A great deal remains to be learned about Maya history. Who and what brought about the change from villages into city-states? How far-reaching was the influence of particular rulers? How extensive were Maya relations, economic or otherwise, with other peoples (such as the inhabitants of the huge city of Teotihuacan to the west, which prospered at the same time as many of the Maya city-states)? Why did Maya civilization eventually decline?
What is known about Maya history is organized as follows: The period when Maya culture developed is called the Preclassic, which occurred in the centuries before A. D. 300, during the time of the Olmec civilization.
The period of Maya dominance and highest culture is called the Classic period. The approximate dates assigned to this stage are A. D. 300 to 900. City-states such as Tikal (in Guatemala) and Palenque (in Mexico) prospered during the Classic period. Their inhabitants are sometimes called Lowland Maya. Tikal alone had 3,000 structures, including six temple pyramids, located over one square mile. One structure there was a terraced, four-sided pyramid, 145 feet high, with a flight of steep stone steps leading to a three-room stone temple, topped by a roof comb (an ornamental stone carving). Another temple pyramid was 125 feet high. (Archaeologists have made discoveries revealing that the city of Cival in Guatemala was occupied by as many as 10,000 people from 500 B. C. to A. D. 100, thus reshaping the notion of the Preclassic and Classic periods.)
The phase from about A. D. 900 to 1450 is known as the Postclassic period. During this time, Maya culture thrived in the Guatemalan mountains to the south. The Maya of such sites as Chama and Utatlan are referred to
The Castillo, a Maya pyramid temple at Chichen Itza in the Yucatan, Mexico
As Highland Maya. These peoples learned techniques of metallurgy, probably through trade with the Indians living to their south in Peru and Ecuador, and crafted beautiful objects out of gold, silver, tin, and zinc.
After about A. D. 1000, during the Postclassic period, still another strain of Maya culture flourished, on the Yucatan Peninsula in what is now eastern Mexico. An invasion of Toltec from the west spurred this new flowering of culture. The Toltec interbred with the Maya and adopted many of their cultural traits. City-states such as Chichen Itza, Tulum, and Mayapan reached their peak with many of the same traits as the Classic Lowland Maya, such as elaborate stone architecture and carvings. Mayapan, the last great city-state, serving as a regional capital, suffered a revolt in 1450, leading to political fragmentation.
The exact chain of events leading to the decline of Postclassic Maya civilization, as with the decline of Classic Maya civilization, is not known. Civil wars between different cities, or between farmers and the ruling classes, are thought to have played a part, as are calamities, such as crop failure due to soil depletion or drought. Overpopulation may have contributed to the decline.
World History
