Mayan_History_Preclassic

Extent of the Maya civilizationWhat would become the Maya region had been inhabited since at least the 10th millennium BC. Settled villages along the Pacific coast appear from 1800 BC, which is taken as the beginning of the Maya Early Preclassic era. Some archaeological evidence shows the Maya had started to build ceremonial architecture by approximately 1000 BC and by the period known as the mid-Preclassic (or mid-Formative), around 600 BC, some of the earliest Maya complexes had been constructed. The earliest monuments consist of simple burial mounds, the precursors to pyramids erected in later times. There is some disagreement about the boundaries which differentiate the physical and cultural extent of the early Maya and their neighboring Preclassic Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmec culture of the Tabasco lowlands and the Mixe-Zoque- and Zapotec-speaking peoples of Chiapas and southern Oaxaca. Many of the earliest significant inscriptions and buildings appeared in this overlapping zone, and evidence suggests that these cultures and the formative Maya influenced one another. Eventually, the Olmec influence faded after spreading into the Yucatan peninsula, present-day Guatemala, and other regions.