<P> The fall of Teotihuacan is associated with the emergence of city - states within the confines of the central area of Mexico . It is thought that these were able to flourish due to the decline of Teotihuacan, though events may have occurred in the opposite order: the cities of Cacaxtla, Xochicalco, Teotenango, and El Tajín may have first increased in power and then were able to economically strangle Teotihuacan, trapped as it was in the center of the valley without access to trade routes . This occurred around 600 CE, and even though people continued to live there for another century and a half, the city was eventually destroyed and abandoned by its inhabitants, who took refuge in places such as Culhuacán and Azcapotzalco, on the shores of Lake Texcoco . </P> <P> The Maya created one of the most developed and best - known Mesoamerican cultures . Although authors such as Michael D. Coe believe that the Mayan culture is completely different from the surrounding cultures, many elements present in Maya culture are shared by the rest of Mesoamerica, however, including the use of two calendars, the base 20 number system, the cultivation of corn, human sacrifice, and certain myths, such as that of the fifth sun and cultic worship, including that of the Feathered Serpent and the rain god, who in the Yucatec Maya language is called Chaac . </P> <P> The beginnings of Mayan culture date from the development of Kaminaljuyu, in the Highlands of Guatemala, during the middle Preclassic period . According to Richard D. Hansen and others researchers, the first true political states in Mesoamerica consisted of Takalik Abaj, in the Pacific Lowlands, and the cities of El Mirador, Nakbe, Cival and San Bartolo, among others, in the Mirador Basin and Peten . Archaeologists believe that this development happened centuries later, around the 1st century BCE, but recent research in the Petén basin and Belize have proven them wrong . The archaeological evidence indicates that the Maya never formed a united empire; they were instead organized into small chiefdoms that were constantly at war . López Austin and López Luján have said that the Preclassic Maya were characterized by their bellicose nature . They probably had a greater mastery of the art of war than Teotihuacan, yet the idea that they were a peaceful society given to religious contemplation, which persists to this day, was particularly promoted by early - and mid-20th century Mayanists such as Sylvanus G. Morley and J. Eric S. Thompson . Confirmation that the Maya practiced human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism came much later (e.g. by the murals of Bonampak). </P> <P> Writing and the Maya calendar were quite early developments in the great Maya cities, c. 1000 BCE, and some of the oldest commemorative monuments are from sites in the Maya region . Archaeologists once thought that the Maya sites functioned only as ceremonial centers and that the common people lived in the surrounding villages . However, more recent excavations indicate the Maya sites enjoyed urban services as extensive as those of Tikal, believed to be as large as 400,000 inhabitants at its peak, circa 750, Copan, and others . Drainage, aqueducts, and pavement, or Sakbe, meaning "white road", united major centers since the Preclassic . The construction of these sites was carried out on the basis of a highly stratified society, dominated by the noble class, who at the same time were the political, military, and religious elite . </P>

Which of the following did not occur during the mesoamerican classic period