Periods of pre-Hispanic history

The history of Mesoamerica is divided into three great periods. In the Preclassic (about 2500 BC–AD 200) farming villages arose and, in the Middle Preclassic, the first chiefdoms (señoríos), such as the Olmec centers. The Classic (AD 200–900) was the time of greatest development, with Teotihuacan, Monte Albán and the great Maya cities. In the Postclassic (900–1521) the Toltecs and then the Mexica dominated, the Mexica being the culture that reached the greatest development in that period, until the Spanish conquest.

Before all of that, the first inhabitants arrived as hunter-gatherers. From that stage comes Tepexpan Man, a prehistoric skeleton found in 1947 on the shore of ancient Lake Texcoco, one of the oldest human remains in Mexico.