Mexico and Central America 1500 BCE

What is happening in Mexico and Central America in 1500BCE

By this date farming is well established in Mesoamerica, with the fully-developed domestic maize as the staple crop. Farming villages are located mostly in the west of Mesoamerica, and on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Also, farmers are beginning to colonize the central Valley of Mexico.

On the Gulf coast in particular, large villages are developing, as the people (known to modern scholars as the Olmec) learn how to take advantage of the fertile soil of the rivers and coasts by digging ponds and channels to control the flow of water to best advantage.

Elsewhere in the region the hunter-gatherer lifestyle remains the norm, and it will only gradually give way to farming.

Next map, Mexico and Central America in 1000 BCE