Who Were the Maya ?

12 volume 54, number 1 expedition he ancient maya created one of the world’s most brilliant and successful civilizations. But 500 years ago, after the Spaniards “discovered” the Maya, many could not believe that Native Americans had developed cities, writing, art, and other hallmarks of civilization. Consequently, 16th century Europeans readily accepted the myth that the Maya and other indigenous civilizations were transplanted to the Americas by “lost” Old World migrations before 1492. Of course archaeology has found no evidence to suggest that Old World intrusions brought civilization to the Maya or to any other PreColumbian society. In fact, the evidence clearly shows that civilization evolved in the Americas due to the efforts of the descendants of the first people who came to the New World during the last Ice Age, some 12,000 to 20,000 years ago. Maya civilization was part of this independent evolutionary process. Located in eastern Mesoamerica, the ancient Maya flourished in a diverse homeland in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador until the Spanish Conquest. The brutal subjugation of the Maya people by the Spanish extinguished a series of independent Maya states with roots as far back as 1000 BCE. Over the following 2,500 years scores of Maya polities rose and fell, some larger and more powerful than others. Most of these kingdoms existed for hundreds of years; a few endured for a thousand years or more. To understand and follow this long development, Maya civilization is divided into three periods: the Preclassic, the Classic, and the Postclassic. The Preclassic includes the origins and apogee of the first Maya kingdoms from about 1000 BCE to 250 CE. The Early Preclassic (ca. 2000–1000 BCE) pre-dates the rise of the first kingdoms, so the span that began by ca. 1000 BCE corresponds to the Middle and Late Preclassic eras. The Classic period (ca. 250–900 CE) defines the highest point of Maya civilization in architecture, art, writing, and population size. The Classic period has Early, Late, and Terminal subdivisions, the latter overlapping with the Postclassic, and corresponds to the collapse of most Classic Who Were the Maya?