Aztec Society

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles
available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pre-Columbian
Aztec society was the highly complex and stratified society that
developed among the Aztecs of central Mexico in the centuries prior to
the Spanish conquest of Mexico, and which was built on the cultural
foundations of the larger region of Mesoamerica. Politically the society
was based around the independent city-state, called an altepetl,
composed of smaller divisions (calpulli), which were again usually
composed of one or more extended kinship groups. Socially the society
depended on a rather strict division between nobles and free commoners,
both of which were themselves divided into elaborate hierarchies of
social status, responsibilities, and power. Economically the society was
dependent on agriculture and also to a large extent warfare. Other
economically important factors were commerce, long distance and local,
and a high degree of trade specialization.