WHI-Chap6/21-Maya

The Maya were the first successors of the Olmec society who originated in about 200 BCE. They settled in the highlands of Guatemala which offer excellent soil for agricultural use. Permanent villages began to appear and following was the first city of Kaminaljuyu. This city was a cerimonial center primarily rather than a true city, but nonetheless, thousands of workers helped build it while hundreds of preists and citizens of high status inhabited it. Agriculturally, the Mayan's staple crop was maize, or corn, that was grown throughout the region and deeply valued in their culture and society. After Kaminaljuyu, the mayans began to expand and built eighty ceremonial centers complete with pryamids, palaces, and temples. The biggest of these was a city called Tikal. This city is most famous for the Temple of the Jaguar while it represented its power but also control over the region. The mayans organized themselves into many city-states that frequently fought. In addition, the maya practiced human sacrifice and bloodletting ceremonies to appease their gods. Many of their cultural standards were adopted from their Olmec forefathers. However, in about 800 CE, maya populations began to desert their cities, for reasons historians are not completely sure.

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