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and are still important sources of information. He was also the author of two popular science books: Woman’s Share in Primitive Culture (1894) and The Origin of Inventions (1895). In 1879 he was one of the founders of the Anthropological Society of Washington and he made many contributions to its journal American Anthropologist.
See also
United States of America, Prehistoric Archaeology
See Russia
One of the great cultures of mesoamerica, Maya civilization extended throughout southern mexico and northern Central America. The Maya territory included what are now the southernmost Mexican states of Yucatán, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, and Chiapas, as well as all of belize and guatemala and the westernmost parts of Honduras and el salvador.
In terms of geography the Maya area is often divided into three regions. The northern two regions (called the northern and southern lowlands, respectively) are formed by the low, limestone shelf that is the Yucatán Peninsula. Here the natural vegetation is tropical forest, featuring true high-canopy “jungle” in the south but becoming increasingly low and thorny as one moves to the northwest of the peninsula. Because of the porous limestone bedrock, there are few rivers in these regions. Particularly in the northern lowlands, access to water has traditionally been from cenotes, or natural sinkholes, in the limestone formations. The third region, the southern highlands, is much more mountainous, formed in large part by a string of volcanoes that lie along the Pacific coast.
The florescence of Maya civilization was the classic period, from a.d. 250 to 900, and it was centered in the Maya lowlands. Before this time, however, there was a long period of cultural development, both in the lowlands and in the southern highlands.
The history of human occupation in the Maya area stretches back at least 12,000 years, as shown by the scattered remains of hunting camps. A subsistence based on hunting and gathering lasted for millennia, but evidence suggests that by about 2000 b.c. there were farming villages in some parts of the Maya area and that by 1000 b.c. most of the Maya area was inhabited by village agriculturalists.
Until very recently, it was thought that the earliest development of more complex cultures in the Maya area began in the south—along the rich terrain of the Pacific piedmont and in the adjacent highlands of Guatemala and Chiapas—with temple-pyramids and carved stone monuments, as well as settlement and burial evidence indicating an increasingly stratified society. Although there certainly was impressive development in the southern highlands, it is now clear that there was also very early cultural development in the southern lowlands. In northern Guatemala, excavations at sites such as Nakbe and El Mirador have uncovered the remains of huge temple-pyramids built in the late centuries b.c. and possibly extending back as far as 600 b.c. By the late centuries b.c. there were numerous cities with massive public architecture in the southern Maya lowlands, and by the early centuries a.d. society was becoming increasingly stratified under hereditary rulers who probably gained most of their power initially through their reputations as spiritual leaders and their ability to mediate with the supernatural world on behalf of their people. Huge mask panels modeled in stucco adorned the front facades of many pyramids: these incorporated symbols of kingship on heads that were surrounded by cosmological symbolism. The stage was set for the greatest florescence of Maya civilization—the classic period.
The classic period was initially defined by the span of time during which carved stone monuments incorporating hieroglyphic dates were erected at a host of Maya cities. Conventionally, the period ranges from a.d. 250 to 900. During this time dozens of cities grew up, each with its own hereditary kings and each controlling a territory usually not more than about 50 kilometers in diameter. These city-states, as they have
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