Post 1 -Origin of Maya

 Origin of Mayan people.

 

When we visit the abandoned Mayan pyramids and review the amazing achievements of these mysterious people, we may wonder about their origin and what happened to them after they abruptly abandoned their magnificent cities.   Our understanding of these people is far from complete, research into the history and life of the Maya is still in its infancy.  This brief history is not an attempt to provide a detailed description of all known facts, it is merely an introduction to help you understand what you are seeing when you visit the Mayan ruins in Belize.

The Mayan empire suddenly appeared in the jungle lowlands of Central America about 380 BC and lasted until after the year 1000 AD.  Then the cities were abandoned, one after another, until only a few remained in Mexico when the Spanish arrived.   Like most empires, the Mayan empire seems to have been created by conquest, one kingdom after another was conquered and brought under the central control. 

Let’s begin our search for the origin of the empire by looking at several theories for how these native people arrived in Central America.

A large religious group centered in the western United States holds the belief that native Americans descended from an ancient group of Hebrews who became disenchanted with the leadership of their faith.  According to sacred documents of this religious group, these ancient Hebrew people believed their leaders had deviated from the true beliefs and practices of their faith, so they set off in search of a new land where they could practice their religion in its true form and they found that land in America.  According to that religious group, these ancient Hebrews were the original Americans, the American Indians and Mayans were their descendants.

Like many religious beliefs, this theory has been proven false by science, especially by DNA testing that indicates most native Americans migrated from Asia, with the exception of a few that trace back to Europe.  In physical appearance, Mayans look much like people from southeast Asia.

The generally accepted theory of how they migrated from Asia takes us back to the Ice Age, when the arctic ice cap expanded southward and formed a bridge over the Bering Sea between Asia and North America.  According to that theory, the Asians walked across to what is now Alaska, then spread all the way to South America.

A variation of that theory involves the way they traveled, they may not have walked.  Some Asians were fishermen, and they would have traveled by boat, they would have sailed along the edge of the ice and gone ashore occasionally to hunt and to exercise their legs.  Traveling by boat would have enabled them to move long distances much more quickly, and carry their tools and possessions to their new homeland.  When they reached a climate similar to the one they had left, they would have settled.  They would have found that suitable climate in Central America.  From their settlements along the Pacific coast, they would have spread eastward to the land that became the site of the Mayan empire.

This theory of traveling by boat along the edge of the ice accounts for some native American DNA tracing back to Europeans, because the ice sheet covered the North Atlantic as well as the Bering Sea between Asia and Alaska. People from France, for example, could have migrated to eastern Canada by sailing along the edge of the ice.