A Look At Ancient Maya History
Ancient Maya History begins during the 4th Ice Age 60 thousand years ago. During this period there were no tropical locations on the planet. What there were was savannahs and grasslands in areas that are now tropical. There was a land bridge that connected Asia, North America and the Bering Strait. The first humans to inhabit the Mayan area came across that bridge. As ice began to melt people migrated south.
It is speculated that the first human inhabitants reached Central America approximately Fifteen thousand years ago. In Ancient Maya History with the end of the 4th Ice Age at around 8,000 BC the climate started to warm up and humans shifted from eating meat to including plants in their diets. From 8,000 BC until 2,000 BC the
Inhabitants of Central America began domesticating plant crops. These crops included domesticated beans, corn, squash and peppers. From what we call February to May, was the dry season. The crops were cut during that period and fields were burned in accordance with slash and burn agrarian style of planting. It was not however until much later in ancient Maya History that the tropical jungle emerged as part of the terrain. During the period proceeding the ice age sedentary villages started to emerge. There was the development of pottery also. There is archeological evidence that was found in Guatemala dating the stone tools to 9,000 BC.
The Mayan Empire was not one unified political structure. Each area was independent states ran as sovereignties in them selves. What unified the Mayan Empire was the common culture. There was as many as 20 states in the Yucatan Peninsula Area alone. The Olmec culture that was developing in Southern Mexico was considered the mother or root of the Mayan culture. The Olmec created a system of writing, a long count calendar and complex religious structure to which the Mayans adapted, elaborated and developed further.
Ancient Maya History indicates the Mayans also did a lot of trading. They grew maize, which was their dietary mainstay in the lowlands. In addition in the lowlands they were able to use their other crops such as squash, beans, chili peppers, amaranth, manioc, cacao, cotton for light cloth, and sisal for heavy cloth and rope in various trading activities. In the highlands, which were volcanic in nature obsidian, jade, cinnabar and hematite was developed to be used as a trade commodity. The Usumacinta and the Grijalva rivers were fundamental in the transportation of people and materials at that time. Politically the religion and ruling class overlapped in ancient Maya history. There was a definite connection between the priests and rulers in the Mayan Empires. New political and religious members were picked by nepotism. New kings were picked by the eldest first-born male heirs to the king as successors to the throne. The two ruling groups had a monopoly on learn and writing at that time. The priests wrote the events as they occurred and were directed by the ruling class. When a new heir to the throne was borne, the king offered blood from his body to the ancestors. When it was time for the heir to take the throne a human sacrifice was given. To be a king one would have to have captured an individual in war that would be used as a sacrifice in his ceremony to the throne. It was believed that the King and their reining powers were instrumental for continuing the universe much like the belief system of the Egyptians and the Sun God.
Mayan Civilization Ancient Maya History
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