ABSTRACT
T hroughout the long history of Mesoamerican civilization, lowlands and highlands were linked inextricably to each other. (Frequent references to Chapter 15 will be made in this chapter.) Trade routes and common ideologies joined the societies of both environmental zones. The infl uence of great highland civilizations like that of Teotihuacán pervaded the lowlands for centuries, although only the vast but closely knit Aztec empire of the fi fteenth century A.D.
