Teotihuacán is the clearest example of a city in both
functional and demographic terms. It was a large, densely
populated urban environment with highly specialized eco-
nomic, social, ritual, and ceremonial activities. Its infl uence
spread far outside its own borders not only through trade and
exchange and religious infl uences but also through military
aggression and occupation. Teotihuacán’s infl uence in the
development of a greater Mesoamerican tradition cannot be
underestimated. Its infl uence can be traced throughout Me-
soamerica by the presence of its signature talud-tablero ritual
architectural style, recognizable in profi le as a series of hori-
zontal platforms sitting on sloping panels and fi nished with
fi ne plaster. Th is style shows up throughout Mexico and in
the Mayan areas of Guatemala, including the sites of Kami-
naljuyu, a highland Maya site; Monte Albán, in the Valley of
Oaxaca; Cholula, in the Valley of Puebla; and Tikal, the ma-
jor lowland Maya site in Guatemala’s northern Petén jungle
region. Th ese are but a few primary urban settlements under
Teotihuacán’s infl uence.
Urban planning at Teotihuacán included an internal
drainage system composed of a vast system of subterranean
canals that fl owed into a central canal, administrative and
ceremonial buildings aligned along the Avenue of the Dead,
congregational plazas at the Pyramid of the Moon and the
Ciudadela, elite residential complexes ranging in size from
5,900 square feet to 39,000 square feet, and districts for work-
ers and foreigners on the periphery believed to have been
specifi c to specialized craft smen, including obsidian carv-
ers, fi gurine makers, stonecutters, and jewelers. One of the
foreigner’s districts was called the Oaxaca Barrio because it
was supposed to include only individuals from Oaxaca. More
than 500 craft workshops and 20,000 rectangular single-story
residential compounds existed at Teotihuacán.
Farther south in the Valley of Oaxaca the settlement of
Monte Albán (ca. 500 b.c.e.–900 c.e.) developed gradually
and rose to become the principal Zapotec capital city. Settled
at the conjunction of three valleys, the region was divided
into three branch communities oriented toward agricultural
production, pottery manufacture, and the extraction of salt.
One suggestion is that Monte Albán rose as a center to coor-
dinate the various sites in the valley and gradually developed
its administrative, economic, social, and ritual functions into
those of a major urban center. Primary settlement at Monte
Albán is generally broken down into periods or phases noted
as I, II, IIIa, and IIIb, with population and infl uence fl uctuat-
ing through the centuries. Long aft er it diminished as an ur-
ban center, which some have linked to the fall of Teotihuacán
to the north, it remained a ritual pilgrimage site and an active
burial site. It was abandoned as a functioning city in the 10th
century as power shift ed to other Zapotec settlements in the
valley, such as Mitla.
Development at Monte Albán focused on a hilltop site
about a thousand feet above the valley fl oor with the popu-
lation concentrated on the habitable terraces beneath the
hilltop. Th e layout focused on a civic-ceremonial center atop
the hill with multiple structures most oft en referred to as
mounds fl anking and framing a central plaza. Th e North and
South Burial Mounds punctuate the ends of the plaza’s cer-
emonial core and, along with the periphery mounds, form a
kind of ceremonial way that recalls the Avenue of the Dead
at Teotihuacán, albeit much smaller. A ball court, stone slabs
covered in bas-relief, slabs with hieroglyphics including some
evidence of a ritual 260-day calendar, and pottery produced
on a large scale all suggest the greater cultural complexity in-
dicative of true cities.
In the Maya territory, Tikal is oft en referred to as the
greatest city of the Classic and Epiclassic periods (usually
defi ned as 150–900 c.e.). Set in a dense jungle in the north
of Guatemala, Tikal probably achieved full city status late in
the Classic Period. Th e rise of Tikal is thought to have led to
the fall of another community called El Mirador as villages
and communities came into increased contact with one an-
other and began vying for resources, control, and infl uence.
It seems likely that El Mirador fell to Tikal as elites attempted
to consolidate their power and range of infl uence until Teo-
tihuacán became interested in the area’s resources and ex-
portable goods, including cacao, honey, salt, beeswax, andPottery vessel of the storm god, Teotihuacan, Mexico (150 b.c.e. to
ca. 700 c.e.); the god was portrayed frequently in stone and murals,
suggesting that he was an important god in the city's pantheon. (© Th e
Trustees of the British Museum)232 cities: The Americas