Table Of Contents:

Prelude-Page 2

Geography-Pages 4 & 5

Early foundations-Page 6 & 7

Conclusion-Page 9

Bibliography-Page 10

Chapter 1: Geography and Early Foundations

The Mayan civilization is a classical arrangement of city-states that lasted for 3,000 years. The Mayans, similar to many other groups of people, built their civilization based off of a strong set of beliefs, diverse geography and a culturally motivated background. Throughout the following passages, the Mayan civilization will be broken down by its geography and early foundations to demonstrate how their cities grew and functioned through time.

The Mayan civilization was formed in Mexico and Central America while also inhabiting the lands comprising modern-day Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and Honduras. The land on which the Mayans resided had geographical features such as volcanoes, mountains, dry scrubbed forest, and jungles. This surrounding landscape led to the development of city-states. These city-states were not unified and they were only loosely tied politically which resulted in them often times being in competition. The city-states ran successfully with the help of hunting and gathering. With this practice, they cultivated crops such as maize, beans and other vegetables.

The Mayans used their geography as an advantage when it came to survival. This classical civilization heavily relied on hunting and gathering as well as domestication of animals such as dogs and turkeys due to what their geography provided them with. Although they developed similarly to how other civilizations did, one thing that sets the Mayan civilization apart is that some parts of the Mayan lowlands didn't have the geography at their disposal to have an irrigation system. Since there were very few navigable rivers for trade and transport, there was no obvious need for an irrigation system. Despite the fact that there weren't many bodies of water useful in trade, surrounding cultures influenced each other through trade and conquering of estate.

The early foundations of the Mayan civilization was one of the most dominant indigenous societies of Mesoamerica. The people that settled in Maya society, built the great stone cities and many monuments. Over time, this development of land grew to over 40 different cities with anywhere from 5,000 to 50,000 people in each city. Each city had sacred spots and temples dedicated to various gods. Their religion was devoted to the worship of a Great Mother Goddess and her consort, the Plumed Serpent. Their beliefs also led them to make food offerings to their gods and human sacrifices.

With such an enormous amount of people in these settlements, Maya divided people into social classes. These classes were rigidly divided into the nobles, commoners, serfs and slaves with the nobles having the most power and respect in society. Slaves were usually sacrificed when their owners died so that they could continue in their service after death. If a man married a slave woman, he became a slave of the woman's owner. This was was also the case for women who married male slaves. Many historians discovered information about the classical Mayan civilization because of Tikal. Tikal was the ruins of ancient Mayan city that had many great temples pyramids with thousands of structure revealing there past.

The classical Mayan city-states heavily depended on their natural environment and early foundations to create a well developed civilization that lasted thousands of years. The individuality of Mayan beliefs and surrounding features of land allowed people to strive and survive in a unique fashion.

Chapter 2:

The Golden Age and Achievements