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◆ Southern (or central) Maya lowlands, which are north of the highlands and include parts of Mexico, northern Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador

◆ Northern Maya lowlands of the Yucatán peninsula

The land they inhabited ranged from fertile plains to the high mountain ranges of the Sierra Madre; from jungles and swamps to volcanic plateaus. Fragile ecosystems required advanced agricultural practice, and the key limiting natural resource was water.

Visitors today are struck by the presence of massive stone monuments rising out of the denseness of the misty forest, silent tributes to a lost civilization. In this place, time is said to move to a different rhythm and belong to a more complete reality. It’s easy to get caught up in a mythical and magical view of these people, and yet they were not so different than we are today—occupied with farming, trading, and building intricate communities. They were involved with politics and wars, struggled to maintain good relationships with neighbors and fair systems of trade and government. People suffered loss and illness, death, and calamity; performed religious ritual; and labored to understand the complexity of the world they lived in.

The Maya Area included parts of Southern Mexico, the Yucatán, northern Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador.

Roots of the Mayan People

Even the origin of the Mayan people has an element of the mysterious. The first people to inhabit Central America were believed to have arrived around 10000 B.C.E. However, radiocarbon dating of bones found near Mexico City show that huntergatherers lived in the region as early as 21000 B.C.E. Anthropologists believe the tribes came from the north after crossing the Bering Strait land bridge between Siberia and Alaska. Settlements formed between 7000 and 5000 B.C.E. and farming of corn, squash, and other wild plants began. By 5000 B.C.E. selective breeding of corn had turned it into a staple crop, and by 2000 B.C.E. people lived in villages and cultivated cotton for clothing. In Europe at this time, people were also starting to live in villages and grow crops. Pottery was showing up worldwide. The first four classic civilizations appeared in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China. It appears the Maya, although unknown, were the fifth of the “first civilizations.”

Celestial Connection

Interestingly, the Mayan pyramids are older than the Egyptian pyramids, although people often think it’s the other way around. Actually, Stonehenge was built in England in 2800 B.C.E., while the pyramid at Cuicuilco in Mexico was built in 2750 B.C.E. and the Great Pyramid in Egypt was built in 2560 B.C.E. It’s amazing that early civilizations seemed to erupt all across the planet in the same general time period!

Indications of a single Mayan language, called Proto-Maya, existed at this time. Later this language would develop into several distinct dialects.

Let’s explore some theories about the roots of the Maya.

The Maya and the Olmec

The Olmec are considered the first Mesoamerican civilization, followed closely by the Zapotec. Both are credited with developing the basics of writing and mathematics, which were later perfected by the Maya. However, there is substantial disagreement among historians.

Some argue the Maya arrived independently of the Olmec/Zapotec, developed side-by-side, and cross-fertilized culture, ideas, mathematics, and astronomy. This theory is based in part on the vast differences between the abilities, artwork, and traditions of the two cultures. If the Maya evolved from the Olmec, they underwent a huge leap forward with no known stimulus. Recent excavations at an early Mayan site called Cival suggest that Mayan civilization developed much earlier than previously thought and independently of the Olmec. The disagreement doesn’t end there. Many alternative historians don’t believe the Maya arrived by the Bering Strait land bridge at all.

Conquistadores’ Theories

The Spanish conquistadores were