The Development of Urban Society in the Central Highlands of Mexico during the Formative Period and Transition to the Classic Period

Abstract

During the two millennia designated the Formative period (1500 BC – AD 100) and the Classic period (AD 100–650), societies of the central Mexican highlands undertook many of the key transformations typically associated with premodern social complexity. These include the transition to agricultural and sedentary lifeways; the creation of urban centers with monumental architecture; the diversification of economic production, intensification of exchange networks, differentiation of status, and heightened social inequality; and the formalization of depictions of gods, symbols, and sacred spaces of a religious system that was widely shared and long lasting. This summary of the period focuses on such transitions, especially during the interval of ca. 600 BC – AD 250, covering the periods designated in central Mexico as the end of the Middle Formative, the Late Formative, the Terminal Formative, and the beginning of the Early Classic.