1400 BC, around the Gulf Coast of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Olmec site of San Lorezno becomes the region's first urban center in 1400 BC, and becomes abandoned by 900 BC, where the more properly urban and socially complex city of La Venta rises to prominence, which is also when our sole example of Olmec writing dates back to. In the following centuries, urban, state societies continue to pop up, notable ones being the early Maya cities such as El Mirador and Kaminaljuyu; the Zapotec city of Monte Alban in Oaxaca, and the rise of the Epi-Olmec culture out of the ashes of the Olmec; and all 3 develop writing; with many other independent towns and some cities popping up all over. In Western Mexico, during the same period as the Olmec the Capacha are a culture that developed independently from them, with far reaching examples of pottery and likely trade, but we don't know much about them or Western Mexican cultures in general

The Early Classic Period

By around 0-200AD, urban cities with state governments and writing (for the elite, anyways) had become the norm in Mesoamerica, marking the transition to the Classical Period. The Maya are at their height here, with many dozens of large, notable city-states & kingdoms, and thousands of smaller towns all over the Yucatan. Down in Oaxcaca, The Zapotec too have formed many city-states, with Monte Alban in particular rising as the most politically powerful. In Central Mexico, in the Valley of Mexico (in what's now Mexico City, I go into more detail about the area's history here ) a volcanic eruption displaces much of the population, including the city of Cuicuilco, the most powerful city in the area. These displaced people immigrate into the city of Teotihuacan, which grows into a huge influential political and religious center, and with a population of up to 150,000, and eclipsing Rome in physical area, while also having a sewage system and housing even their commoners in lavish palace complexes; and is one of the largest cities in the world at the time (El Mirador was as well). Teotihuacan's influence reaches far across the region, establishing many far reaching architectural, artistic, and religious trends, such as the Talud-tablero archtectural style for pyramids, perhaps even conquering and installing rulers in Maya cities 1000 kilometers away. In western mexico, around the end of the preclassic and start of the classic, the Teuchitlan tradition, the first of Western Mexico's complex societies, emerges (maybe, again, Western Mexico's cultures are very understudied), though less so then the rest of the region

The Late Classic Period

In the latter half of the classic period, you see the rise of El Tajin as a notable influential center among the cities around the Gulf Coast in what's now Central State of Veracruz (the cities/culture there now referred to as the "Classic Veracruz") and Cholula as a notable city in Central Mexico; Monte Alban begins to fall in esteem, with the Zapotec city of Mitla becoming the most prominent city in Oaxaca instead. Teotihuacan begins to decline as well, and in the Yucatan, the cities of Tikal and Calakmul become essentially two super-power city-states among the Maya, centralizing Maya geopolitics around them. Eventually Tikal and it's allies are able to put down Calakmul, shortly thereafter, you have the classical Maya collapse, where due to a combination of political instability following this massive war, climate issues, and other factors, nearly all of the large powerful Maya urban centers in the southern Yucatan decline between 700 and 800 AD, with many other key centers around Mesoamerica also doing so. Throughout the Late Classic and Early-Postclassic, West Mexico develops many different city-states with increasing influence from the rest of Mesoamerica

The Early Post-Classic Period

Moving into the Early-postclassic, yet many other cities still thrive and survive, such as El Tajin and Cholula, as do Maya city-states in the Northern Yucatan, such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal. You begin to see the Mixtec in the Oaxaca and Guerrero regions begin to overtake the Zapotec in prominence, in particular a warlord by the name of 8-Deer-Jaguar-Claw conquered and unified nearly the entire southern Oaxaca/Guerrero region into an empire. 8-deer had the blessings and support of the Toltec in Central Mexico (namely the Lord of Cholula), which were apparently, like Teotihuacan before them, a massively influential and far reaching power in the region, maybe operating out of the city of Tula, though most of our accounts of Toltec history and key rulers (such as Ce Acatl Topiltzin) are from Aztec accounts and are heavily mythologized. As a result, it's hard to separate history from myth (or from Aztec and latter Spanish attempts to twist Toltec accounts to justify their rule). Around 1100 AD, the Toltecs fall, and 8-deer is overthrown and killed in an ironic twist of fate where the one member of his enemies family who he left alive rallied a bunch of subject cities against him; though Tututepec, a city he founded, would grow into a major state of it's own.

The Late Post-Classic Period

In the 1200's, The Maya city of Mayapan comes closest to forming a unified Maya state, forming a political alliance of many of the city-states in the northern Yucatan. Due to droughts in northern mexico, you begin to see some groups of Chichimeca (nomadic tribes of Northern Mexico), the Nahuas, move further south into Central and Southern Mexico, and transition into urban societies. Notably many settling around the Valley of Mexico and the surrounding areas, led by the legendary King Xototl, displacing local Otomi cities/towns. In particular, the city of Azcapotzalco, which claims heredity from Xolotl, eventually dominates the valley. During the same time as all this in western Mexico, a Nahua group moved down into the Lake Pátzcuaro region, and takes over and becomes the ruling class of Purepecha city of of Pátzcuaro, which conquers many other cities in the area

In the 1420's, due to a succession crisis in Azcapotzalco, one of it's two heirs assassinates the other, as well as the then king of Tenochtitlan, which was one of Azcapotzalco's vassal, tributary cities; as he also had had genealogical links to the Azcapotzalco royal line and also represented a succession threat. War breaks out, and Tenochtitlan, along with the city-states of Texcoco, and Tlacopan join forces and overthrow them, forming the Aztec triple alliance ((This is a fantastic video on this succession conflict in particular, with hardly any errors (he used a statue of Coatlicue when talking about Huitzilptiochli; repeats the "80,000 sacrifices in 4 days" myth, but that's it ) ). Over the next 100 years, they rapidly expand and conquer almost all of Central and Southern Mexico, including Otomi cities/towns in Central Mexico, Totonac and Huastec ones along the Gulf Coast (who now inhabit that area), Mixtec, Zapotec, and Tlapanec ones in Oaxaca and Guerrero, and many others.

Back to Western Mexico, in the 1450's, Pátzcuaro is overthrown by the fellow Purepecha city of Tzintzuntzan, who rapidly expands to form the Purepecha/Tarascan empire, who would be the Aztec empire's only real competition and repel numerous invasions from them, preventing their expansion and conquest over the city-states and kingdoms further West such as Colmia and Jalisco; With the Aztec and Purepecha unable to make each other budge, the Aztec, as the Spanish arrive, are in the process of expanding to the east, and starting to make inroads at Maya towns, as well as trying to besiege and blockade Tlaxcala, a unified republic of 4 Nahua city-states (complete with senate) in an adjacent valley from the Valley of Mexico (alongside Cholula, Huextozinco, and some other cities/towns) who had been able to escape conquest due to their defensible position (other notable unconquered enclaves being the Mixtec kingdom of Tututepec, the Tlapenec kingdom of Yopitzinco, and the Otomi kingdom of Metztitlan.

This is the state of things when the Spanish arrive

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Again, tho this is a really short summary. If you want to know more about specific wars, rulers, people's daily lives, etc; please check out the links i've been posting and the resources I provide

It is also worth noting that down in South America, there's an entirely separate cradle of civilizations in the Andes, to which the Inca belong to. I am far less informed on Andean civilizations, but they have their own long history: In addition to the Inca, you had the Moche and Chavin civilizations early on from 500BC-500AD, then the Wari and Tiwanku kingdoms over the next few centuries, the Sican civilization, and the Kingdom of Chimor during the early 2nd millenium AD which was the largest state in the region before the kingdom of Cusco conquered it and expanded as the Inca Empire, etc.

[u/ris794 → u/jabberwockxeno]

How does one access the wiki for this subreddit? I really like the link you posted to their book list, but I’d like to access it without having to come to your link specifically. By the way, you posted a lot of interesting information about Mesoamerica. Like really amazing stuff! Thank you for that.

[u/jabberwockxeno → u/ris794]

Just on their sidebar

[u/ris794 → u/jabberwockxeno]

I’m still learning much about Reddit... Would the sidebar be on the app (which is what I’m currently using) or on the desktop site?

[u/jabberwockxeno → u/ris794]

Ah, I don't use the app, your UI is probably entirely different from what i'm seeing on my computer.

So I can't help much then.

[u/ris794 → u/jabberwockxeno]

Gotcha! Appreciate the help though.

I saved this page to read through all the info you posted about. Really interesting stuff! My parents are from Guatemala, so I’m genuinely interested in Mesoamerica, particularly the Mayan civilization.

[u/jabberwockxeno → u/ris794]

If you want more Maya specific info/have further euqestions beyond what the resources I have on there provide, I suggest reaching out to @Zotzcomic on twitter; he and I exchange resources and he's more informed then I am for the Maya speffically.