It’s
accepted that, barring a few Vikings in the north and proven direct
transpacific migration from Southeast Asia, as long ago as 50,000
B.C., the pre-Hispanic
inhabitants of the Americas arrived from Siberia. They came in
several migrations between perhaps 60,000 and 8000 BC, during the
last ice age,
crossing land that is now submerged beneath the Behring
Strait, then gradually moving southward.
The first proof of human settlers in Guatemala goes
back to 10,000 BC, although there are some evidences not yet clearly
proved that put this date at 18,000 BC, some
obsidian arrow heads, both
the northern "clovis" and southern "fishtail" styles, have
been found in different parts of Guatemala such
as
Piedra Parada near
Guatemala city, Chivacabé
(TZI’ KAB’ BE’), in Huehuetenango,
Chajbal in Quiché,
Nahualá
in Sololá, and other regions. They were hunters and gatherers. Archaic
sites have been documented in Quiché in the Highlands and Sipacate
on the central pacific coast line (6500 BC). These early
inhabitants hunted mammoths, fished and gathered wild foods. The ice
age was followed by a hot, dry period in which the mammoths’ natural
pastureland disappeared and the wild nuts and berries became scarce.
The primitive inhabitants had to
find some other way to survive, so
they sought out favorable microclimates and invented
agriculture,
in which maize (corn) became king. The inhabitants of what are now
Guatemala successfully hybridized this native grass (Euchlæna luxurians
or teosinte)
with Tripsacum spp,
obtaining Zea Luxurians,
formerly known as Zea Guatemala,
and planted it
alongside beans, tomatoes, chili peppers and squashes (marrow). They
wove baskets to carry in the harvest, and they domesticated turkeys
and dogs for food. These early homebodies used crude stone tools and
primitive pottery, and shaped simple clay fertility figurines. there is
archeological proof in pollen samples from Petén and the Pacific coast
that maize crops were developed around 3500 BC.
Preclassic sites in Guatemala's Highlands and Pacifc Lowlands, note
the South
Eastern, not investigated, until recently
By 2500.BC, small settlements were developing in
Guatemala’s
Pacific Lowlands, places as
Las Victorias, Tilapa, La Blanca,
Ocós,
El Mesak,
Ujuxte,
Tak'alik' Ab'aj
and
others, where the oldest ceramic pottery from Mesoamerica have
been found, indeed the first pottery documented at San Lorenzo, the
earliest
Olmec Center in Veracruz, is
Ocós style, but dates to some
600 years later (Coe and Diehl 1980; Lowe1977). From 2000 BC heavy concentration of pottery in the Pacific
Coast Line has been documented. The first monumental sculpture is the so-called Fat Boys from
Monte Alto
a Preclassic site of the Pacific coastal plain of Guatemala, there is
little question that the most primitive examples of the
sculptor's art in Mesoamerica, all stem from the Pacific Lowlands in
Guatemala, it was in this region that the raw materials, including
both granite and basalt, were readily available for carving.
(Vincent H. Malmström, Department of Geography, Dartmouth College,
Hanover, NH 03755).
|
Mysterious Giant Head near
Monte Alto.
Note two men seated on it and the car (1940s) |
In the Early Pre-Classic there were few
attempts to shape the landscape. The modification of space was
limited to the construction of dwellings on high ground. Some of
these dwellings were apparently more elaborate than others and may
have served as the scene of special actions or ritual acts. This is
an important step, however, in that specific behaviors became fixed
in space; they became associated with a locale. It was the first
step toward segregating and regularizing activities in space.Things
changed fundamentally at the beginning of the Middle Pre-Classic.
Monumental architecture of the type constructed at
La Blanca,
Ujuxte,
Tak'alik Ab'aj,
and other centers has several
effects on social interaction. The size and durability of these
monuments is significantly greater than anything that previously
existed in Mesoamerica. The monuments at La Blanca and its secondary
centers appear to define the center and peripheries of a polity,
Just as the earliest Maya Centers in
The Mirador
Basin, in the
Petén lowlands., and
Polol in
Central Petén. At the same time
social space was becoming more highly segregated during the
Pre-Classic, the
calendrical reckoning of time was also becoming more
formalized and more elaborate. The disciplinary dimensions
surrounding the control of time by the elite are enormous and had
ramifications for every aspect of daily life. (Michael Love, 1992)
Recent excavations suggest that the
Highlands
in sites as
Naranjo,
and
Kaminal Juyú,
were a geographic and temporal bridge between Early
Preclassic villages of the Pacific coast and later
Petén lowlands cities.
Recent excavations in the Antigua Guatemala Valley, at
Urías and Rucal, have
yielded stratified materials for the Early and Middle Preclassic,
the first pottery in the
Antigua Valley
is very well made and not
simply a copy of either coastal or piedmont types. Their paste
analyses, however, indicate that the vessels were
made on clays from different environmental zones, suggesting to them
that these were people from the Pacific coast who expanded into the
Antigua Valley. There are at least 5000 archeological sites in Guatemala,
some 3000 of them in
Petén
alone.
 |
 |
|
Uaxactún
Group E |
Structure
E7 the Focal point in E group ( All the important Classic Maya sites
had E groups named after this , the oldest in the Maya Civilization) |
In
Monte
Alto near La Democracia, Escuintla some giant stone heads and
Potbellies or "Fat Boys" (Barrigones) have been found, Dated at 2000 BC
(Ian Graham 1979). The so
named Monte Alto Culture, that is classified as Pre-Olmec, (Why not
Pre-Maya?), letting the door open to the opinion of some scholars,
that the
Olmec Culture
was born in that area of the Pacific
Lowlands, although the size is the only@ÚHhe posterior
dated Olmec heads, it is more accurate to say that the Monte Alto
Culture was the first Complex Culture of Mesoamerica and the
Predecessors of all the other cultures. In Guatemala, there are some
sites with unmistaken Olmec style, such as
Chocolá in Suchitepéquez, La Corona, in
Cotzumalguapa, and
Tak'alik' Ab'aj, in Retalhuleu, that is the only ancient
City in Mesoamerica with Olmec and Mayan features.
 |
 |
|
Tak'alik
A´baj Head |
Monte
Alto Potbelly |
The renown Archeologist Dr. Richard Hansen is sure
that the Maya at Mirador Basin developed the first True political state
in America, (Tha Kan Kingdom), around 1500 BC, (although
Maize (corn)
pollen samples have been documented in lakes in the area dated in
2400 BC), not as thought before that the Olmec was the
mother culture in Mesoamerica, he thinks, due to recent finding at
Mirador Basin, Northern Petén, Guatemala, that the Olmec and Mayas
developed its cultures, separately, and merged in some places like
Tak'alik Abaj on the Pacific Low Lands; there is no evidence yet to link
the Pre Classic Maya from Petén and those from the Pacific coast, but
undoubtedly, they had cultural and economical links.
North
Central Petén
has particularly high densities of Late Preclassic sites, including
Naachtún,
Xulnal, El Mirador,
Porvenir, La Florida, Pacaya, La Muralla,
Nakbé,
Tintal,
Wakná (formerly Güiro),
Uaxactún,,
Cival,
San Bartolo,
Holmul,
Polol and
Tikal. Of these,
El Mirador, Tikal, Nakbé, Tintal,
Xulnal and Wakná are the largest in the Maya world, Such size
was manifested not only in the extent of the site, but also in the
volume or monumentality, especially in the construction of immense
platforms to support large temples. Many sites of this era display
monumental masks for the first time (Uaxactún, El Mirador, Cival,
Tikal and Nakbé ). These masks often seem to depict powerful natural
forces such as Sun and Earth, in the
Maya Cosmology and
Mythology.
|
 |
 |
|
EL Mirador in 300 BC, El
Tigre in first plane, La Danta in the horizon. View from Los Monos. |
Nakbé,
Stucco Mask |
Tikal,
Stucco Mask |
Naranjo and then
Kaminal Juyú,
in the Central
Highlands
are the sites that shows the longest
occupation in Mesoamerica, (1000 BC to 1200 AD), located in the central
highlands, in what now is
Guatemala City, had a very privileged part,
serving as trading center between
Petén and the
Pacific lowlands, where
they traded
cacao, salt, chile,
jade, furs, sea shells (The first
currency), from both coastal areas, Quetzal feathers from the
cloud forest
in the Highlands,
obsidian from "El Chayal" ,
Ixtepeque Volcano, and other quarries near Kaminal Juyú,
among many goods.
All the
Mesoamerican
Jade, comes
from quarries located in "La Sierra
de Las Minas" and the "Motagua" River valley, Eastern Highlands,
Guatemala. Fine jadeite material in natural colors ranging from a
bright, intense green to soft lilac, blue, pink, white, black and yellow
were available only in Guatemala, and then exported to all Mesoamerica,
the green Jade is also known as Mayan Jade. The Black jadeite from the
Motagua Valley area, represents the creamiest, richest, and best black
jadeite in the world.
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|
Jadeite Boulder |
The Archeologist divide the cultural History of Mesoamerica in 3
periods: The Pre-Classic or Formative from 2000 BC to 250 AD, (Early: 2000 BC to
800 BC, Middle: 800 to 400 BC, and Late 400 BC to 250 AD),
Classic
from 250 to 900 AD, (Early 250 to 550 AD, Middle from 550 to 700 AD
and Late 700 to 900 AD), and Post Classic from 900 to contact (1520
AD), (Early 900 to1200 AD, and Late 1200 to 1520 AD), Although
Tayasal,
capitol of the Itzá and
Zacpetén, Capitol of the Kówoj,
where conquered until 1697, the last cities to be conquered in
América.
Until a few years ago, the Pre Classic, was thought
to be a formative period, with small villages of farmers, that lived in
huts, and few permanent buildings, but this concept has been proved to
be a big mistake, due to recent findings all over Guatemala, such as a
25 mt. high Pyramid and a quatrefoil
altar in La Blanca, San Marcos, some 3 mt. in diameter from 1000 BC;
Ceremonial sites at Miraflores, and El Naranjo from 800 BC, near Kaminal
Juyú, in Guatemala City, El Portón in Baja Verapaz, The Mural paintings
in San Bartolo, Petén, the Stucco Masks and monuments in
Cival and of
course The Mirador Basin
major cities of Nakbé, Xulnal, Tintal, Wakná and
Mirador, the Cradle of the
Maya Civilization, where, the cities were not
only numerous, but very sophisticated, and developed, with architectonic
structures from 1400 BC, indeed the two biggest cities of the Maya
Civilization (Mirador
and Tintal) are there, with the same religious believes, astronomical,
mathematics and writing knowledge that those in the Classic period.
The city of
El Mirador
was the largest city in ancient America, and also, has the largest
pyramid in the WORLD, with a mass of 2,800,000 Mt2, some 200,000 more that the Giza pyramid in Egypt, and was by far
the most populated city in the Pre Columbine America, in fact, Mirador
was the first Politically organized State in America, named the Kan
Kingdom in ancient texts. The first aerial
surveys of this area in the 1930' by North American Archeologist does
not give any results, because they interpreted the huge Pyramids as
Volcanoes. There are 26
cities, some bigger than
Tikal, the Jewel of the Classic period, all
connected by huge Sacbeob (Plural for highways ), or
Sacbé (Singular), meaning "White road",
up to 40 Km. long (Tintal-El Mirador, the
largest in Mesoamerica) and up to 44 m. wide and 2 to 6 m. above the ground, paved with stucco, that are clearly distinguishable from the
air in the most extensive virgin Tropical Rain Forest left in
Mesoamerica, thus, these were Kingdoms equal in Power and Culture to
those in Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, etc.
The Classic is
represented by countless sites, mainly in Petén, although there are
Classic
sites in any region in Guatemala, After the
Classic Maya Collapse, El Petén was nearly deserted. The Post Classic is represented by
different kingdoms like the Itzá and
Ko'woj in the Lakes area in Petén
that were the last cultures in Mesoamérica to be conquered by the
Spaniards on 1697 when Tayasal capital of the Itzá fell; and, by the
Mam,
Ki'ch'es,
Kack'chiquel,
Tz'utuh'il,
Poko'mam,
Achí,
Kek'chi and Chortí among others
in the Highlands, Izabal, Petén and the Pacific Lowlands that kept the essential believes
of the Maya Civilization but didn't reach the splendor of the Pre Classic
and Classic cities. In fact,
they still retain the use of not only their
languages, but also their believes and cosmology., even more they use
the Tzolk'in calendar in their ceremonies and for crops.
An excellent study of the Post Classic Highlands Maya, and Classic
Maya Texts is in this
Mesoweb Report
(PDF file)
. Recently The National Archaeology Institute,
disclose the existence of a submerged city in
Lake Atitlán,
named
“Samabaj”, some 15 metes deep near Cerro de Oro,
and 10 Km from
Chuitinamit,
the Tz'utuh'il capitol, although it has not been dated yet, the
formal investigations are underway since February 2008.
Main Online sources:
www.famsi.org ;
www.mesoweb.org
; USAC
www.atlasarqueologico.com ; UFM
www.UFM.edu.gt ;
UVG
www.UVG.edu.gt
