Mesoamerican

American  

[me-zoh-uh-mer-i-kuhn, mee-] / ˌmɛ zoʊ əˈmɛr ɪ kən, ˌmi- /

adjective

1. Archaeology. of or relating to the area extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, in which diverse pre-Columbian civilizations flourished.

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noun

1. a person belonging to any of the pre-Columbian civilizations that flourished in the area extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua.

Example Sentences

A professor of Mesoamerican art and writing at the University of Texas at Austin, Mr. Stuart compares the challenges of 19th-century Mayanists and Egyptologists.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 20, 2026

The design was inspired by ancient Mesoamerican cultures, particularly Mayan masks and artifacts resembling astronaut-like figures, which González Vargas saw at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 23, 2025

The scent of copal, a tree resin used by Mesoamerican cultures for spiritual, medicinal and practical rituals, wafts through the space.

From Salon • Oct. 13, 2024

Like virtually every other Mesoamerican society, the inhabitants of the Huasteca played what is simply known today as “the ballgame,” in the time before the Spanish conquest.

From New York Times • Apr. 26, 2024

The solutions that Sumerians invented before 3000 B.C. were reinvented, halfway around the world, by early Mesoamerican Indians before 600 B.C.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond