Mesoamerica - Etymology and Definition

Etymology and Definition

The term Mesoamerica—literally, "middle America" in Greek—was first used by the German ethnologist Paul Kirchhoff, who noted that similarities existed among the various pre-Columbian cultures within the region that included southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, western Honduras, and the Pacific lowlands of Nicaragua and northwestern Costa Rica. In the tradition of cultural history, the prevalent archaeological theory of the early to middle 20th century, Kirchhoff defined this zone as a cultural area based on a suite of interrelated cultural similarities brought about by millennia of inter- and intra-regional interaction (i.e., diffusion).

The shared cultural traits that define Mesoamerica are:

• Sedentism based on maize agriculture
• The construction of Stepped pyramids
• The use of two different calendars (a 260-day ritual calendar and a 365-day calendar based on the solar year)
• vigesimal(base 20) number system
• Pictographic and hieroglyphic writing systems
• The use of rubber and bark paper
• The practice of various forms of sacrifice including Human sacrifice
• A religious complex based on a combination of Shamanism and natural deities

Mesoamerica has also been shown to be a linguistic area defined by a number of grammatical traits that have spread through the area by diffusion.

Mesoamerica is recognized as a near-prototypical cultural area and the term is now fully integrated in the standard terminology of pre-Columbian anthropological studies. Conversely, the sister terms Aridoamerica and Oasisamerica, which refer to northern Mexico and the western United States, respectively, have not entered into widespread usage.