People & Histories
c. 1200 BCE – 900 CE

The Olmec and the Maya

The Olmec of the Gulf Coast and then the Maya of the south build some of the Americas' first great cities, with writing, astronomy and a calendar.

  • Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs — Michael D. Coe and Rex Koontz, Thames & Hudson (2013)
  • The Maya — Michael D. Coe and Stephen Houston, Thames & Hudson (2015)
  • Censo de Población y Vivienda 2020 — INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía) (2021)

Well established civilisationindigenousidentity

From around 1200 BCE the Olmec, on the hot, swampy Gulf Coast of Veracruz and Tabasco, built ceremonial centres at San Lorenzo and later La Venta, carved colossal stone heads of their rulers, and developed ideas, such as the ball game and feathered-serpent imagery, that later Mesoamerican peoples shared. Archaeologists often call them a “mother culture”, though they also see many regions developing in parallel.

  • Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs — Michael D. Coe and Rex Koontz, Thames & Hudson (2013)

The Maya of southern Mexico and Central America reached their Classic height between about 250 and 900 CE, in rival city-states such as Palenque and Calakmul in Mexico and Tikal in Guatemala. They developed the most complete writing system of the ancient Americas, a sophisticated calendar and astronomy, and the concept of zero. Many southern cities were abandoned in the ninth century, but Maya civilisation continued in Yucatán at places like Chichén Itzá, and Maya people and languages endure today.

  • The Maya — Michael D. Coe and Stephen Houston, Thames & Hudson (2015)
  • Censo de Población y Vivienda 2020 — INEGI (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía) (2021)
In central Mexico, meanwhile, the great city of Teotihuacan flourished in the first centuries CE, its pyramids later revered by the Aztecs.
  • Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs — Michael D. Coe and Rex Koontz, Thames & Hudson (2013)

Why it matters today

Mexico

Mexicans see their country as heir to civilisations older than Rome, and that pride is real: the pyramids, glyphs and colossal heads appear on banknotes, in schoolbooks and in national museums. The Maya are not a vanished people; several million people in Mexico and Central America still speak Mayan languages.