Mesoamerican chronology

Mesoamerican chronology is a way of understanding when things happened in Mesoamerica, which is a region in the Americas that includes Mexico and parts of Central America. People in Mesoamerica kept track of time in terms of different time periods, called eras. Each era usually lasted hundreds or even thousands of years, and they were used to group together certain events in history. For example, the Preclassic Era was when the first cities were built in Mesoamerica, while the Classic Era was when the Mayan and Aztec Empires flourished. Knowing the eras in Mesoamerican chronology helps us understand what kinds of things happened back then and in what order.