In this new edition, Thompson records and synthesizes into his work the very significant findings made in Maya studies and in Middle American investigations as they relate to the Maya, since the appearance of the first edition in 1954. He also reflects the evolution of his own ideas.
Notable among the recent developments in Maya and other Middle American investigation are readjustment of the chronology of earlier periods of Maya history on the basis of the Carbon-14 process; important findings on the origin of maize and the evolution of agriculture; the results of continued work at the great Classic Petén sites of Tikal and Uaxactún and the late Yucatecan site of Mayapán; and progress in the study of Maya hieroglyphic writing. There is new treatment of the Chontal Maya and of the extensive sea- and river-born commerce which they carried on, along with indication that as early as the tenth century A.D. the Chontal Maya may have played a greater political role in Yucatán than had been thought. The Highland Maya of Guatemala are also dealt with more fully.
In revising the chronology of earlier Maya history, Thompson places the Formative Period at circa 1500 B.C. to circa A.D. 200. This period saw the development of “agricultural civilizations on approximately the same cultural level and with essentially the same religion throughout Middle [America]” (p. 309), within the framework of which the several peoples evolved their particular identities. By its later years the Maya were building corbeled vaults; a hierarchy had emerged; and hieroglyphic writing had appeared. Thompson now finds no sharp dividing line between Maya culture of the late Formative Period and that of the Early Classic, about A.D. 200 to 625. The years of apogee, the brilliant flowering of Maya culture and city-states, with Tikal perhaps pre-eminent, remain A.D. 625-800. Carbon-14 datings may well have answered the problem of the origin of maize, placing it in the Tehuacán region of Mexico, where agriculture flourished as early as 5200 B.C. Thompson’s expanded accounts of Tikal in its Classic, city-state brilliance and of Mayapán, capital of the late, centralized and militarized “Empire” provide vivid, contrasting pictures of Maya civilization at its height and in decadence.
Although “Maya glyphic research is now at an uncertain and frustrating stage …” (p. 195), there has nevertheless been progress, so that glyphs may now be not only associated with religion and time, but also related to specific city-states, ruling families, and individual rulers. Further, glyphs may have originated among the Maya of the Highlands and Pacific Slope of Guatemala, and then spread to the Lowlands, where they reached their high development.
This book on the history, culture, and achievements of a remarkable people represents exemplary synthesis and is to be read with pleasure and benefit by all interested in the record of human attainments.
