"Archaeologists with the University of Cincinnati used the latest technology to find evidence suggesting ancient Maya people grew surplus crops to support an active trade with neighbors up and down the Yucatan Peninsula." Source: Phys.org.
Excavations were carried out in the area of Laguna de Terminos, "the largest and one of biologically richest tidal lagoons located entirely on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, as measured by water volume." (Wikipedia)
According to Phys.org, "[s]atellite images revealed a patchwork quilt of blocks along drainage ditches that suggested they were built. Archaeologists also studied imagery NASA created of the region using a tool called Light Detection and Ranging, or LIDAR, that can depict the contours of the ground beneath the leafy canopy of trees and vegetation. Their review confirmed [that] the area was covered in ancient farm fields."
"More than 61,000 ancient Maya structures — from large pyramids to single houses — were lurking beneath the dense jungle canopy in Guatemala, revealing clues about the ancient culture's farming practices, infrastructure, politics and economy, a new aerial survey has revealed." Source: Live Science (2018)
"... The aerial lidar survey covered 12 separate areas in Petén, Guatemala, and included both rural and urban Maya settlements. After analyzing the images — which included isolated houses, large palaces, ceremonial centers and pyramids — the researchers determined that up to 11 million people lived in the Maya lowlands during the late Classic period, from A.D. 650 to 800."
"...'These are not the only cave paintings in the Yucatan, but they’re the most important because they have so many elements: birds, mammals, a cross, geometric figures, human forms including a warrior, as well as hands both negative and positive,' Grosjean, head of the Mexican Institute of Ecology, Science and Culture, told EFE [the Spanish international news agency]."
Note: The Ancient Architects channel describes these as "pre-Mayan" cave paintings while the Archaeology News Network calls them "Mayan." My guess is that they are a mixture of both.
This is one of the few videos I could find that shows some of the Ometepe petroglyphs and doesn't include a lot of standard tourist stuff, but the music is intolerable. Mute the audio.
"Ometepe is an island located on Lake Nicaragua in Nicaragua. The name of this island comes from the indigenous Nahuatl language. Ome means as ‘two’, whilst tepetl means ‘peaks / hills / mountains’. Hence, Ometepe may be translated as ‘the place of two hills’. The first Nahuatl-speaking inhabitants of Ometepe are said to have arrived on the island after following a prediction that instructed them to search out an ‘island paradise that consisted of two peaks’. Prior to their arrival, however, Ometepe had already been inhabited by a number of other tribes and cultures, as evidenced by the large quantity of petroglyphs scattered throughout the island. " Source: Ancient Origins.
"The remains of a young woman were discovered by archaeologists in what is now the Nicaraguan village of Bleera Kaanu. Buried some 5,900 years ago, the unusually muscular woman young woman is the oldest known human buried in lower Central America to date, adding a significant chapter to the region’s archaeological record." Source: Archaeology News Network.
"Between 800 and 925 CE Mayan society experienced a rapid transition. The world of cities ended as populations moved back into the countryside. Historians debate the possible causes of the change — civil revolts, invasions, erosion, earthquakes, disease, drought. Likely some combination of these brought on an unusually rapid fading of a once-vibrant civilization. The Maya didn’t just disappear; several million descendants are still alive today." Source: The Khan Academy.
Comment: The theory that there was a Mayan migration to South America is interesting, but as far as I can tell it's mostly speculation. If something like this did happen, it would have been a long and arduous journey, to say the least. The distance from Guatemala to Brazil, for instance, is around 5000 miles. Another problem with the theory is that most sources believe that the Mayans who abandoned their cities during the Postclassic period moved north rather than south:
'Although much reduced, a significant Maya presence remained into the Postclassic period after the abandonment of the major Classic period cities; the population was particularly concentrated near permanent water sources. Unlike during previous cycles of contraction in the Maya region, abandoned lands were not quickly resettled in the Postclassic. Activity shifted to the northern lowlands and the Maya Highlands; this may have involved migration from the southern lowlands, because many Postclassic Maya groups had migration myths." Source: Wikipedia.
"A water feature found in the Maya city of Palenque, Mexico, is the earliest known example of engineered water pressure in the new world, according to a collaboration between two Penn State researchers, an archaeologist and a hydrologist. How the Maya used the pressurized water is, however, still unknown." Source: Science Daily (2010).
During the years 250-900 AD, a chaotic period that saw the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in the west and the beginning of the Dark Ages in Europe, an advanced civilization completely unknown to the Romans entered its golden age in the rain forests of MesoAmerica on the other side of the world, only to collapse mysteriously by the end of the millennium.
This was the classical civilization of the Maya. Their secrets would remain hidden in the jungles until Spanish conquistadors subjugated the Yucatan Peninsula in the 16th Century. Since then, the Mayan ruins have been explored and their hieroglyphs translated, revealing an enigmatic, bloody and sophisticated culture that may have been the most technologically advanced society on the planet at the time.
"More than 1,000 years before Europeans landed on the shores of the Americas, the Maya developed a science-based civilization in the almost total isolation of the tropical lands of the Yucatan Peninsula," according to James A. O'Kon, author of The Lost Secrets Of Maya Technology (New Page Books, 2012). "The mystery of the Maya and the origins of their advanced science and technology have always intrigued me and initiated my quest for answers to their riddles."
O'Kon is an interesting character, a professional engineer who "synergistically applied field exploration, research, forensic engineering and 3D virtual reconstruction of Maya projects to discover lost Maya technological achievements." He argues persuasively that the engineering and scientific feats of the Maya rivaled any of the accomplishments of the more well-known civilizations in the Mediterranean world.
The Maya developed a written language, mathematics (including the number zero), an elaborate astronomical system, huge cities that included some of the highest buildings ever constructed at the time, the blast furnace, water systems, underground reservoirs and an extensive network of paved roads, among other things, all without the benefit of metal tools.
This lack of metal tools means that the Maya are generally considered to be a Neolithic culture, but O'Kon disputes the current "three-age system" (Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age) popular with mainstream archaeology, precisely because the Maya clearly meet all of the criteria for an advanced civilization. He suggests calling them "technolithic," meaning "a technologically advanced culture that did not have metal tools," (p. 88) presenting evidence that the Maya compensated for their lack of metals by designing tools made of jadeite and obsidian.
The Lost Secrets of Maya Technology discusses subjects like the rise and fall of the classical Mayan civilization and their mathematics and astronomy, but its main focus is on their technology. O'Kon goes into considerable detail about the techniques they used in the manufacture of cement, multistory buildings, arches, vaults, water collection and storage systems, water filtration, roads, long-span bridges and things like Maya boat construction and the "man-powered tumpline," a "load-carrying mechanism that powered the Maya economy." (p. 274)
O'Kon sees the collapse of the Classical Period as a result of the breakdown of Maya technology in the face of radical environmental changes. He surveys the evidence that climatic conditions, especially prolonged drought and the effects of tropical volcanic eruptions, led to the abandonment of Maya cities which could no longer support their populations.
This is a fascinating and unique book, well-written and accessible to the general reader. I'd recommend it highly for anyone interested in one of the most exotic and spectacular civilizations in the ancient world.
"Mexican experts say they have found the first temple of the Flayed Lord, a pre-Hispanic fertility god depicted as a skinned human corpse." Source: The Guardian.
"... The discovery marks the first time researchers have found a cult center devoted to Xipe Tótec, or the 'Flayed Lord,' according to the announcement from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH)."
Note: "In Aztec mythology and religion, Xipe Totec ... ('Our Lord the Flayed One') was a life-death-rebirth deity, god of agriculture, vegetation, the east, disease, spring, goldsmiths, silversmiths, liberation and the seasons." (Wikipedia)
This temple complex was probably built by the indigenous Popoloca people sometime between 1000 and 1260 AD, centuries before the area was conquered by the Aztecs. (Live Science)
Comment: The Flayed Lord is a seriously barbarian fertility god. According to the Kimbell Art Museum, "[d]uring the corn-planting festival, Xipe Totec was worshiped by a priest who, dressed in the skin of a flayed victim, ritually enacted the death-and-renewal cycle of the earth. Xipe Totec was the divine embodiment of life emerging from the dead land and of the new plant sprouting from the seed. In this sculpture, the face of a living being is seen behind the mouth and eye openings of the sacrificial victim, whose skin is laced together by cords at the back of the wearer’s skull."
"For a long time, it was commonly held by Mayanist experts that the 'pacific' Maya of Central America and southern Mexico did not practice human sacrifice. However, as more images and glyphs have come to light and been translated, it appears that the Maya frequently practiced human sacrifice in religious and political contexts." Source: Thought Company.
"...Far to the north, the Aztecs would become famous for holding their victims down on top of temples and cutting out their hearts, offering the still-beating organs to their gods. The Maya did cut the hearts out of their victims, as can be seen in certain images surviving at the Piedras Negras historical site. However, it was much more common for them to decapitate or disembowel their sacrificial victims, or else tie them up and push them down the stone stairs of their temples."