Pre-Columbian cultures of Mexico

thumb|upright=1.35|The Aztec Empire in 1519 within [[Mesoamerica]]

The Olmecs () or Olmec were an early major Mesoamerican civilization, flourishing in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco from roughly 1200 to 400 BC during Mesoamerica's formative period. They were initially centered at the site of their development in San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, but moved to La Venta in the 10th century BC following the decline of San Lorenzo. By about 400 BC the major centres of the Olmec civilization had been abandoned, and the population of the eastern half of the Olmec heartland dropped precipitously. The settlement density in that area remained much

thumb|250px|right|A Toltec-style clay vessel (American Museum of Natural History). The Toltec culture () was a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoamerican chronology, reaching prominence from 950 to 1150 CE. The later Aztec culture considered the Toltec to be their intellectual and cultural predecessors and described Toltec culture emanating from Tōllān (Nahuatl for Tula) as the epitome of civilization. In the Nahuatl language the word Tōltēkatl (singular) or Tōltēkah (plural) c

thumb|260px|Turquoise mosaic mask. Mixtec-Aztec, 1400–1521 AD

Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca in Mesoamerica

thumb|right|400px|Chichimeca peoples in Central Mexico at the start of the [[Chichimeca War ]] thumb|Aridoamerica|300x300px Chichimeca () is the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who were established in present-day Bajío region of Mexico. Chichimeca carried the same meaning as the Roman term "barbarian" that described Germanic tribes. The name, with its pejorative sense, was adopted by the Spanish Empire. "For the Spanish, the Chichimecas were a wild, nomadic people who lived north of the Valley of Mexico. They had no fixed dwelling p

pre-Columbian archaeological culture/area in the coastal Veracruz region of Mexico, ca. 300BCE&ndash

ethnic group

Capacha is an archaeological site located about 6 kilometers northeast of the Colima Municipality, in the Mexican state of Colima. This site is the heart of the ancient Mesoamerican Capacha Culture.

bonito

thumb|A map of the historical Cochimí territory.

Mexico before Spanish colonization

The Guachichil, Cuauchichil, or Quauhchichitl are an exonym for an Indigenous people of Mexico. Prior to European contact, they occupied the most extensive territory of all the Indigenous Chichimeca tribes in pre-Columbian central Mexico.

Mesoamerican empire

pre-Hispanic archaeological culture

period in Maya history