The Post-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. This stage is the fifth 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 Post-Classic Stage are defined distinctly by possessing developed 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 complex 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 militarism

Militarism

Militarism is defined as: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests....

. Ideologically, Post-Classic cultures are described as showing a tendency towards the secularization

Secularization

Secularization is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions...

 of society.

Examples of cultures considered to be Post-Classic include the Aztec

Aztec

The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...

s and the late 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 "Post-Classic Stage" followed the Classic stage

Classic stage

The Classic Stage is an archaeological term describing a particular developmental level dating from AD 500 to 1200. This stage is the fourth of five stages defined by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips' 1958 book Method and Theory in American Archaeology....

 and typically dates from AD 1200 to modern times.

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
   Classic stage
   The Classic Stage is an archaeological term describing a particular developmental level dating from AD 500 to 1200. This stage is the fourth of five stages defined by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips' 1958 book Method and Theory in American Archaeology....
   
   
5. The Post-Classic stage

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
• Mexica Empire
• Inca Empire
  Inca Empire
  The Inca Empire, or Inka Empire , was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cusco in modern-day Peru. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the early 13th century...
  
  
• Iroquois Confederation
  Iroquois
  The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
  
  
• Indigenous peoples of the Americas
  Indigenous peoples of the Americas
  The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
  
  
• History of the Americas
  History of the Americas
  The history of the Americas is the collective history of the American landmass, which includes North and South America, as well as Central America and the Caribbean. It begins with people migrating to these areas from Asia during the height of an Ice Age...
  
  
• Indigenous languages of the Americas
  Indigenous languages of the Americas
  Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South America, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...
  
  
• Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas
  Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas
  Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas is based upon cultural regions, geography, and linguistics. Anthropologists have named various cultural regions, with fluid boundaries, that are generally agreed upon with some variation...
  
  
• Population history of American indigenous peoples
  Population history of American indigenous peoples
  The population figures for Indigenous peoples in the Americas before the 1492 voyage of Christopher Columbus have proven difficult to establish and rely on archaeological data and written records from European settlers...
  
  

Reference