The creation of Trees of Life is part of the pottery and ceramic traditions of the central highlands of Mexico. Pottery in this area can be traced back to between 1800 and 1300 B.C. including the clay figures.
After the Spanish conquest, friars destroyed articles, including ceramics, that depicted the old gods, and replaced them with images of saints and other Christian iconography. A tree of life is variously a motif in various world theologies, mythologies, and philosophies; a mystical concept alluding to the interconnectedness of all life on our planet; and a metaphor for common descent in the evolutionary sense._