Early Maya Civilization

The Early Preclassic Era is the time period when the beginnings of agriculture emerge in Maya culture. The earliest evidence of agricultural field burning and cultivation of maize along with other crops dates well before the beginning of the Early Preclassic period. Agriculture was already being practiced in some areas of Guatemala that were settled by distinctively Maya groups.

The very roots of Maya civilization are obscure at best. However as our understanding of new and old discoveries increases, we're more able to paint a vague picture of their early beginnings. By around 2000 BC, the southern Maya area had already been occupied by early speakers of Mayan languages. We know that this area was occupied by archaic Maya groups prior

to the early preclassic era. The first more permanent settlements were already beginning.
It was during the early preclassic period when the Maya culture transitioned from hunter-gatherers into agricultural based communities. They grew domesticated maize, fruits, cacao in addition to a selection of root crops. These crops had already become a major component of Maya diet.
But even with the presence of agriculture, grown crops still only made up for less than 30% of their diet.

Fish, meat from hunting and other gathered foods still made up for the majority of their diet.[3] The Maya at Cuello subsisted primarily on shell fish, deer, several small mammals, corn, beans, squash and a variety of other plants. So even though these Maya settlements had transitioned into early preclassical agriculture, they retained a degree of their archaic hunter-gathering practices.

When agriculture gradually began to develop, so did the appearance of basic pottery. The Maya developed this early pottery in simple design using a type of ceramics called "swasey." This type of pottery is relatively simple in form and predominantly red in color. These ceramic artifacts are what help us date these settlements specifically to the early preclassic era, the dawn of Maya society.

North of the progressing Maya, in the area of modern day Tabasco, Mexico, the Olmec culture was advancing. The presence of these Olmecs would have a profound impact on Maya society and culture. The early Maya began trading and interacting with the more advanced Olmec over a prolonged period. This contact altered the Maya way of life in almost every aspect.

The Olmecs were the first significant civilization to develop in Mesoamerica. They are essentially the mother culture of pre-Hispanic Mexico. The Olmec people were also known by other groups as the "rubber

people."
Their religious beliefs venerated the jaguar as a supernatural being. There are Olmec artifacts which bear the images of the were-jaguar. The were-jaguar combined the physical characteristics of both humans and felines. These artifacts have been found scattered in several locations throughout Mexico. The were-jaguar artifacts show just how far the influential reach of Olmec culture was in Mesoamerica. Various Olmec-like symbols that were carved and painted on their relatively more sophisticated pottery have been found half way up the Mexican Gulf coast in the state of Veracruz.
In the lowlands near the Gulf Coast of the Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco are remains of Olmec ceremonial centers. An important Olmec political and religious center that flourished between 1200 and 900 BC is located in the Coatzacoalcos River basin of San Lorenzo.
The Olmec had also built the first conduit drainage system known in the Americas. An amazing advancement in engineering, but the Olmec are best known for the six colossal basalt heads. These massive stone heads are eight to nine feet in height and weigh from twenty to forty tons each.
These colossal heads were carved from stone that were obtained more than 50 miles away and were brought to the site.

A monolithic undertaking for a post stone age / early agricultural people. These stone monolith faces have noticeably negroid facial features, even though they are uniquely Olmec in origin.

Olmec Colossal Head 3 in San Lorenzo. [239]

The Colossal Heads also appear to be wearing helmets, something that has puzzled researchers ever since they were discovered. The first Olmec head was discovered at Tres Zapotes where 'Stelae C' was discovered at the same time. Stelae C bears the long count date of 31 BC giving a probable date for the placement of the Colossal Head.

More gigantic heads in addition to a number of massive stone altars and stelae have been discovered at the La Venta site. This was the Olmec people's most important cultural center. It was their capital city, the cultural heart of their society. These massive stone works were somehow floated via waterways to La Venta, which is located on an island near the Gulf Coast in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco.

The Olmec center at La Venta share essential characteristics of all Mesoamerican centers later built by different cultures. The site is laid out along a north-south axis with a huge clay and earth pyramid its most prominent

feature.
The Olmecs were an advanced culture. They were the first Mesoamerican people to understand the concept of zero, the first to develop a calendar, and the first to create an hieroglyphic writing system. The Olmec's intellectual achievements, religious beliefs and rituals were very influential to neighboring cultures, such as the Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec and Aztec cultures.
Many Maya communities appear to have been occupied prior to 1200 BC within the early preclassic period. The earliest Maya villages were found in northern Belize. The Maya settlement in Cuello was also settled around 1200 BC.
These early settlements were being built with a greater sense of permanence. The early settlement inhabitants even erected their thatch houses on low apsidal shaped (oval) platforms that they constructed using a lime gravel mixture called sascab, white lime and stone.
Although most of the structures in their settlements were residential homes, a few of them were built specifically for ritual purposes. Religion in the form of Mesoamerican blood rituals was now firmly apart of Maya culture. One structure found at Cuello had contained more than 20 skeletal remains of individuals whom may have been sacrificed to commemorate the construction of their holy shrine.
The first Maya settlers in Cayo also appear to have moved into the area at around 1200 BC. They established their villages on the hills overlooking the major river systems. From their hilltop communities they farmed the rich alluvial valleys where they also collected jute and hunted wild game. Like the colonizers of Cuello, the early Maya in the Belize River Valley constructed large and small apsidal platforms on which they built wattle and daub buildings with thatched roofs.
We've learned from fragments of preserved stucco at the Cahal Pech site that the plaster walls of these buildings were painted in red and white bands. Some structures also served as shrines where important rituals were conducted by members of the community.
The Early Preclassic Maya regularly traded and exchanged goods with both local and distant people. They imported obsidian, jade and iron pyrite from the highlands and the Motagua Valley of Guatemala. They even acquired conch shells for jewelry and salted reef fish from the Caribbean coast.
Their populations began to grow as their settlements grew with them. Broad cultural changes and increases in urban activity in Mesoamerica because corn began providing enough calories to trigger a move to a more settled and urban existence.[278] The spread in population demanded denser city building as available real estate became more and more scarce. The ancient Maya started building their storied cities as early as 1000 BC.[278]
This was the beginning of what later became the well known tall Maya cities with their steep pyramids and ceremonial platforms.
1000 BC Ceremonial platform at Ceibal Guatemala.[279]

A ceremonial platform built at Ceibal, Guatemala that dates to around 1000 BC, appears to precede the pyramid and plazas built in the Olmec city of La Venta in Tabasco, Mexico, at around 800 BC. The Olmec center at La Venta appears to have been deliberately destroyed sometime around 400 to 300 BC. There has not been any discoveries of why, but speculation points to conquest by a neighboring culture that conquered and destroyed the Olmec along with their civilization.
Numerous other Maya sites and related ones on the Pacific Coast show signs of growing from settlements into cities with ceremonial centers at around 1000 BC.