Cantona (Mesoamerican site)

Cantona is a great and important, but little-known Pre-Columbian city (now archaeological site ) in the eastern part of the Valley of Puebla, Mexico, 93 line kilometers northeast of the state capital of the same name. The city is located on the lava field of a neighboring extinct volcano and was created and flourished in the Late Classic period Mesoamerican period. Cantona is remarkable by the extensive town planning and the large number of ball courts.

For the urban settlement of Cantona an area of ​​almost 12 km ² is specified. She was a fortified settlement, which differed in their city planning and construction of most other Mesoamerican cities. There was, presumably through the rough terrain of the lava flow caused, no symmetry in the system. The very dense resident population of up to 100,000 inhabitants lived in up to 8,000 residential units, which were separated by high ridges of broken lava in the form of dry stone walls. The intra- local connection is provided by a vast and complex network of mostly narrow streets, with terrain differences were compensated by some or all sequences of steps.

In Cantona 24 ball courts have been found, of which 12 were designed as an architectural group with a pyramid at one end and one or two closed courtyards. Once the ball game marker stone mosaic. The monumental architecture had a layer of well- worked volcanic rock.

The life of the city ranged from 150 to about 1000 AD The first major expansion phase range up to about the year 600 At this time the units had not been completed with walls and the build quality is recognized better than in later times. After about 650, the internal road network of the city streets, and came to smaller outer settlements. Older ceremonial and representative buildings were mostly no longer used, instead created them new, only most of the ball courts were in use.

The economy of Cantona was based on the agricultural production in the east and west of subsequent valley areas, trade in obsidian reached out in the wide surroundings. The reasons for the rapid decline of Cantona are still unknown, evidence such as the construction of many watchtowers in the settlement speak for a time of heightened uncertainty.