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the earliest Maya settlements date to around 1800 B.C. The beginning of what is called the Preclassic or Formative Period. The earliest Maya were agricultural, growing crops such as corn, beans, and squash.
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During the Middle Preclassic Period, which lasted until about 300 B.C. Maya farmers began to expand their presence both in the highland and lowland regions. The preclassic maya also displayed more advanced cultural traits like pyramid building, city construction and the inscribing of stone monuments.
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The Maya sites has plazas, palaces, and pyramids and some courts to play ball games that were ritually and politically significant to the Mayan culture. They also displayed evidence for more advanced farming methods such as, irrigation and terracing.
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The maya was deeply religious and worshiped gods related to nature, such as, The gods of the sun, moon, rain, and corn. At the top of maya society were the kings or, “kahul ajaw” (holy gods)
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The classic period began around 250 A.D. and was the golden age of the mayan empire. Each city had about 5,000 to 50,000 people, but the maya population may have reached 2,000,000 people.
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From the late eighth through the end of the ninth century, something unknown happened to shake the Maya civilization to its foundations. the Classic cities in the southern lowlands were abandoned, and by A.D. 900, Maya civilization in that region had collapsed. The reason for this mysterious decline is unknown, though scholars have developed several competing theories.
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Some believe that by the ninth century the Maya had exhausted the environment around them to the point that it could no longer sustain a very large population. Other Maya scholars argue that constant warfare among competing city-states led the complicated military, family and trade alliances between them to break down, along with the traditional system of dynastic power.
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By the late 20th century, researchers had figured out that the climate of the lowlands was very environmentally diverse. Though foreign invaders were disappointed by the region’s relative lack of silver and gold, the Maya took advantage of the area’s many natural resources, including limestone the volcanic rock obsidian and salt.
