ABSTRACT
Introduction Mesoamerica is a culture area lying between the northern Mexican desert and Central America (Figure 7.1). Tribal agricultural communities that lived on tropical domesticates evolved into chiefdoms and states in this region. Olmec culture appeared early along the Gulf Coast and became a major part of the foundation of later Mesoamerican civilizations. Teotihuacán was the centerpiece of later Classic culture in the central highlands of Mexico. Monte Albán was the corresponding center in the Valley of Oaxaca. The Classic civilizations of highland Mexico were contemporaneous with the rise of Classic lowland Maya city-states in the Peten region and on the Yucatan Peninsula. All of them
flourished but then disintegrated politically and in some cases ecologically and demographically during the course of the first millennium CE. The Mesoamerican ball game is one of the common features of Classic Mesoamerican civilization.
