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Mesoamerican Influence On Mexican Culture

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Mexico is widely known for its rich culture that is complimented by traditional food recipes, music, and art; other things that may come to mind are the popular Mesoamerican civilizations, its beautiful coastal beaches, or even the eagle symbol on the Mexican flag. Nevertheless, something that most definitely does not come to mind is the African descendants and their influences on Mexico’s culture and history. Mexico’s well remembered Mesoamerican civilizations are the Aztecs and Mayans. The Olmecs, the first major Mesoamerican civilization tends to be overshadowed or forgotten. According to Angel Vigil, the Olmecs civilization began around 1500 B.C. and was centered along the gulf coast of Mexico, near present day Veracruz. This first civilization served as a mother culture for future civilizations; thanks to the Olmecs, the birth of pyramids, number systems, picture writings, ceremonial traditions, and a Mesoamerican calendar emerged (Vigil xxi). There is something even more astonishing about the Olmecs that some people may find it hard to believe. …show more content…

For the most part all the groups were able to live in harmony among each other. Gates visited Mexico to investigate the history of its diverse population. By the end of the seventeenth century, international relationships escalated and the Catholic Church allowed marriage between all groups. The eighteen century Casta paintings demonstrated the normality of the international relationships. The paintings include sixteen images, each image has two biological parents and their offspring. The illustrations portray different couples of variety skin tones and their offspring’s possible skin color (Black in Latin America). The paintings in other words demonstrate how a persons genes influences the appearance of their children; hinting to an early scientific Punnett square mentality and an official attempt to whitening

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The 5th document tells us that they had a irrigation system in there city-state so that they could supply everyone with water and help farmed grow crops. In the 7th document gives us a picture of how the planted and grew there crops with simple tools like a shovel and hands. This may be simple to use but it could have been very advance for what they had. The 1st document tells us a little plant that they grew and it explains to use that this was very use full to the Spanish men. If this was useful to the Spanish who had a lot of tools then think how useful that plant was to the Mesoamerican people.

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