Answer:
The Maya, the Aztecs and the Inca precede the current population in Mexico and Peru, but evidently corrupted by the Spanish coquerors, who partialy destroyed their original culture greatness.
Explanation:
Historicaly the Mayan culture emerged first in 1500 BC as an agricultural community which turned into one of the greatest cultures in South-Central America. Its contribution to science was substantial, developing highly accurate calendars and a complex hieroglyphic writing to tell their history, but when Spanish conquerors arrived in their territory, the culture had already declined, without clear reasons.
The Aztec culture was founded upon a legend about a group of nomads coming from the North, and the way the started the great Tenochtitlan in the middle of an island that they recognize by an eagle devouring a snake, which is nowadays the Mexican national emblem. The city grow to be one of the most magnificent empires in South America, contributing to science also.
The Spanish arrival found a superstitious emperor who believed they were gods. This belief led the emperor to make crucial mistakes in letting the Spanish people infiltrate the city and infecting Aztecs with the terrible small pox, which weakened the population and brought their destruction.
Spanish showed no respect for their culture nor the population, destroying the city and making the Aztecs their slaves.
The Inca empire suffer a very similar luck. Stablished in Cuzco, they do not contribute to science, but grew as a powerful commerce specialist. Spanish conquerors found a weakened emperor and took advantage to destroy the culture.
The mixed resultant population was humiliated, the women raped and the offspring got into a lack of organization and identity that has led these countries to poverty and corruption. There is very little left nowadays of these great cultures.
