AZTEC CULTURE: AN OVERVIEW
Dr. Michael E. Smith
Arizona State University
Aztec culture flourished in the
highlands of central Mexico between the
twelfth and sixteenth centuries, AD. As the
last in a series of complex urban civilizations
in Mesoamerica, the Aztecs adopted many
traits and institutions from their predecessors
such as the Maya and Teotihuacan. The Aztecs
also devised many innovations, particularly in
the realms of economics and politics. Aztec
civilization was destroyed at its height by the
invasion of Spanish conquerors under
Hernando Cortés in 1519. The Aztec peoples,
who spoke the Nahuatl language, survived and
intermarried with the Spaniards; today there
are still over one million speakers of Nahuatl
in rural areas of central Mexico.