>>49813160cont:
>>49812088Yes, some friars preserved information, as many, many others burned Aztec, Maya, Zapotec, etc books and records which would have survived otherwise. A lot of what survives is also thanks to local royalty and nobles recording stuff themselves.
>>49812253There weren't "other tribes". Mesoamerican societies are basically by definition stratified, complex societies based in urban cities. Large scale architecture, rulership, class systems, etc shows up by 1400BC, writing by 900BC, formal bureaucratic goverments by 500BC, if not earlier. By 200AD formal political states based in urban cities had become widespread/the norm throughout the region (aside from West Mexico) as it was in Europe and Asia.
The Aztec don't show up till around 1200, 1325, or 1428 AD by the 3 most common definitions, over a thousand years after the region already had cities like Teotihuacan with 100,000+ denizens, massive aquaduct networks, etc that would have rivalled large roman cities. Pretty much every society and culture the Aztec interacted with were city-states, kingdoms, and empires.
See pic
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