![[Pasted image 20250201163453.png]] One of the largest population centers in pre-Columbian America and home to more than 100,000 people at its height in about 500 CE, the city of Teotihuacan, was located about thirty miles northeast of modern Mexico City. The ethnicity of this settlement’s inhabitants is debated; some scholars believe it was a multiethnic city. Large-scale agriculture produced abundant food that created opportunities for people to develop special trades and skills other than farming. Teotihuacan’s builders constructed over twenty-two hundred-apartment compounds for multiple families, as well as more than a hundred temples. Among these were the [Pyramid of the Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_the_Sun) (which is two hundred feet high) and the [Pyramid of the Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_the_Moon) (one hundred and fifty feet high). Near the [Temple of the Feathered Serpent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_the_Feathered_Serpent,_Teotihuacan), graves have been uncovered that suggest humans were sacrificed for religious purposes. The city was also the center for trade, which extended to settlements on the Gulf Coast. --- Next: [[1.5 The Olmec]] Back: [[1.7 The Maya]]