Claim: Central America contains agriculture.

Mesoamerica was a region and cultural area in the Americas , extending up there approximately from central Mexico to Belize , Guatemala , El Salvador , Honduras , Nicaragua , and northern Costa Rica , within which pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries . It is one of six areas in the world where ancient civilization arose independently , and the second in the Americas along with Norte Chico -LRB- Caral-Supe -RRB- in present-day northern coastal Peru .   As a cultural area , Mesoamerica is defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures . Beginning as early as 7000 BC , the domestication of cacao , maize , beans , tomato , squash and chili , as well as the turkey and dog , caused a transition from paleo-Indian hunter-gatherer tribal grouping to the organization of sedentary agricultural villages . In the subsequent Formative period , agriculture and cultural traits such as a complex mythological and religious tradition , a vigesimal numeric system , and a complex calendric system , a tradition of ball playing , and a distinct architectural style , were diffused through the area . Also in this period , villages began to become socially stratified and develop into chiefdoms with the development of large ceremonial centers , interconnected by a network of trade routes for the exchange of luxury goods , such as obsidian , jade , cacao , cinnabar , Spondylus shells , hematite , and ceramics . While Mesoamerican civilization did know of the wheel and basic metallurgy , neither of these technologies became culturally important .   Among the earliest complex civilizations was the Olmec culture , which inhabited the Gulf coast of Mexico and extended inland and southwards across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec . Frequent contact and cultural interchange between the early Olmec and other cultures in Chiapas , Guatemala and Oaxaca laid the basis for the Mesoamerican cultural area . All this was facilitated by considerable regional communications in ancient Mesoamerica , especially along the Pacific coast .   This formative period saw the spread of distinct religious and symbolic traditions , as well as artistic and architectural complexes . In the subsequent Preclassic period , complex urban polities began to develop among the Maya , with the rise of centers such as El Mirador , Calakmul and Tikal , and the Zapotec at Monte Albán . During this period , the first true Mesoamerican writing systems were developed in the Epi-Olmec and the Zapotec cultures , and the Mesoamerican writing tradition reached its height in the Classic Maya hieroglyphic script .   Mesoamerica is one of only three regions of the world where writing is known to have independently developed -LRB- the others being ancient Sumer and China -RRB- . In Central Mexico , the height of the Classic period saw the ascendancy of the city of Teotihuacan , which formed a military and commercial empire whose political influence stretched south into the Maya area and northward . Upon the collapse of Teotihuacán around AD 600 , competition between several important political centers in central Mexico , such as Xochicalco and Cholula , ensued . At this time during the Epi-Classic period , the Nahua peoples began moving south into Mesoamerica from the North , and became politically and culturally dominant in central Mexico , as they displaced speakers of Oto-Manguean languages . During the early post-Classic period , Central Mexico was dominated by the Toltec culture , Oaxaca by the Mixtec , and the lowland Maya area had important centers at Chichén Itzá and Mayapán . Towards the end of the post-Classic period , the Aztecs of Central Mexico built a tributary empire covering most of central Mesoamerica .   The distinct Mesoamerican cultural tradition ended with the Spanish conquest in the 16th century . Over the next centuries , Mesoamerican indigenous cultures were gradually subjected to Spanish colonial rule . Aspects of the Mesoamerican cultural heritage still survive among the indigenous peoples who inhabit Mesoamerica , many of whom continue to speak their ancestral languages , and maintain many practices harking back to their Mesoamerican roots .