Mexico's ancient cultures helped shape the country as it is today. There was no direct succession from one group to another. Instead, many cultures existed at the same time in various parts of Mexico and Middle America (Mesoamerica), among them, the Olmecs, the Teotihuacans, the Maya, the Mixtecs, the Zapotecs, the Tarascans, the Totonacs and the Aztecs.
The Olmecs were one of the earliest recorded civilisations living in the humid lowlands of southern Veracruz and Tabasco along the Gulf of Mexico. The word Olmec means 'the dweller in the land of rubber'. The Olmecs were great sculptors, and are most famous for their carvings of huge human heads made from boulders, some weighing as much as fifty tons.They were an advanced Mayan culture in religion, architecture and mathematical systems. By AD 500, two great cities had emerged, Teotihuacan (with a population of approximately 200,000) and Cholula, a religious centre near Puebla that survived until the Spanish Conquest in 1521. The height of Mayan civilisation was reached between AD 600 - 900.
The Toltecs, whose capital was Tula, were the predominant civilisation of this time. Known for their fine architecture, elegant speech and intellectual pursuits, they were the ancestors of the famous Aztecs who were thriving at the time Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492.
In 1519, this part of the world was to change forever with the arival of the Spanish under the leadership of Cortés. At this time the Aztec Empire controlled vast territories from the Yucatán peninsula to the Pacific, with over 370 individual nations under their authority. Ruling from their capital city, Tenochtitlan, the Aztecs demanded heavy tribute from their subjects, which may have caused some to side with Cortés in his attack on the Aztecs.
The other factor on Cortés' side was the lucky coincidence that 1519 was the exact year when legend had it that the Aztec god, Quetzalcoatl, had promised his followers he would return from the east and so Cortés was mistaken for a god.
