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The lake basin is volcanic in origin, filling an enormous caldera formed by a supervolcanic eruption 84,000 years ago. [citation needed] The culture of the towns and villages surrounding Lake Atitlán is influenced by the Maya people. The lake is about 50 kilometres (31 mi) west-northwest of Antigua.
The Maya civilization (/ ˈ m aɪ ə /) was a Mesoamerican civilization that existed from antiquity to the early modern period. It is known by its ancient temples and glyphs (script). The Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas .
Atitlan is recognized to be the deepest lake in Central America, with maximum depth about 340 metres. It is approximately 12 x 5 km, with around 20 cubic km of water. The lake is shaped by deep escarpments which surround it and by three volcanoes on its southern flank. Lake Atitlan is further characterized by towns and villages of the Maya people.
The peoples and cultures which comprised the Maya civilization spanned more than 2,500 years of Mesoamerican history, in the Maya Region of southern Mesoamerica, which incorporates the present-day nations of Guatemala and Belize, much of Honduras and El Salvador, and the southeastern states of Mexico from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec eastwards, including the entire Yucatán Peninsula.
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 Maya Region is firmly bounded to the north, east, and southwest by the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and the Pacific Ocean, respectively. [1] [2] It is less firmly bounded to the west and southeast by 'zones of cultural interaction and transition between Maya and non-Maya peoples.' [3] [2] The western transition between Maya and non-Maya peoples roughly corresponds to the Isthmus of ...
The Tzʼutujil date from the post-classic period (circa 900–1500) of the Maya civilization. They inhabit the southern watershed of Lake Atitlán, in what is now defined as the Solola region of the Guatemalan highlands. The ancestors of the Tz'utujil from Tulán, the ancient capital of the Toltec, moved to the region near Lake Atitlán. [2]
San Juan La Laguna is similar to other towns along the lake, in that its population has traditionally subsisted off of the income from the fishing and agriculture industries. Before tourism came to the town around a decade ago, the women would be forced to climb the surrounding mountains to sell their textiles to other communities. [1]