What came before the Aztecs?

Anawrahta

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The aztec empire originated by overthrowing a previous empire called the Tepanecs who rules from a city called azcapotzalco. The tepanec empire was much smaller. Before the tepanec hegemony were the Toltecs from Tollan and the Teotihuacan.
But there are huge gaps in the history of central mexico and were there any similar aztec-like empires in the area? A wikipedia search comes up with no result on this. There are centuries long gaps in history of this area.
@9 Fanged Hummingbird
 
You may want to consider sending a personal message rather than opening a thread if you want answers from a specific person.

The book 1491 gives a pretty good general overview of the rise and fall of empires in Mesoamerica, and I would recommend that as a starting resource.

While some Mesoamerican societies did use writing, others did not (and others have never had their writing deciphered) and so the historical record is quite spotty. However, archeology can give us an overview of which cities had high populations and imported goods from over large distances. This doesn't necessarily mean that they were the center of empires in the sense that we describe them, but they give us a pretty good idea of who dominated before the Aztecs. For example, the city of Monte Alban seems to have dominated much of what is now the Mexican state of Oaxaca between 100BC and 500 AD.
 
Whether the Teotihuacanos were Toltecs, or just who the Toltecs were as a matter of fact, are still highly debated questions with no solid answers. As for empires in the central Mexico region between Teotihuacan and the Tepanecs, that's also rather mysterious as, given the lack of writing, piecing together the history of Terminal Classic and Postclassic Mexico is a doozy. Most of what's generally accepted as fact is stuff Aztec chroniclers later wrote down or transmitted after the Spanish conquest, but that approach has flaws as like many other empires the Aztecs had a rather propagandized or mythologized version of history that doesn't cleanly line up with what we know from archaeology.
 
Some even question the Tolteca even existed, as they are treated by the Aztecs almost as a sort of mythological precursor race.
 
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