Who Were The Maya?
Nearly a millennium before the Spanish Conquistadores invaded Mesoamerica,
the Mayan culture flourished in the countries we know today as Mexico, Guatemala,
Honduras, Belize and El Salvador. The earliest artefacts indicate that they began
settling along the Pacific coast around 1800 BCE. The Maya civilization started
to decline in population in the 800s CE, but did not begin to abandon their great
stone cities until after 1500 when they lost their freedom to Spanish colonists.
Some Maya were never conquered and retained their independence in small communities
living in the forest. There are currently about four to five million Maya living
throughout Latin America today. By trying to determine what caused the collapse and
disintegration of such a great people, we can learn what causes the rise and decline
of civilizations. Lessons can also be learned about resource management and environmental
responsibility.
But one of the most significant aspects of the Mayan culture was the organization of
their society around the concept of the cyclical nature of time: the events that take
place in the universe, and throughout time, are always in a cycle. This cyclical view
of all life goes against the notion that the Maya had mismanaged their natural resources.
Instead they learned to live with the rainforest, its plants and its species of wild
animals. The Maya were forest gardeners who managed the rainforest much like environmentalists
who understood that they needed to replace what they took from the ecosystem. They would not
pollute a stream if people downstream relied on the water, as well.
Advanced in language, astronomy and math, the Maya were the most brilliant of all the
Meso and North American cultures. They built monumental structures, created exact sciences
and produced art equal to any in the ancient world. But the Maya did everything without the
use of metal tools, the wheel or domesticated beasts of burden. It is perhaps for the lack
of these logistics-related technologies that their culture lacked effective trade and supply
infrastructures to maintain its vast expanse across the Latin American world.
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