Wikipedia:WikiProject Mesoamerica/Topic
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This subpage describes the main topic area for this WikiProject (ie, Mesoamerica).
[edit] Mesoamerica
Why Mesoamerica?
Mesoamerica refers to a geographical/cultural/historical region, a territory bounded approximately to the north by the Tropic of Cancer across the present-day central and western Mexico states, and down through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Yucatán peninsula to Guatemala, Belize, western Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and northwestern Costa Rica.
Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures developed and established the cornerstones of complex societies, such as domestication and agriculture, monumental construction and large-scale urban environments, polities and states, trading networks, refined art and iconography, writing systems, astronomical, calendric and mathematical knowledge, and others.
Although diverse, Mesoamerican peoples and their cultures share a number of common traits, which contribute to the region's definition as a specific field of study. With several thousand years' worth of intertwined history, shared cultural aspects and political interactions, articles on Mesoamerican-related topics will have a great deal of common reference and similarity in subject matter.