ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two outstanding areas of spectacular development, central highland Mexico and the Maya lowlands, and go into less detail with their peripheral neighbors. It looks at the events in the Basin of Mexico, examining Teotihuacan and her neighbors, and describes south to the Classic Maya. The highly structured arrangement for living would have had a profound influence on the nature of Teotihuacan society, dictating daily life and social and political organization. Religion was seemingly the key factor in the integration of Teotihuacan society. One has only to see the Street of the Dead with more than 100 temples, shrines, altars, and quantities of smaller temple mounds to realize how religion dominated the lives of these people. Teotihuacan artisans turned out beautiful pottery in great variety but preferred polished monochromes to the multicolored vessels of their ancestors and Maya contemporaries.
