The Vanishing Civilization

Do you like mysteries? Try this one: More than a thousand years ago, a great civilization of American Indian peoples built cities across Mesoamerica—an area today that is made up of parts of Mexico and Central America. They built stone temples and pyramids that rose far above the forest treetops.

The Maya, one group of native peoples, discovered important mathematical ideas. They also studied the movements of the stars. Using this knowledge, the Maya made a calendar almost as accurate as the one we use today. Then, after hundreds of years of growth, many key elements of Maya civilization disappeared. The people abandoned their once-thriving cities. This great urban society and many of its traditions were mysteriously transformed, although Mayan-speaking people continue in this part of Mesoamerica to the present.

This may sound like the plot of a science- fiction movie, but it isn’t. In fact, it is a short history of the Maya (/mah*yuh/), one of the first great civilizations of the Americas that flourished between 200 and 900 CE.