Apr. 25, 2013 — The Maya civilization is well-known for its elaborate temples, sophisticated writing system, and mathematical and astronomical developments, yet the civilization's origins remain something of a mystery. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A new University of Arizona study to be published in the journal Science challenges the two prevailing theories on how the ancient civilization began, suggesting its origins are more complex than previously thought. Anthropologists typically fall into one of two competing camps with regard to the origins of Maya civilization. The first camp believes that it developed almost entirely on its own in the jungles of what is now Guatemala and southern Mexico. The second believes that the Maya civilization developed as the result of direct influences from the older Olmec civilization and its center of La Venta. It's likely that neither of those theories tells the full story, according to findings by a team of archaeologists led by UA husband-and-wife anthropologists Takeshi Inomata and Daniela Triadan. "We really focused on the beginning of this civilization and how this remarkable civilization developed," said Inomata, UA professor of anthropology and the study's lead author. In their excavations at Ceibal, an ancient Maya site in Guatemala, researchers found that Ceibal actually predates the growth of La Venta as a major center by as much as 200 years, suggesting that La Venta could not have been the prevailing influence over early Mayan development. That does not make the Maya civilization older than the Olmec civilization -- since Olmec had another center prior to La Venta -- nor does it prove that the Maya civilization developed entirely independently, researchers say. What it does indicate, they say, is that both Ceibal and La Venta probably participated in a broader cultural shift taking place in the period between 1,150-800 B.C. "We're saying that the scenario of early Maya culture is really more complex than we thought," said UA anthropology graduate student Victor Castillo, who co-authored the paper with Inomata and Triadan. "We have this idea of the origin of Maya civilization as an indigenous development, and we have this other idea that it was an external influence that triggered the social complexity of Maya civilization. We're now thinking it's not actually black and white," Castillo said. There is no denying the striking similarities between Ceibal and La Venta, such as evidence of similar ritual practices and the presence of similar architecture -- namely the pyramids that would come to be the hallmark of Mesoamerican civilization but did not exist at the earlier Olmec center of San Lorenzo. However, researchers don't think this is the case of simply one site mimicking the other. Rather, they suspect that both the Maya site of Ceibal and the Olmec site of La Venta were parts of a more geographically far-reaching cultural shift that occurred around 1,000 B.C., about the time when the Olmec center was transitioning from San Lorenzo to La Venta. "Basically, there was a major social change happening from the southern Maya lowlands to possibly the coast of Chiapas and the southern Gulf Coast, and this site of Ceibal was a part of that broader social change," Inomata said. "The emergence of a new form of society -- with new architecture, with new rituals -- became really the important basis for all later Mesoamerican civilizations." The Science paper, titled "Early Ceremonial Constructions at Ceibal, Guatemala, and the Origins of Lowland Maya Civilization," is based on seven years of excavations at Ceibal. Additional authors of the paper include Japanese researchers Kazuo Aoyama of the University of Ibaraki, Mito and Hitoshi Yonenobu of the Naruto University of Education, Tokushima. "We were looking at the emergence of specific cultural traits that were shared by many of those Mesoamerican centers, particularly the form of rituals and the construction of the pyramids," Inomata said. "This gives us a new idea about the beginning of Maya civilization, and it also tells us about how common traits shared by many different Mesoamerican civilizations emerged during that time." University of Arizona (2013, April 25). Archeologists unearth new information on origins of Maya civilization. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 27, 2013, from http://www.sciencedaily.com* /releases/2013/04/130425142343.htm
A member presented an extensive abstract of a paper published in one of the world's leading scientific journals. It is the result of tremendous research and other effort, and has already been peer-reviewed at more than one level. And your argument against it consists of one sentence you read in Wikipedia???
I have traveled afar and have seen the great city of Caral. Do you doubt the city's existence too? http://www.sciencemag.org/content/292/5517/723.short Norte-Chico preceded Olmec. Maybe your Olmec Lord Itzamna will open the portal for you to taste the anchovies of Caral and later read to you the stories told in quipu at Sechin Bajo?
When trying to understand the past, I like to check weather conditions at the time. Around 1000 BC global warming had maxed. Whereas, 2000 to 1800 BC was a cold spell. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2464051/posts It is possible improved weather lead to population growth and the need to spread out, and weather changes can lead to human movement Now consider what happened to the US in only 400 years. The people who brought about this dramatic 400 year change were from Europe and in a new environment they were innovative and although separated from Europe; the cultures influenced each other. Comparing other examples of human movement and cultural change may not help resolve the issue, but it is interesting.
ancient most, Indian civillization (east) and Mayan civillization have similarities. calender is same, the 'yugas' are same, presence of monkey god paintings, multi hand gods, etc .
Uh... there are other points of view on the "amazing" progress made by the Americans. North America (north of the Rio Grande) and Australia were the only large land masses with temperate climates that had never supported a civilization. The European migrants found this continent to be a paradise of unspoiled resources. Clean water, millions of acres of first-growth forests, virgin topsoil , untapped mineral wealth, and sheer space. Anyone in good health could establish a farm so big that he needed to hire help to run it. (Note: many Indian communities in the eastern part of what is now the USA had invented farming and herding, the twin technologies that comprise agriculture. But their Stone Age tools prevented them from wreaking havoc with the land, and they had not domesticated any large herbivores to eat up all the grains. The largest domesticated meat animal in North America was the turkey and the dog was the only animal trained to pull a travois.) It can be said with considerable justification that America is merely the result of the good luck of its location and history. South of the Rio Grande, the Olmec/Maya/Aztec civilization had already turned millions of acres of topsoil into desert and descended into pointless warfare too often to actually run an empire. They also had not domesticated the bison, giving them the distinction of being the only people who built one of the six original civilizations from scratch without draft animals. (The other five are Inca, Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China.)
The relation of Mayas compared to other indigenous peoples of the Americas has been estimated using traditional genetic markers. Mayas inhabited several parts of Mexico and Central America, including Chiapas, the northern lowlands of theYucatán Peninsula, the southern lowlands and the southern highlands of Guatemala, Belize, and parts of western El Salvador and Honduras. Genetic studies of Maya people are reported to have higher levels of variation when compared to other groups.[1] Maya intra-population variation has been examined by means of the following tests: Human leukocyte antigen (HLA)polymorphisms, polymorphic Alu insertions, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), and Y chromosome data. The results indicate that ancestors of the Mayas made a finite number of entries into the Americas over the Bering land bridge. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...SQ5YAI&usg=AFQjCNGxGqB_lZ0U6NPGb5R_4mmMPuySGg
