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Beginning of Teotihuacan's decline

Type Event Region North America Time 550–600

Around 550–600 CE Teotihuacan showed signs of systemic decline: ceremonial-center palaces and temples burned, population plummeted, obsidian and pott…

Timeline

  1. 550–570Teotihuacan palace district · State of MexicoArchaeology shows deliberate burning traces on many palaces and temples along the Avenue of the Dead, with some elite tombs disturbed. This destruction is usually taken as a sign of the collapse of the city's political order, possibly stemming from internal factional conflict or external intervention.
  2. 560–590Teotihuacan residential areas · State of MexicoThe city's residential areas shrank, and activity in artisan workshops and obsidian-processing zones markedly decreased. The rupture of trade networks turned valley settlements toward other power centers, rapidly weakening Teotihuacan's function as a regional hub.
  3. 580–600Central Mexico · MexicoAfter Teotihuacan's decline, new regional power centers emerged in the Valley of Mexico, Oaxaca and elsewhere. Competition among Maya lowland city-states intensified, and Mesoamerica's Classic period shifted from dominance by a single supercity to a new stage of multiple coexisting centers.

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