The history of the civilizations of the peoples of Mesoamerica is very complex and our knowledge is still fragmentary even if considerable progress has been made in recent decades thanks to the contributions of archeology. The geographical era dominated by the Aztecs was immense at the time of the Spanish conquest in 1519 since they dominated almost all of present-day Mexico. The Maya territory, with an area of approximately 400,000 km \(^{2}\) , covered the confluence of North America and Central America. The history of Mesoamerica is usually divided into a series of characteristic evolutionary phases which are briefly described in this chapter. The high degree of evolution of the Aztecs and Maya is not accidental but results from the contributions of the different cultures that preceded them and whose evolution span many centuries. This is the case of the Olmecs and their colossal sculptures, of the Zapotecs who radiated from Monte Albán, of the Mixtecs who imposed themselves through a policy of conquests and through matrimonial alliances, of the Toltecs whom the Aztecs considered as their predecessors from a cultural point of view and also of the Tarasques whose kingdom is still partly unknown. But the civilizational contributions of El Tajin in the center of the state of Veracruz and Teotihuacán, the great city with spectacular pyramids in central Mexico, cannot be neglected.