The Classic Stage is an archaeological

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 term describing a particular developmental level dating from AD 500 to 1200. This stage is the fourth of five stages defined by Gordon Willey

Gordon Willey

Gordon Randolph Willey was an American archaeologist famous for his fieldwork in South and Central America as well as the southeastern United States...

 and Philip Phillips

Philip Phillips (archaeologist)

Philip Phillips was an influential archaeologist in the United States during the 20th century. Although his first graduate work was in architecture, he later received a doctorate from Harvard University under advisor Alfred Marston Tozzer...

' 1958 book Method and Theory in American Archaeology.

Cultures of the Classic Stage are supposed to possess craft specialization and the beginnings of metallurgy

Metallurgy

Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...

. Social organization is supposed to involve the beginnings of urbanism

Urbanism

Broadly, urbanism is a focus on cities and urban areas, their geography, economies, politics, social characteristics, as well as the effects on, and caused by, the built environment.-Philosophy:...

 and large ceremonial centers. Ideologically, Classic cultures should have a developed theocracy

Theocracy

Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....

.

The "Classic Stage" was initially defined as restricted to the complex societies of Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...

 and Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

. However, the time period includes other advanced cultures, such as Hopewell, Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...

, and the early Maya

Maya civilization

The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...

.

The "Classic Stage" followed the Formative stage

Formative stage

The Formative Stage or "Neo-Indian period" is an archaeological term describing a particular developmental level. This stage from 1000 BCE to 500 CE is the third of five stages defined by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips' 1958 book Method and Theory in American Archaeology.Cultures of the...

 (Pre-Classic) and was superseded by the Post-Classic stage

Post-Classic stage

The Post-Classic Stage is an archaeological term describing a particular developmental level. This stage is the fifth of five stages defined by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips' 1958 book Method and Theory in American Archaeology....

.

1. The Lithic stage
   Lithic stage
   In the sequence of North American prehistoric cultural stages first proposed by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in 1958, the Lithic stage was the earliest period of human occupation in the Americas, accruing during the Late Pleistocene period, to time before 8,000 B.C....
   
   
2. The Archaic stage
3. The Formative stage
   Formative stage
   The Formative Stage or "Neo-Indian period" is an archaeological term describing a particular developmental level. This stage from 1000 BCE to 500 CE is the third of five stages defined by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips' 1958 book Method and Theory in American Archaeology.Cultures of the...
   
   
4. The Classic stage
5. The Post-Classic stage
   Post-Classic stage
   The Post-Classic Stage is an archaeological term describing a particular developmental level. This stage is the fifth of five stages defined by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips' 1958 book Method and Theory in American Archaeology....
   
   

See also

• Archaeology of the Americas
  Archaeology of the Americas
  The archaeology of the Americas is the study of the archaeology of North America , Central America, South America and the Caribbean...
  
  
• :Category:Archaeology of the Americas
• Chachapoyas culture
  Chachapoyas culture
  The Chachapoyas, also called the Warriors of the Clouds, were an Andean people living in the cloud forests of the Amazonas region of present-day Peru. The Incas conquered their civilization shortly before the arrival of the Spanish in Peru. When the Spanish arrived in Peru in the 16th century, the...
  
  
• Cultural periods of Peru
  Cultural periods of Peru
  This is a chart of cultural periods of Peru and the Andean Region developed by Edward Lanning and used by some archaeologists studying the area...
  
  
• Mesoamerican chronology
  Mesoamerican chronology
  Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian , the Archaic , the Preclassic , the Classic , and the Postclassic...
  
  
• Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures
  Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures
  The causes and degree of Olmec influences on Mesoamerican cultures has been a subject of debate over many decades. Although the Olmecs are considered to be perhaps the earliest Mesoamerican civilization, there are questions concerning how and how much the Olmecs influenced cultures outside the...