Pre-Columbian - Meso America/Mexico

Mesoamerica is the region extending from central Mexico south to the northwestern border of Costa Rica that gave rise to a group of stratified, culturally related agrarian civilizations spanning an approximately 3,000-year period before the European discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus.

The major Pre-Classic cultures of Mexico were the Olmec and the western cultures of Colima, Jalisco, and Nayarit; Teotihuacán, the Maya cities, the Zapotec center at Monte Albán, and the Classic Vera Cruz culture were the dominant civilizations of the Classic period; during the Post-Classic period important cultures developed among the Toltec, the Tarascan, the Huastec and Totonac, the Mixtec, and the Aztecs.

Costa Rican Jade Bead Necklace Necklace comprised of 55 ancient beads -- 5 jade beads and 50 pottery beads -- in various forms and colors ranging from light green to white to gray. From Costa Rica, dating... $275.00

Jalisco Redware Bowl Ancient pottery bowl from western Mexico, probably the Jalisco area, dating between 200-500 A.D. Redware decorated on inside with four series of six vertical... $195.00

Proto-Mayan Seated Figure Early pottery figurine showing Olmec influence and dating between 200 B.C. and 200 A.D. Called Proto-Mayan as these figures were manufactured in the heart of Mayan territory... $495.00

Pre-Columbian Colima Gingerbread Figure Ancient Pre-Columbian Flat Figure, West Mexico, Colima culture, ca. 250 B.C. - 250 A.D. Constructed from a light brown clay, this male figure has slit, coffee bean eyes... $325.00

Pre-Columbian Mini Colima Flat Smaller than most! Ancient Pre-Columbian Flat Figure, West Mexico, Colima culture, ca. 250 B.C. - 250 A.D. Constructed from a light brown clay, this male figure... $195.00

Many of the ancient Mexican cultures produced ceramic figures and pottery. The site of Tlatilco, in the Valley of Mexico, has yielded famous ceramics of remarkably early date, about 500 B.C. Delicacy of detail characterizes the figurines of Teotihuacán, and the finely decorated funerary urns of Monte Albán are particularly well executed. In the western states of Nayarit, Jalisco, and Colima, early cultures produced an enormously varied array of fanciful and often grotesque terra-cotta figurines and pottery during the Classic period, 300 to 900 A.D. These indigenous civilizations are credited with many inventions in building pyramid-temples, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, writing, highly accurate calendars, fine arts, intensive agriculture, engineering, an abacus calculator, a complex theology, and the wheel: however, without any draft animals, the wheel was used only as a toy. They also used native copper and gold for metalworking.