how were the settlements in la venta and teotihuacan oriented

What is the history of La Venta in Mexico?

At the site are the partially excavated ruins of an Olmec city which thrived from approximately 900-400 B.C. before being abandoned and reclaimed by the jungle. La Venta is a very important Olmec site and many interesting and significant artifacts have been found there, including four of the famous Olmec colossal heads.

What is the archaeological site plan for La Venta?

Archaeological site plan for La Venta. Notice how the site is aligned slightly west – 8° west – of north. Several Mesoamerican sites have this alignment, including San José Mogote. Complex C, The Great Pyramid. One of the three buried Mosaics or Pavements from La Venta, consisting of nearly 500 blocks of serpentine.

What is the history of Teotihuacan?

See Article History. Teotihuacán, (Nahuatl: “The City of the Gods”) the most important and largest city of pre-Aztec central Mexico, located about 30 miles (50 km) northeast of modern Mexico City.

Is Teotihuacan the only Mesoamerican city with a single Central Avenue?

But Teotihuacan is the only Mesoamerican city that has a single straight central avenue that served as an axis to structure the layout of the entire city. This kind of linear feature that provides an order and structure to a city’s form is called an “urban armature” by MacDonald (1986:3-18).

Who built the city of Teotihuacan?

How many buildings are there in Teotihuacan?

What is the language of the Teotihuacan people?

What cultures lived in Teotihuacan?

Where is Teotihuacan located?

Where is the Ciudadela?

When was the sinkhole at Quetzalcoatl opened?

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What was most significant about the history of Teotihuacan?

Artifacts found in the city and sites across Mexico suggest Teotihuacan was a wealthy trade metropolis in its prime. In particular, the city exported fine obsidian tools, including spear and dart heads. Teotihuacan had a monopoly on obsidian trade—the most important deposit in Mesoamerica was located near the city.

What did the Aztecs believe about Teotihuacan?

Teotihuacan cast a long cultural shadow through history and, 1,000 years after its peak, the last great Pre-Columbian civilization, the Aztecs, revered the city as the origin of civilization. They believed Teotihuacan was where the gods had created the present era, including the fifth and present sun.

What is the significance of Teotihuacan?

Many centuries after the city's demise, it was named Teotihuacan, “Birthplace of the Gods” by the Aztecs. From its foundation in the second century B.C. to the present day, Teotihuacan has been a legendary locus of political power and a pilgrimage center of tremendous significance.

What is one feature Teotihuacan had in common with other major Mesoamerican cities?

Plan and pyramids The city of Teotihuacan is aligned, like other Mesoamerican cities such as La Venta, on a north-south axis. This alignment is made explicit by the central artery, known as the Avenue of the Dead, which extends more than 1.5 miles across the city.

Why is Teotihuacan called the city of mystery?

Teotihuacan is referred to as the city of mystery because very little is known about the site; its exact origins are still a mystery. The city was named by Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs roughly 1000 years after its conception, with "Teotihuacan" meaning "The place where the gods were created".

What best describes the city of Teotihuacan?

What best describes the city of Teotihuacan? The place of Gods, it's Pyramid of the Sun rivalved the pyramids of Egypt, and the city's architects are unknown.

What was the importance of Tenochtitlan?

In less than 200 years, it evolved from a small settlement on an island in the western swamps of Lake Texcoco into the powerful political, economic, and religious center of the greatest empire of Precolumbian Mexico. Tenochtitlan was a city of great wealth, obtained through the spoils of tribute from conquered regions.

What is the difference between Tenochtitlan and Teotihuacan?

Teotihuacan is an ancient city (in ruins) located about 30 miles from Mexico City while Tenochtitlan refers to the capital city of Aztecs (completely demolished by the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century) earlier located in the Historic Center of Mexico City.

Who built and lived in Teotihuacan and what did they do there?

And its origins are a mystery. It was built by hand more than a thousand years before the swooping arrival of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztec in central Mexico. But it was the Aztec, descending on the abandoned site, no doubt falling awestruck by what they saw, who gave its current name: Teotihuacan.

How is the city of Teotihuacan arranged?

The city is arranged in a precise and symbolic layout that aligns with a north-south orientation of 15.5 degree east of astronomical north. The Street of the Dead, which connects the three impressive pyramids that dominate Teotihuacan, aligns with this directional orientation.

How did Teotihuacan influence the Mayans?

Even before most Maya sites had been established, Teotihuacan had established itself as a dynamic cultural center. Material culture, including architecture, ceramics, art, hieroglyphics inscriptions, and other artifacts found at Early Classic Maya sites, clearly reveals a connection between Teotihuacan and the Maya.

Are there any other structures on the planet that are similar to Teotihuacan?

Cities such as Tenayuca in the valley of Mexico and far-away Copan (in Honduras) even have their high mountain on the north, just like Teotihuacan.

Did Aztecs build Teotihuacan?

And its origins are a mystery. It was built by hand more than a thousand years before the swooping arrival of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztec in central Mexico. But it was the Aztec, descending on the abandoned site, no doubt falling awestruck by what they saw, who gave its current name: Teotihuacan.

What caused the fall of Teotihuacan?

She says that volcanic eruptions in the first and fourth centuries forced people to move from the southern basin to the outskirts of Teotihuacan, where their skeletons, identified by activity markers, nutritional patterns, isotopes, and DNA analysis, have been found.

What does Teotihuacan mean in Nahuatl?

The City of the GodsTeotihuacán, (Nahuatl: “The City of the Gods”) the most important and largest city of pre-Aztec central Mexico, located about 30 miles (50 km) northeast of modern Mexico City.

Is Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan the same?

Teotihuacan is an ancient city (in ruins) located about 30 miles from Mexico City while Tenochtitlan refers to the capital city of Aztecs (completely demolished by the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century) earlier located in the Historic Center of Mexico City.

The Teotihuacan Civilization: Important Facts | Inside Mexico

The archeological zone of Teotihuacán, México, is located approximately 40 miles northeast of México City. There is little doubt that Teotihuacán was a major city-state that housed a complex urban society.

Teotihuacan Religion: Deities, Rituals, Sacrifice and Others

The Teotihuacan religion Was one of the cultural references of one of the Bigger cities And influential of the New World. This one was in the basin of Mexico and its society arose in the golden era of Mesoamerica, during the first millennium of the Christian Era.

Teotihuacan - World History Encyclopedia

Teotihuacan, located in the Basin of Central Mexico, was the largest, most influential, and most revered city in the history of the New World. It flourished in Mesoamerica's Golden Age, the Classic Period of the first millennium CE. Dominated by two gigantic pyramids and a huge sacred avenue, the city’s architecture, art, and religion would influence all subsequent Mesoamerican cultures.

When was Teotihuacan founded?

Teotihuacan was founded as a village in the Cuanalan period, ca. 500–200 BC. Almost nothing is known of the architecture of layout of the settlement at this time. The settlement grew rapidly in the Patlatchique period (100 BC–0), reaching a population of some 20,000 persons (Cowgill, 2015:53). The initial small prototypes of the Sun and Moon pyramids were built at this time (Figure 4). Although there is still no information on layout and planning, it seems likely that the early city resembled other Late Preclassic Mesoamerican cities and towns (Figures 2, 3). The growth of the city continued at a rapid pace in the Tzacualli period (0–AD 100). George Cowgill’s artifact distribution studies show that city expanded almost to its maximal extent (Cowgill, 2015, 2017). The Sun Pyramid was rebuilt to almost its final size, and the Moon Pyramid was expanded with several construction stages. Major offerings were placed within each of these structures. Plaza One, a large three-temple group in the northwest part of the city (Figure 4), was probably built at this time (Cowgill, 2015:71; Millon & Bennyhoff, 1961). The key development in city layout was the creation of the Avenue of the Dead, beginning at the Moon Pyramid and extending south for several km. Construction of this prominent linear feature may have been the first clear signal of Teotihuacan’s departure from the ancient Mesoamerican planning principles.

How many people lived in Teotihuacan?

Huge size of the city. With 80,000 to 100,000 inhabitants living in an area of some 20 square km (Cowgill, 2015), Teotihuacan was one of the two most populous cities in Classic-period Mesoamerica; Caracol may have had an equivalent number of resients (Chase & Chase, 2017). A millennium after the fall of Teotihuacan, the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan grew to be more than twice the size of Teotihuacan (Rojas, 2012). But for its time, the size and density of Teotihuacan were anomalous in central Mexican and perhaps in all of Mesoamerica.

What was the most aberrant city in Mesoamerica?

The ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan had the most aberrant design of any city in ancient Mesoamerica. I examine similarities and differences between the design of Teotihuacan and other Mesoamerican cities. During the Preclassic period, a set of common Mesoamerican planning principles emerged. The designers of Teotihuacan rejected most of these principles in favor of a new and radical set of planning concepts. After the fall of Teotihuacan, subsequent urban planners ignored the Teotihuacan principles and returned to ancient Mesoamerican planning ideas. Elements of the Teotihuacan plan did not resurface until the Mexica of Tenochtitlan revived them for a specific goal. The historical sequence of central Mexican city layouts highlights the anomalous character of Teotihua can’s principles of urban design within the canons of ancient Mesoamerican urbanism.

What was the Mesoamerican culture during the early preclassic period?

During the Early and Middle Preclassic periods a variety of separate social, economic and religious practices and concepts coalesced into the Mesoamerican cultural tradition (Guzmán V. & Martínez O., 1990; Joyce, 2000; Kirchhoff, 1943). This was the time when the first urban settlements were established. While the size and social complexity of many of these were insufficient to label them “urban” according to the sociological definition of urbanism (Wirth, 1938), these settlements do conform to the functional and attribute-based definitions of urban settlements (Smith, 2016).

What is the most obvious way that Teotihuacan stands out?

One of the most obvious ways that the city of Teotihuacan stands out is its planned orthogonal layout; very few other Mesoamerican cities employed orthogonal planning, and none used it as extensively as Teotihuacan. In this paper I focus on the planning and design of Teotihuacan to evaluate its degree of continuity versus disjunction with earlier and later cities in central Mexico. My conclusions are clear and strong: there were two episodes of major re-orientation of urban design in the central Mexican past: the innovative and radical layout of Teotihuacan itself, and then the later rejection of that layout by subsequent cities. Although urban design and urban planning are usually separated as distinct activities and fields of study in modern planning (Cuthbert, 2006), I use these terms interchangeably here.

What are the architectural features of Mesoamerica?

The cities and towns of Preclassic Mesoamerica adopted a common set of architectural and spatial features that I refer to as “the Mesoamerican planning principles .” These include types of building (temple-pyramids, royal palaces, and ballcourts), formal open spaces (plazas), and a spatial dichotomy between a central area (the epicenter) that contains most of the civic architecture arranged with a planned configuration, and surrounding residential zones that exhibit little or no planning in their arrangement. These features characterized nearly all Mesoamerican urban centers from Preclassic times until the Spanish conquest, with one major exception: Teotihuacan.

When did Mexico return to Mesoamerican planning?

After the collapse of Teotihuacan in the sixth century AD, cities in central Mexico returned to the planning principles of the ancient Mesoamerican tradition. They failed to adopt the new Teotihuacan traits, and this denial—or perhaps rejection—of Teotihuacan planning principles continued through the Aztec period. Then, in the Late Postclassic period, designers of the growing imperial capital Tenochtitlan broke with central Mexican tradition and reached back to the Teotihuacan past for architectural and planning inspiration, after a gap of many centuries.

Who excavated La Venta?

La Venta was first excavated by Matthew Stirling and Philip Drucker (assisted by Waldo Wedel in 1943, due to Drucker's military service during WWII) between 1940 and 1943, resulting in several articles by Stirling and in 1952 a two-volume monograph by Drucker. Stirling is sometimes credited with identifying the Olmec civilization; although some Olmec sites and monuments had been known earlier, it was Stirling's work that put the Olmec culture into context. This first excavation was funded by the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institution and focused on collecting samples using stratipits.

How many blocks of serpentine are there in La Venta?

One of the three buried Mosaics or Pavements from La Venta, consisting of nearly 500 blocks of serpentine.

How tall are the La Venta heads?

The colossal heads can measure up to 9 feet 4 inches (2.84 m) in height and weigh several tons.

When did the Olmec Heartland reach its apogee?

The Olmec Heartland, showing La Venta. By no later than 1200 BCE, San Lorenzo had emerged as the most prominent Olmec center. While a layer of occupation at La Venta dates to 1200 BCE, La Venta did not reach its apogee until the decline of San Lorenzo, after 900 BCE.

Why was Basalt important to La Venta?

La Venta had a strong concentration of specialized craftsmen and so it is entirely possible that more goods were exported than imported. This local exchange, and the resulting relationship system, is important, though, because it increased and consolidated the power of the elites with luxury goods and feasting foods like cacao and maize beer. "Participation in regional and long-distance exchange networks provided the La Venta ruling elite with a significant source of legitimizing power."

Where did the Olmecs live?

Rising from the sedentary agriculturalists of the Gulf Lowlands as early as 1600 BCE in the Early Formative period, the Olmecs held sway in the Olmec heartland, an area on the southern Gulf of Mexico coastal plain, in Veracruz and Tabasco. Prior to the site of La Venta, the first Olmec site of San Lorenzo dominated the modern day state of Veracruz ...

What is the sacred area of La Venta?

Instead of dwellings, La Venta is dominated by a restricted sacred area (Complex A), the Great Pyramid (Complex C), and the large plaza to their south. As a ceremonial center, La Venta contains an elaborate series of buried offerings and tombs, as well as monumental sculptures.

What is the significance of La Venta?

La Venta is a very important Olmec site and many interesting and significant artifacts have been found there, including four of the famous Olmec colossal heads.

Why is La Venta important?

It is important because as the "parent" culture of Mesoamerica, its influence on the later development of the region is immeasurable. La Venta, along with San Lorenzo, Tres Zapotes and El Manatí, is one of the four most important Olmec sites known to exist. The information gleaned from Complex A alone is priceless.

Why is La Venta called the Royal Compound?

At the top of the ridge are a series of complexes collectively referred to as the "Royal Compound" because it is believed that the ruler of La Venta lived there with his family.

How many statues are there in La Venta?

La Venta is a treasure trove of Olmec art and sculpture. At least 90 stone monuments have been discovered there including some of the most important pieces of Olmec art. Four colossal heads – out of a total of seventeen known to exist – were discovered here.

What is Complex A in La Venta?

Complex A is the most complete ceremonial center to have survived from Olmec times and the discoveries made there redefined modern knowledge of the Olmec. Complex A was evidently a sacred place where burials took place (five tombs have been found) and people gave gifts to the gods. There are five "massive offerings" here: deep pits filled with serpentine stones and colored clay before being topped with serpentine mosaics and earthen mounds. Numerous smaller offerings have been found, including a set of figurines known as small dedicatory offering four. Numerous statues and stonecarvings were located here.

Why is the Olmec culture so mysterious?

It is mysterious because, having disappeared over 2,000 years ago, much information about them has been irrevocably lost. It is important because as the "parent" culture of Mesoamerica, its influence on the later development of the region is immeasurable.

What was the first city of the Olmec civilization?

They had a well-developed religion and interpretation of the cosmos, complete with gods and mythology. Their first great city was San Lorenzo, but the city declined and around 900 A.D. the center of Olmec civilization became La Venta.

What were the Teotihuacanos' influences?

The origin and language of the Teotihuacanos are yet unknown. Their cultural influences spread throughout Mesoamerica, and the city carried on trade with distant regions. Perhaps two-thirds of the urban population were involved in farming the surrounding fields. Others worked with ceramics or obsidian, a volcanic glass that was used for weapons, tools, and ornamentation. The city also had large numbers of merchants, many of whom had immigrated there from great distances. The priest-rulers who governed the city also staged grand religious pageants and ceremonies that often involved human sacrifices.

What did the priest-rulers do in the ruined city?

The priest-rulers who governed the city also staged grand religious pageants and ceremonies that often involved human sacrifices. In addition to some 2,000 single-story apartment compounds, the ruined city contains great plazas, temples, a canalized river, and palaces of nobles and priests.

What are the threats to the greater area of ruins?

Long-standing threats to the greater area of ruins are posed by human habitation (including five towns), numerous shops, roads and highways, and a military base. Many neighbourhoods excavated in the late 20th century had been earlier cultivated by farmers. See also pre-Columbian civilizations: Teotihuacán.

When was the Citadel discovered?

Excavations of the Citadel were first carried out during the period 1917–20. Individual burial sites were found around the temple in 1925, and in the early 1980s archaeologists discovered the ceremonially interred remains of 18 men, probably soldiers who had been ritually sacrificed.

What was discovered in the 1970s?

In the early 1970s exploration below the pyramid revealed a system of cave and tunnel chambers. Over subsequent years other tunnels were revealed throughout the city, and it was suggested that much of the building stone of Teotihuacán was mined there. Teotihuacán: Pyramid of the Sun.

What was the most important settlement in Mesoamerica?

Between about 800 and 400 bc La Venta was the most important settlement in Mesoamerica. All its major structures are set on an axis 8° west of north; they were probably originally aligned with some star or constellation.

What river divides Veracruz and Tabasco?

La Venta was located on an almost inaccessible island, surrounded at that time by the Tonalá River; the river now divides the states of Veracruz and Tabasco. As San Lorenzo’s fortunes fell, La Venta ’s rose, and between 800 and 400 bce it was…

Who excavated La Venta?

La Venta was excavated by members of the Smithsonian Institution, including Matthew Stirling, Philip Drucker, Waldo Wedel, and Robert Heizer, in three major excavations between 1942 and 1955. Most of this work was focused on Complex A: and the finds from that work were published in popular texts and La Venta quickly became ...

What is the architecture of La Venta?

La Venta was the primary center of the Olmec culture and likely the most important regional capital in non-Maya Mesoamerica during the Middle Formative period (approximately 800–400 BCE).

What is the capital of the Olmec civilization?

La Venta is a capital of the Middle Formative Olmec civilization, located in Tabasco state, Mexico.

What is La Venta oriented to?

La Venta is oriented 8 degrees west of north, like most Olmec sites, the significance of which is obscure to date. This alignment is echoed in Complex A's central avenue, which points to the central mountain. The central bars of each of La Venta's mosaic pavements and the four elements of the quincunxes in the mosaics are positioned at intercardinal points.

How long is the La Venta core?

The 1 mi (1.5 km) long civic-ceremonial core of La Venta includes over 30 earthen mounds and platforms. The core is dominated by a 100 foot (30 m) high clay pyramid (called Mound C-1), which has been heavily eroded but was likely the largest single building at the time in Mesoamerica.

What was the roof of La Venta?

Most of the structures at La Venta were built of wattle-and-daub walls placed atop earthen or adobe mudbrick platforms or mounds and covered with a thatched roof . Little natural stone was available, and, apart from the massive stone sculptures, the only stone used in public architecture was a few basalt, andesite and limestone foundational support or internal buttresses.

What was lost in Complex A?

Much was lost in Complex A, which was torn up by bulldozers . A map of Complex A made in 1955 formed the basis for digitizing the field records of the site. Gillespie and Volk worked together to create a three-dimensional map of Complex A, based on archived notes and drawings and published in 2014.

How many books did the Aztecs capture?

e. roughly a thousand books captured by the Aztecs

Which society founded traditions followed by all later societies?

The first society of Mesoamerica, which founded traditions followed by all later societies, was the

When was the Maya Empire built?

In the ninth century C.E., a loose Maya empire was constructed by the state of

Where did the Aboriginal people learn their language?

The aboriginal peoples of Australia learned their written language from New Guinea. e. The aboriginal peoples of New Guinea learned their written language from Australia. a. The aboriginal peoples of Australia maintained hunting and gathering societies, while in New Guinea they turned to agriculture.

Which world did complex societies appear a little later in?

Complex societies appeared a little later in the New World than in the Old World

How much lower was the sea level in 1000 BC?

But sea level was 4 to 5 meters lower in 1000 BC than today, presumably even lower when the region was first settled

Who built the city of Teotihuacan?

It’s unknown who built the ancient city. Scholars once believed the ancient Toltec civilization may have built the massive city, based largely on colonial period texts. But the Toltec culture (900-1150 A.D.) flourished hundreds of years after Teotihuacan peaked.

How many buildings are there in Teotihuacan?

It contains around 2,000 single-story apartment compounds, as well as various pyramids, plazas, temples and palaces of nobles and priests. The main buildings of Teotihuacan are connected by the Avenue of the Dead (or Miccaotli in the Aztec language Nahuatl).

What is the language of the Teotihuacan people?

Little is known about the language, politics, culture and religion of the Teotihuacan people. They had a glyph-based written language, but it may have been limited to dates and names.

What cultures lived in Teotihuacan?

Teotihuacan appears to contain features of various cultures, including the Maya, Mixtec and Zapotec.

Where is Teotihuacan located?

Ongoing Research. Sources. Teotihuacan is an ancient Mesoamerican city located 30 miles (50 km) northeast of modern-day Mexico City. The city, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, was settled as early as 400 B.C. and became the most powerful and influential city in the region by 400 A.D.

Where is the Ciudadela?

The Ciudadela is situated at the south end of the Avenue of the Dead. The 38-acre (15-hectare) courtyard contains multiple elite residential complexes and is dominated by the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, a kind of truncated pyramid that is adorned with numerous stone heads of the Feathered Serpent deity.

When was the sinkhole at Quetzalcoatl opened?

In 2003, a heavy rainstorm opened a large sinkhole at the Temple of Quetzalcoatl; researchers have been excavating the site since. By late 2015, they had unearthed 75,000 artifacts of various type, including seashells, pottery, animal bones and human skin.

Summary

Major features of La Venta

Overview

Monumental artifacts at La Venta

Social structure

Burials

Religion and ideology

Agriculture and economy

The Olmec Civilization

La Venta at Its Peak

• From about 900 to 400 A.D., La Venta was the greatest city in Mesoamerica, far greater than any of its contemporaries. A man-made mountain towered over the ridge at the heart of the city where priests and rulers carried out elaborate ceremonies. Thousands of common Olmec citizens labored tending crops in the fields, catching fish in the rivers or m...

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The Royal Compound

Complex A

Scuplture and Art at La Venta

Decline of La Venta

Importance La Venta