Native american culture that spread from 250-900 ad that spread across southern mexico, the yucatan peninsula, belize, most of guatemala, and parts of el salvador and honduras. their cities were large with populations of 10,000 or more. one of the most important cities was tikal, which had a population of over 60,000. they worshiped various gods such as the sun-god and the rain-god. they developed a system of writing using a series of glyphs, or pictures that stood for sounds. they possessed advanced knowledge of astronomy and mathematics and understood the concept of zero.