Maya civilization

The term Maya refers to many Indigenous communities connected by related languages and long cultural histories, not to a single unified empire or an unchanging society. Maya communities have lived across the Yucatán Peninsula and southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and neighboring parts of Central America. The region includes tropical lowlands, highlands and varied local environments; Maya cultures developed differently across these settings and through time.

Agricultural villages and ceremonial centers preceded the large cities for which the ancient Maya are widely known. During the Classic period, conventionally dated to about 250–900 CE, major urban centers included Tikal, Palenque, Calakmul and Copán. These centers belonged to competing and sometimes allied political communities ruled by dynasties; the Maya world was not governed as one empire. Their cities featured monumental buildings, public plazas and carved or inscribed monuments. Copán, in present-day Honduras, is one well-documented example of a major Maya political and ceremonial center.

Maya farmers cultivated maize, beans and squash and used different methods, including irrigation and terracing in some places. Maya scholars and scribes developed a hieroglyphic writing system used to record dynastic histories and other subjects. Mathematical notation included a positional system and zero; observations of the sky supported sophisticated calendar-making and astronomy. Stone inscriptions, architecture, surviving books and archaeological evidence provide different kinds of evidence for reconstructing Maya histories.

From the ninth century onward, many prominent southern lowland centers lost population or were abandoned, but the timing and effects varied across the Maya region. Scholars do not explain these changes with a single cause: research points to interactions among climate stress, land use, shifting trade, conflict and political decisions. Other centers continued to flourish, including in northern Yucatán, and Maya political and economic life persisted into the period of Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. The term “Classic Maya collapse” therefore describes important regional political and demographic changes, not the extinction of Maya peoples or the end of Maya history.

Maya peoples remain part of contemporary life across Mesoamerica. Millions of people identify with Maya communities, and more than 30 Mayan languages are still spoken. Communities differ in language, history and practice; cultural traditions have adapted through centuries of change, including colonial rule, while remaining connected to the region’s Indigenous histories.