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Teotihuacan, Tikal, and the urban civilizations of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Wyman explores how cities of 100,000+ people thrived in the Americas centuries before European contact, with sophisticated urban planning, trade networks, and political systems.
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Canon
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Wyman frames Mesoamerican civilizations as independent tests of human organizational capacity: without contact with Eurasia, Mesoamericans independently invented writing, calendars, cities, and complex states — suggesting these are convergent features of human civilization.
Highlights
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Teotihuacan was one of the largest cities in the world in the 5th century — but most people have never heard of it
With 100,000-200,000 residents in the 5th century CE, Teotihuacan was larger than contemporary Rome. Wyman challenges the Eurocentric bias that ignores the scale and sophistication of Mesoamerican urbanization.Was this useful?