The Maya moved to smaller agricultural villages, and their great cities disappeared into the enveloping tropical forests. By 830 construction had ceased and the cities were gradually abandoned. Ecological changes led to massive crop failures, starvation, and war over decreasing food resources. One opinion is that the population had expanded during a period of good climate, and trees had been widely removed to farm increasingly marginal land.

Although their remaining structures are of bare stone today, they were apparently once painted in very bright colors.īeginning in 750 CE the Maya civilization went into decline for reasons not clear today. They went through cycles of building, tearing down, and rebuilding on the foundations of the past. They were able to measure very precisely the orbits of planets. The period from 300 to 900 CE is known as the Classic Period of the Maya culture, which featured the construction of very impressive cities, advanced writing, astronomy, arithmetic, a complex political system of competing city states, and the Maya ball game pok-a-tok.

Population growth was spurred by advances in growing and irrigating crops of corn, beans, squash, and peppers.

They were heavily influenced by the Olmec civilization of Mexico, which had developed a system of writing, a calendar, and a complex religion. The Maya civilization arose in the Yucatan Peninsula of Central America, beginning around 1500 BCE.

Maya units speak the Kʼicheʼ language, a Mesoamerican language which is spoken in the present-day Guatemala and, as with other modern Mayan languages, evolved from the original Proto-Mayan language. Settlers, Coureurs des Bois, Settler Wagons, and Villagers gather food 10% faster User Squiyb uploaded this Mosque Hassan 2 - Age Of Empires II: The Conquerors Age Of Empires III Maya Civilization Video Game PNG PNG image on January 12.

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