The term Mesoamerica is derived from the Greek and means “Middle America.” It refers to a geographical and cultural area which extends from central Mexico down through Central America, including the territory which is now made up of the countries of Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador.

The human species evolved from hunters and gatherers to Neolithic people, who began to build villages, which turned to cities all around the world. This transition gave humans a new way of life, focusing on things like building cultures and monuments, which will stand the tests of time.

Mesoamerican civilization, the complex of indigenous cultures that developed in parts of Mexico and Central America prior to Spanish exploration and conquest in the 16th century.

Some of the shared cultural traits among Mesoamerican peoples included a complex pantheon of deities, architectural features, a ballgame, the 260-day calendar, trade, food (especially a reliance on maize, beans, and squash), dress, and accoutrements (additional items that are worn or used by a person, such as earspools …

One of the more commonly known cultural groups in Mesoamerica, the Aztec politically dominated nearly all of central Mexico, the Gulf Coast, Mexico’s southern Pacific Coast (Chiapas and into Guatemala), Oaxaca, and Guerrero.

The most important shared characteristics of Mesoamerican cultures in the classic period were their relationship with the gods and their environment. What role did warfare play in the postclassic period of Mesoamerica?

Mississippian culture was not a single “tribe,” but many societies sharing a similar way of life or tradition. Mississippian peoples lived in fortified towns or small homesteads, grew corn, built large earthen mounds, maintained trade networks, had powerful leaders, and shared similar symbols and rituals.

The most important shared characteristics of Mesoamerican cultures, Teotihuacan and the Maya, in the classic period were they both controlled rural populations for labor, they both used irrigation systems which sustained both region’s increasing populations, the city/elite had control due to their religious and secular …

The Olmec culture of the Gulf Coast of Mexico produced the first major Mesoamerican art and is particularly known for the creation of colossal stone heads.

Most colossal heads were sculpted from spherical boulders but two from San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán were re-carved from massive stone thrones. An additional monument, at Takalik Abaj in Guatemala, is a throne that may have been carved from a colossal head….Known monuments.

Mexico

Easter Island

Easter Island’s monumental stone heads are well-known, but there’s more to the story: all along, the sculptures have secretly had torsos, buried beneath the earth. Archaeologists have documented 887 of the massive statues, known as moai, but there may up as many as 1,000 of them on the island.

As a part of the Easter Island Statue Project, the team excavated two moai and discovered that each one had a body, proving, as the team excitedly explained in a letter, “that the ‘heads’ on the slope here are, in fact, full but incomplete statues.”

The story goes that the people who built the Moai believed that they were the only people in the whole world. Any invaders or bad people that would be coming would have to come from within the island – not by sea! So the Moai face inwards to protect the community.

However, many other statues, including those on Richmond’s Monument Avenue, face various directions, according to an article at Richmond.com. Local lore in Richmond has it that those who died in the war face north and those who survived face south, but some of those statues face east.

Tukuturi is an Easter Island moai unlike any other. First of all, it has a beard — all the other moai are, for lack of a better term, clean-shaven. Secondly, Tukuturi is kneeling, where its moai counterparts around Easter Island are standing upright.