CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHEASTERN 
MESOAMERICA 
By MICHAEL D. COE 
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 
Southeastern Mesoamerica may be defined as the land extending 
from Oaxaca and the central Veracruz lowlands in the northwest 
to the Ulua-Yojoa drainage on the east, that is, an area reaching 
from south-central Mexico to western Honduras and El Salvador 
(fig. 1). Within it, linguistic and tribal diversity is matched by ar- 
cheological complexity, and with the exception of certain periods 
and places, there is much left to know and understand. 
In contrast with the rest of Mesoamerica, the southeastern portion 
is one in which the lowlands are just as extensive as, and played an 
even more important role than, the highlands. These lowlands are 
basically two: The Gulf coast plain, from southern Tamaulipas 
down through Veracruz and Tabasco and including the Yucatan 
peninsula ; and the Pacific coast plain, which is far narrower and less 
humid, reaching from the lagoon system of eastern Oaxaca to El Sal- 
vador. These two plains are connected by the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, 
a broad land bridge of gentle topography which would hardly have 
provided any obstacle to easy communication. 
The highlands of Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Guatemala are highly dis- 
sected, with tremendously precipitous mountain ranges ; here com- 
munications would have been very difficult, and even today the multi- 
tude of rather small valleys contained within them are isolated from 
each other, with the result that tribal differences have been exag- 
gerated to an extraordinary degree. Only in those valleys broad 
enough to have supported quite large populations, such as the Valley 
of Oaxaca, or the plain in which Guatemala City is situated, could 
there have been any great cultural homogeneity. 
Because of this topography, in southeastern Mesoamerica the great 
advances in aboriginal culture have been registered along the lowlands 
and far up into the valleys which reach into the highlands from the 
tropical plains; entire river drainages are often single archeological 
units. 
What can we say of the opportunities offered by these differing 
environments? First of all, they have not been the same for all re- 
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