Pre-Columbian Belize - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Pre-Columbian Belize history is the period from initial indigenous presence, across millennia, to the first contacts with Europeans - the Pre-Columbian

Pre-Columbian

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...

or before Columbus period - that occurred on the region of the Yucatán Peninsula

Yucatán Peninsula

The Yucatán Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern coastline on the Yucatán Channel...

that is present day Belize

Belize

Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...

.

Belize's history begins with the Paleo-Indians. They were nomad

Nomad

Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...

ic people that arrived in the Asia to the Americas migration

Models of migration to the New World

There have been several models for the human settlement of the Americas proposed by various academic communities. The question of how, when and why humans first entered the Americas is of intense interest to archaeologists and anthropologists, and has been a subject of heated debate for centuries...

across the frozen Bering Strait

Bering Strait

The Bering Strait , known to natives as Imakpik, is a sea strait between Cape Dezhnev, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, the easternmost point of the Asian continent and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, USA, the westernmost point of the North American continent, with latitude of about 65°40'N,...

, perhaps as early as 35,000 years ago. In the course of many millennia, their descendants settled in and adapted to different environments in the Americas

Americas

The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

, creating many cultures in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, Central America

Central America

Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...

, and South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

. The Mayan

Maya civilization

The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...

culture emerged in the lowland area of the Yucatán Peninsula

Yucatán Peninsula

The Yucatán Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern coastline on the Yucatán Channel...

and the highlands to the south, in what is now southeastern Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, Guatemala

Guatemala

Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

, western Honduras

Honduras

Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...

, and Belize

Belize

. Many aspects of this culture persist in the area despite nearly half a millennium of European domination. All evidence, whether from archaeology, history, ethnography, or linguistic studies, points to a cultural continuity in this region. The descendants of the first settlers in the area have lived there for at least three millennia.

Paleo-Indian and Archaic periods (c. 35,000—2,500 BC)

Prior to about 2500 BC, some hunting and foraging bands settled in small farming villages. While hunting and foraging continued to play a part in their subsistence, these farmers domesticated crops such as corn, beans, squash, and chili peppers, which are still the basic foods in Central America. A profusion of languages and subcultures developed within the Mayan core culture. Between about 2500 BC and AD 250, the basic institutions of Mayan civilization emerged. The peak of this civilization occurred during the Classic Period, which began about AD 250.

Farmers engaged in various types of agriculture, including labor-intensive irrigated and ridged-field systems and shifting slash-and-burn agriculture. Their products fed the civilization's craft specialists, merchants, warriors, and priest-astronomers, who coordinated agricultural and other seasonal activities with a cycle of rituals in ceremonial centers. These priests, who observed the movements of the sun, moon, planets, and stars, developed a complex mathematical and calendrical system to coordinate various cycles of time and to record specific events on carved stelae.

Maya civilization

Preclassic period (c. 2500 BC—250 AD)

At the Cuello

Cuello

Cuello is a Maya archaeological site in northern Belize. The site is that of a farming village with a long occupational history stretching back to approximately 1200 BC, during the Middle Preclassic period. Its inhabitants lived in pole-and-thatch houses that were built on top of low plaster-coated...

site, from perhaps as early as 2500 BC., jars, bowls, and other dishes found there are among the oldest pottery unearthed in present-day Mexico and Central America. The site, five kilometers west of Orange Walk

Orange walk

Orange walks are a series of parades held annually by members of the Orange Order during the summer in Northern Ireland, to a lesser extent in Scotland, and occasionally in England, the Republic of Ireland, and throughout the Commonwealth...

, includes platforms of buildings arranged around a small plaza, indicating a distinctly Mayan community. The presence of shell, hematite

Hematite

Hematite, also spelled as haematite, is the mineral form of iron oxide , one of several iron oxides. Hematite crystallizes in the rhombohedral system, and it has the same crystal structure as ilmenite and corundum...

, and jade

Jade

Jade is an ornamental stone.The term jade is applied to two different metamorphic rocks that are made up of different silicate minerals:...

shows that the Maya were trading over long distances as early as 1500 BC. The Mayan economy, however, was still basically subsistence, combining foraging and cultivation, hunting, and fishing.

Cerros

Cerros

Cerros is a Maya archaeological site in northern Belize that reached its apogee during the Mesoamerican Late Preclassic. At its nadir, it held a population of approximately 1,089 people. The site is strategically located on a peninsula at the mouth of the New River where it empties into Chetumal...

, a site on Chetumal Bay

Chetumal Bay

Chetumal Bay is a large bay in northern Belize and eastern Mexico in the south of the Yucatán Peninsula. On the bay is the major city of Chetumal, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The mouth of the bay is redirected southward and buffered by a large Belizean island named Ambergris Caye. The...

, was a flourishing trade and ceremonial center between about 300 BC and AD 100. It displays some distinguishing features of early Mayan civilization. The architecture of Mayan civilization included temples and palatial residences organized in groups around plazas. These structures were built of cut stone, covered with stucco, and elaborately decorated and painted. Stylized carvings and paintings of people, animals, and gods, along with sculptured stelae and geometric patterns on buildings, constitute a highly developed style of art. Impressive two-meter-high masks decorate the temple platform at Cerros. These masks, situated on either side of the central stairway, represent a serpent god.

Classic period (c. 250—900 AD)

Altún Ha

The Maya were skilled at making pottery, carving jade, knapping flint

Flint

Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...

, and making elaborate costumes of feathers. One of the largest carved jade objects of Mayan civilization was found in a tomb at the classic period site of Altún Ha

Altun Ha

Altun Ha is the name given ruins of an ancient Maya city in Belize, located in the Belize District about 30 miles north of Belize City and about 6 miles west of the shore of the Caribbean Sea....

, thirty kilometers northwest of present-day Belize City

Belize City

Belize City is the largest city in the Central American nation of Belize. Unofficial estimates place the population of Belize City at 70,000 or more. It is located at the mouth of the Belize River on the coast of the Caribbean. The city is the country's principal port and its financial and...

. Usually stated to be the head of the sun god, Kinich Ahau

Kinich Ahau

Kinich Ahau is the 16th-century Yucatec name of the Maya sun god, designated as god G in the Schellhas-Zimmermann-Taube classification. In the Classic period, god G is depicted as a middle-aged man with an aquiline nose, large square eyes, cross-eyed, and a filed incisor in the upper row of teeth....

, it is actually quite unlike this deity, save for the square and squinting eyes. Settled at least as early as 200 BC, the Altún Ha area at its peak had an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 inhabitants. At the beginning of the second century AD, the inhabitants built their first major structure, a temple. The visitor today sees a group of temples, priests' residences, and other buildings around two adjacent plazas. In the vicinity, there are hundreds of other structures, most of which are still unexcavated. The Maya continued to rebuild some of the temples until almost the end of the ninth century. Excavations at Altún Ha have produced evidence suggesting that a revolt, perhaps of peasants against the priestly class, contributed to the downfall of the civilization. People may have continued to live at or to visit the site in the postclassic period, even though the ceremonial centers were left to decay. Some rubbish found at Altún Ha shows that people were at the site in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, perhaps to reuse the old structures or undertake pilgrimages to the old religious center.

The recorded history of the center and south is dominated by Caracol

Caracol

Caracol is the name given to a large ancient Maya archaeological site, located in what is now the Cayo District of Belize. It is situated approximately 40 kilometres south of Xunantunich and the town of San Ignacio Cayo, and 15 kilometers away from the Macal River. It rests on the Vaca Plateau at...

, where the inscriptions on their monuments was, as elsewhere, in the Lowland Maya aristocratic tongue Classic Ch'olti'an

Ch'olti' language

The Ch'olti' language is an extinct Mayan language which was spoken in the Manche region of eastern Guatemala. It is only known from a single manuscript written between 1685 and 1695 which was first studied by Daniel Garrison Brinton. Ch'olti' belongs to the Cho'lan branch of the Mayan languages...

. North of the Maya Mountains

Maya Mountains

The Maya Mountains are a mountain range in Belize and eastern Guatemala. The highest peaks are Doyle's Delight at and Victoria Peak at . The Maya Mountains and associated foothills contain a number of important Mayan ruins including the sites of Lubaantun, Nim Li Punit, Cahal Pech, and Chaa Creek;...

, the inscriptional language at Lamanai

Lamanai

Lamanai is a Mesoamerican archaeological site, and was once a considerably sized city of the Maya civilization, located in the north of Belize, in Orange Walk District...

on Hill Bank Lagoon in Orange Walk District was Yucatecan

Yucatecan

Yucatecan may refer to:*The Mexican state of Yucatán*The Yucatán Peninsula*The Yucatec Maya language and its speakers...

as of 625 CE. Other Mayan centers located in Belize include Xunantunich

Xunantunich

Xunantunich is a Maya archaeological site in western Belize, about 80 miles west of Belize City , in the Cayo District. Xunantunich is located atop a ridge above the Mopan River, within sight of the Guatemala border...

and Baking Pot in Cayo District

Cayo District

Cayo District is a district in the west of the nation of Belize. The District capital is the town of San Ignacio.- Geography :The Cayo District is the largest district in Belize. It is located on the western side of the country which borders Guatemala. The nation's capital, Belmopan, is...

, Lubaantún

Lubaantun

Lubaantun is a pre-Columbian ruined city of the Maya civilization in southern Belize, Central America...

and Nimli Punit in Toledo District

Toledo District

Toledo District is the southernmost district in Belize, and Punta Gorda the District capital. Although the least developed region in the country, it features some of the most pristine rainforests, extensive cave networks, coastal lowland plains, and offshore cays...

Xunantunich

, meaning "Lady of the Rock," was occupied perhaps as early as 300 BC, but most of the architecture there was constructed in the late classic period. As in all the lowland Mayan centers, the inhabitants continually constructed temples and residences over older buildings, enlarging and raising the platforms and structures in the process. The views are breathtaking from Xunantunich's "El Castillo," which, at thirty-nine meters, is the tallest man-made structure in Belize.

Lamanai, less accessible to tourists than Altún Ha or Xunantunich, is an important site because it provides archaeological evidence of the Mayan presence over many centuries, beginning around AD 150. Substantial populations were present throughout the classic and postclassic periods. Indeed, people living in the area were still refacing some of the massive ceremonial buildings after the great centers, such as Tikal

Tikal

Tikal is one of the largest archaeological sites and urban centres of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. It is located in the archaeological region of the Petén Basin in what is now northern Guatemala...

in neighboring Guatemala, had been virtually abandoned in the tenth century.

Late classic period

In the late classic period, probably at least 400,000 people inhabited the Belize area. People settled almost every part of the country worth cultivating, as well as the cay and coastal swamp regions.

Postclassic period (c. 10th—early 16th century)

In the tenth century, Mayan society suffered a severe breakdown. Construction of public buildings ceased, the administrative centers lost power, and the population declined as social and economic systems lost their coherence. Some people continued to occupy, or perhaps reoccupied, sites such as Altún Ha, Xunantunich, and Lamanai. Still, these sites ceased being splendid ceremonial and civic centers.

The decline of Mayan civilization is still not fully explained. Rather than identifying the collapse as the result of a single factor, many archaeologists now believe that the decline of the Maya was a result of many complex factors and that the decline occurred at different times in different regions.

Increasing information about Mayan culture and society helps explain the development, achievements, and decline of their ancient civilization and suggests more continuities in Mayan history than once had been considered possible.

Paleo-Indian and Archaic periods (c. 35,000—2,500 BC)

Maya civilization

Preclassic period (c. 2500 BC—250 AD)

Classic period (c. 250—900 AD)

Altún Ha

Xunantunich

Late classic period

Postclassic period (c. 10th—early 16th century)

See also