“Here I shall write a few histories of our first fathers and ancestors, those who engendered the men of ancient times, before these mountains and valleys were inhabited, when there were only hares and birds.”

Thus begins one of the great native histories of Mesoamerica, the Annals of the Cakchiquels (excerpted further in Chapter 3). The quote evokes three important introductory topics. The first and second, discussed in this chapter, are that of the geography and settlement of Mesoamerica. The third theme, which stems from the simple fact that Mesoamericans wrote, is the subject of Chapter 2.

Mesoamerican Diversity

The term “Mesoamerica” describes a geographical and culture area stretching from present-day central and southern Mexico down through much of Central America, tapering out in Honduras and Nicaragua. The geography of Mesoamerica features a remarkable diversity of environments, from the volcanoes of highland central Mexico and Guatemala to the tropical Pacific and Atlantic coasts, from the rain forests of Chiapas to the subtropical flatlands of Yucatan. Such environmental diversity made Mesoamerica not only one of the richest and most varied regions of the planet in terms of its plant and animal life but also determined a complex and varied pattern of human settlement.

Many tens of thousands of years ago, there were indeed “only” animals in Mesoamerica, as throughout the Americas; but by the time Spaniards arrived in the sixteenth century, the region had developed an array of cultures and language groups that can be as bewildering to us as it was to those early European invaders.