Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
More than 80 different theories or variations of theories attempting to explain the Classic Maya collapse have been identified. [9] From climate change to deforestation to lack of action by Maya kings, there is no universally accepted collapse theory, although drought has gained momentum in the first quarter of the 21st century as the leading explanation, as more scientific studies are conducted.
Map of the Maya region showing locations of some of the principal cities. Click to enlarge. Until the 1960s, scholarly opinion was that the ruins of Maya centres were not true cities but were rather empty ceremonial centres where the priesthood performed religious rituals for the peasant farmers, who lived dispersed in the middle of the jungle. [11]
The former satellites of Tikal, such as Jimbal and Uaxactun, did not last much longer, erecting their final monuments in 889. By the end of the 9th century the vast majority of Tikal's population had deserted the city, its royal palaces were occupied by squatters and simple thatched dwellings were being erected in the city's ceremonial plazas ...
Archaeologists have been trying to figure out what happened to the Maya for 100 years – after Mayan cities were mysteriously depopulated in the ninth century.
An American student analysing publicly available data found a sprawling Mayan city with thousands of undiscovered structures, including pyramids, under a Mexican forest.. The data came from laser ...
The city of Tikal, later to be one of the most important of the Classic Period Maya cities, was already a significant city by around 350 BC, although it did not match El Mirador. [21] The Late Preclassic cultural florescence collapsed in the 1st century AD and many of the great Maya cities of the epoch were abandoned; the cause of this collapse ...
Its leaders were executed and most of the mission towns were abandoned. By 1708 only about 6,000 Maya remained in central Petén, compared to ten times that number in 1697. [ 318 ] Although disease was responsible for the majority of deaths, Spanish expeditions and internecine warfare between indigenous groups also played their part.
Cobá took its place in Maya culture no earlier than 100 B.C., and enjoyed a continuous life as a city until about 1,200 A.D. Known as the “city of chopped water,” the site may have had up to ...