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The Maya writing system is one of the outstanding achievements of the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas. [275] It was the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system of more than a dozen systems that developed in Mesoamerica. [276]
The Cambeba were a populous, organized society in the late pre-Columbian era whose population suffered a steep decline in the early years of the Columbian Exchange. The Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana traversed the Amazon River during the 16th century and reported densely populated regions running hundreds of kilometers along the river.
Maya stele in Copán.. The Mesoamerican Classic Period can be established from around 200 to 900 A. D. However, the chronology varies in each cultural area. The precursors to this period are found in the late Preclassic Period, at around 400 B. C, when an increase in efficiency of agriculture technology led to demographic growth, a greater division of labor and specialization, and the growth ...
From the 16th century onwards, Spanish soldiers, clergy and administrators were familiar with pre-Columbian Maya history and beliefs. The agents of the Catholic Church wrote detailed accounts of the Maya, in support of their efforts at evangelisation, and absorption of the Maya into the Spanish Empire. [114]
Plumbing – the Maya have been found to be the earliest inventors of plumbing in Mesoamerica, with the earliest example of a pressurized water system being constructed in 750 CE—or earlier. This pressurized water system was located in the Maya site of Palenque, where public baths and toilets were accessible to the residents of the ancient city.
Many pre-Columbian civilizations established permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, and complex societal hierarchies. In North America, indigenous cultures in the Lower Mississippi Valley during the Middle Archaic period built complexes of multiple mounds, with several in Louisiana dated to 5600–5000 BP (3700 BC–3100 BC).
The Maya calendar is a system of calendars used in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and in many modern communities in the Guatemalan highlands, [1] Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. [2] The essentials of the Maya calendar are based upon a system which had been in common use throughout the region, dating back to at least the 5th century BC.
A Mayan temple at the Altun Ha site.. The Pre-Columbian Belize history is the period from initial indigenous presence, across millennia, to the first contacts with Europeans - the Pre-Columbian or before Columbus period - that occurred on the region of the Yucatán Peninsula that is present day Belize.