![]() It was during this time that Tikal, Caracol, Palenque, Altun Ha, Copán and other remarkable city states were established and flourished. Maya civilisation advanced to new heights throughout the Classic period of 250 to 900 AD, a time of intellectual, artistic and political development that established the Maya as one of the most advanced civilisations in the world. ![]() Maya society continued to develop based on an intricate cosmology that resulted in complex calendars, writing and astute mathematical calculations. Mayan Civilizationĭuring the Late Preclassic Maya period (300BC- AD 300), the Maya civilisation continued to flourish as trade routes expanded along with advances in the cultivation of corn and the beginning of more complex agricultural practices, as well as construction of pyramids and urban centres. The Maya Early Preclassic period, from which we have some of the earliest examples of Maya pottery and art, lasted from 1800-900 B.C., and throughout the Middle Preclassic Maya (900-300 B.C.) the civilisation continued to grow, so that by 800 BC, the Maya of the Guatemala Highlands controlled the important jade and obsidian trade routes to the Petén and the Pacific, and by 600 BC were producing and trading cacao. While the beginning of the early habitation is open to debate, the Maya Long Count Calendar gives a Maya creation date of 11 August, 3114 BC, and traces of Maya habitation at Cuello, in Belize, were recently carbon dated to around 2600 BC. Today’s Maya are descendants of nomadic people who settled in Belize, Guatemala, Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, El Salvador and Honduras. It was only relatively recently that Maya writing, or glyphs, were deciphered and the richness of this advanced jungle civilisation came to light.Īrchaeologists and linguists continue to unravel the ancient riddles of Maya Civilization, and we now have a better picture of this intricate, enigmatic Civilization. Much of this ancient knowledge was lost when Spanish conquistadors laid waste to the extensive Maya libraries and administrative centres, but, fortunately, the Maya recorded parts of their history and predictions in stone inscriptions that can be seen today in stelae and the remains of elaborate cities, buildings and temples that survived centuries of jungle encroachment. The researchers also found that the people of the civilization had built canals for moving water and reservoirs for holding it to allow for use during dry periods.Belize’s first and most enduring inhabitants, the Maya, left a rich legacy of art, science and mathematics that continues to unfold and astound us. They note also that some of the settlements had ball courts that prior research has shown were used for playing a variety of sports native to the region. The researchers also found evidence of large platforms and pyramids in some settlements, which, they note, suggests some of them served as centralized hubs for work, recreation and politics. The researchers note that the road network would have allowed for collective labor efforts. The causeways (cleared, raised beds used as roads) added up to 110 miles of traversable pathways, making it relatively easy for the people in the civilization to visit other settlements. The researchers were also able to see that the people who once lived in the settlements had been densely packed-a finding that goes against theories suggesting early Mesoamerican settlements tended to be sparsely populated. In studying their maps, they were able to see that the ancient civilization was made up of more than 1,000 settlements covering approximately 650 square miles, most of which were linked by multiple causeways. In this new effort, the researchers flew over parts of Guatemala as part of a mapping effort, when they came across what they describe as a vast ancient Maya civilization. Lasers used in such systems are able to penetrate vegetative canopies over rain forests, revealing what is on the ground beneath them. In recent years, it has been used to scan parts of dense tropical rain forests for signs of ancient civilizations. LiDAR is a detection system similar to radar but is based on laser light rather than radio waves.
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