ABSTRACT
The area of Mesoamerica generally includes central and southern Mexico with the Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala, El Salvador, and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. The people of Mesoamerica shared a number of traits that characterize this area. The most oustanding are ball courts with rings, particular farming techniques, codices, hieroglyphic writing, human sacrifice, position numerals, stepped pyramids, and a year of 18 months of 20 days plus 5 extra days. The map of Mesoamerica is shaped like an irregular bow with the knot in the center forming the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a narrow corridor of land uniting western Mesoamerica with the Maya area to the east. When human beings settled in Mesoamerica, they could live at an elevation of 2400 m, at sea level, or at intermediate points. They had a wide choice of dwelling sites: alluvial plains, terraces, caves, valleys, and inland basins.
