Middle Ages
Cahokia: The Great Mississippian City by the Mississippi
Cahokia grew into a city of perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 people, spread Mississippian culture across the Midwest and South, and was largely abandoned by about 1350.
Region
Americas
Middle Ages
Eight Deer Jaguar Claw: The Mixtec Conqueror of Tilantongo
Eight Deer unified much of the Mixteca under Tilantongo through conquest and alliance, but was captured and sacrificed in 1115; his realm soon divided again.
Middle Ages
Moundville: The Mississippian Capital in Alabama
Moundville became the second-largest Mississippian centre after Cahokia, then turned into a ceremonial and burial centre before its decline in the 15th century.
Middle Ages
Mesa Verde and Cliff Palace: Ancestral Puebloan Cliff Dwellings
Hundreds of cliff dwellings were built in the 1200s and then left by about 1300, when their people migrated south to the ancestral homes of today's Pueblo nations.
Middle Ages
Tulum: The Walled Maya Port on the Caribbean Coast
A thriving coastal trading town until the Spanish conquest, Tulum declined in the 16th century and is now one of Mexico's most visited archaeological sites.
Middle Ages
Dresden Codex: The Oldest Surviving Book of the Americas
The best-preserved of the few surviving Maya books, it became the key to understanding the Maya calendar, astronomy and writing.
Middle Ages
Thule Migration: Ancestors of the Inuit Cross the Arctic
Within a few generations the Thule settled the whole North American Arctic and became the ancestors of all modern Inuit, while the Dorset culture disappeared.
Middle Ages
Mayapan: The Last Great Maya Capital in Yucatan
Mayapan dominated northern Yucatan for about two centuries until a revolt destroyed it, after which the region split into rival provinces that faced the Spanish.
Middle Ages
Great Drought of 1276: The Ancestral Puebloan Exodus
By about 1300 the northern Southwest was emptied of farmers, who resettled in the Rio Grande valley, Zuni, Acoma and the Hopi mesas.
Middle Ages
Templo Mayor: The Great Temple of Aztec Tenochtitlan
The temple was rebuilt and enlarged at least seven times, destroyed by the Spanish after 1521 and rediscovered in 1978, becoming Mexico's most important Aztec archaeological site.
Middle Ages
Founding of Tenochtitlan (1325): Birth of the Aztec Capital
The Mexica established Tenochtitlan, which grew from a marshy settlement into the capital of the Aztec Empire and one of the largest cities in the world by 1519.
Middle Ages
Aztec Triple Alliance (1428): How the Aztec Empire Was Born
The defeat of the Tepanec state of Azcapotzalco created an alliance of three city-states that expanded into the tribute empire known as the Aztec Empire.