Mesoamerican Astronomy and the Ritual Calendar

Abstract

The cultures of Ancient Mesoamerica that flourished between approximately 14°N and the Tropic of Cancer (23° 27′N) have a long history. The term Mesoamerica was first proposed by Paul Kirchhoff in 1943. It defines a number of traits that distinguish this culture area of Native America from its neighbors to the South and North. However, the borderline is not an abrupt one, and it also fluctuated throughout history. Ancient Mesoamerican civilization reached its first flourishing during the Middle Formative or Middle Preclassic period (1200–400 BC) with the Olmec horizon that had its centers in the tropical lowlands of the Gulf of Mexico. However, other centers of Olmec culture were situated in the Central Highlands in the Basin of Mexico and in the modern states of Morelos and Guerrero. After this ancestral cultural horizon strong regional differences developed during the Classic period (approximately 200–900 AD) and the Postclassic (900–1519 AD). The Maya peoples lived to the South and Southeast; the Zapotecs and Mixtecs were in the southern highlands; the Nahua, who were latecomers, settled in the Basin of Mexico and the surrounding Central Highlands; the Tarascans, Otomi, Totonacs and Huaxtecs were their neighbours to the West, North and the East. Another cultural province was situated towards the West reaching to the Pacific Coast. This ‘western’ province still bears many mysteries; recent excavations have revealed a much greater complexity than was known before. The peoples that lived to the North of the cultural border of Mesoamerica were known at the time of the Conquest as Chichimecs, a term that referred to their warlike character. In fact they also shared numerous cultural traits with their more civil southern neighbors and interacted with them continuously1 (Figure 1).