<p>After a century and a half of research, scientists are finally
unraveling the mystery of who the Maya were, how they lived--and why their civilization suddenly collapsed
</p>
<p>By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK--With reporting by Hannah Bloch/Palenque, Guy Garcia/Dos Pilas and
Laura Lopez/Mexico City
</p>
<p> The crowd at the base of the enormous bloodred pyramid has been
standing for hours in the dripping heat of the Guatemalan jungle.
No one moves; every eye stays fixed on the building's summit,
where the king, his head adorned with feathers, his scepter
a two-headed crocodile, is about to emerge from a sacred chamber
with instructions from his long-dead ancestors. The crowd sees
nothing of his movements, but it knows the ritual: lifted into
the next world by hallucinogenic drugs, the king will take an
obsidian blade or the spine of a stingray, pierce his own penis,
and then draw a rope through the wound, letting the blood drip
onto bits of bark paper. Then he will take the bark and set
it afire, and out of the rising smoke a vision of a serpent
will appear to him.
</p>
<p> When the king finally emerges, on the verge of collapse, he
reaches under his loincloth, displays a bloodstained hand and
announces the ancestors' message--the same message he has
received so many times in the past: "Prepare to go to war."
The crowd erupts in wild cheers. The bloodletting has barely
begun.
</p>
<p> Who were the Maya, the people who built and later abandoned
these majestic pyramids scattered around Central America and
who enacted these bizarre rites? The question has piqued scientists
across a broad swath of disciplines ever since an American lawyer
and explorer named John Lloyd Stephens stumbled across something
strange in the Honduran jungle. In Incidents of Travel in Central
America, Chiapas and Yucatan (1841), Stephens impressionistically
described what was later identified as the ruined Maya city
of Copan: "It lay before us like a shattered bark in the midst
of the ocean, her masts gone, her name effaced, her crew perished,
and none to tell whence she came, to whom she belonged, how
long on her voyage, or what caused her destruction."
</p>
<p> More than 150 years later, the Maya seem less inscrutable than
they did to Stephens, the man who discovered, or rediscovered,
what they had left behind. Archaeologists have long known that
the Maya, who flourished between about A.D. 250 and 900, perfected
the most complex writing system in the hemisphere, mastered
mathematics and astrological calendars of astonishing accuracy,
and built massive pyramids all over Central America, from Yucatan
to modern Honduras. But what researchers have now found among
these haunting irruptions of architecture may be, among other
things, reasons for admonishing today's world: at a time when
tribal fratricide is destroying Bosnia and farmers are carving
through the rain forest, the lessons yielded by the Maya have
a disturbing resonance.
</p>
<p> The latest discovery, announced just this week, underscores
how quickly Maya archaeology is changing. Four new Maya sites
have been uncovered in the jungle-clad mountains of southern
Belize, in rough terrain that experts assumed the Maya would
have shunned. Two of the sites have never been looted, which
will provide researchers with a wealth of clues to the still
largely unsolved puzzle of who the Maya were--and the mystery
of how and why their civilization collapsed so catastrophically
around the year 900. Of course, considerable mysteries persist
and always will. "I wake up almost every morning thinking how
little we know about the Maya," says George Stuart, an archaeologist
with National Geographic. "What's preserved is less than 1%
of what was there in a tropical climate."
</p>
<p> Such limited and often puzzling physical evidence has not deterred
growing legions of archaeologists, art historians, epigraphers,
anthropologists, ethnohis torians, linguists and geologists
from making annual treks to Maya sites. Propelled by a series
of dramatic discoveries, Mayanism has been transformed over
the past 30 years from an esoteric academic discipline into
one of the hottest fields of scientific inquiry--and the pace
of discovery is greater today than ever.
</p>
<p> Among the already addicted, Mayamania is easy to explain. Says
Arthur Dem arest, a Vanderbilt University archaeologist who
for the past four years has led a team of researchers unearthing
the remains of Dos Pilas, a onetime Maya metropolis in northern
Guatemala: "You've got lost cities in the jungle, secret inscriptions
that only a few people can read, tombs with treasures in them,
and then the mystery of why it all collapsed."
</p>
<p> The explosion of information has led to a comparable explosion
of theorizing about the Maya, along with inevitable, often vehement,
disagreements over whose ideas are right. Nevertheless, a consensus
has begun to emerge among Mayanists. Among the first myths about
this population to be debunked is that they were a peaceful
race. Experts now generally agree that warfare played a key
role in Maya civilization. The rulers found reasons to use torture
and human sacrifice throughout their culture, from religious
celebrations to sporting events to building dedications. "This
has come as something of a shock to many Mayanists," says Carlos
Navarrete, a leading Mexican anthropologist.
</p>
<p> Uncontrolled warfare was probably one of the main causes for
the Maya's eventual downfall. In the centuries after 250--the start of what is called the Classic period of Maya civilization--the skirmishes that were common among competing city-states
escalated into full-fledged, vicious wars that turned the proud
cities into ghost towns.
</p>
<p> Among the first modern Westerners to be captivated by the Maya
were the American Stephens and English artist Frederick Catherwood,
who started in 1839 to bushwhack their way into the Central
American rain forest to gaze at the monumental ruins of Copan,
Palenque, Uxmal and other Maya sites. The book Stephens wrote
about his trek was an enormous popular success and sparked others
to follow him and Catherwood into the jungle and into musty
Spanish colonial archives. Over the next half-century, researchers
uncovered, among other things, the Popol Vuh (the sacred book
of the Quiche Maya tribe) and the Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan,
an account of Maya culture during and immediately after the
16th century Spanish conquest written by the Roman Catholic
bishop Diego de Landa. By the 1890s, Alfred Maudslay, an English
explorer, was compiling the first comprehensive catalog of Maya
buildings, monuments and inscriptions in the major known cities,
and the first excavations were under way.
</p>
<p> With all this data, 19th century scholars began trying to decipher
the hieroglyphic script, reconstruct Maya history and figure
out what caused the civilization to fall apart. In the absence
of any historical context, though, speculation tended to run
a little wild. Some ascribed the monumental buildings to survivors
of the lost continent of Atlantis; others insisted they were
the work of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, or the Egyptians,
the Phoenicians, the Chinese, or even the Javanese.
</p>
<p> The first half of the 20th century brought more excavations
and more cataloging--but still only scratched the surface
of what was to come. By 1950 the field was dominated by J. Eric
Thompson and Sylvanus Morley of the Carnegie Institution of
Washington. Both are still revered as brilliant archaeologists,
but some of their theories have been overturned by new evidence.
Among their now outdated ideas: that the city centers of the
Classic Maya were used primarily for ceremonial purposes, not
for living; hieroglyphic texts described esoteric calendrical,
astronomical and religious subjects but never recorded anything
as mundane as rulers or historical events; slash-and-burn agriculture
was the farming method of choice; and, of course, the Maya lived
in blissful coexistence with one another.
</p>
<p> Morley and Thompson presumed that certain practices of the ancient
Maya could be deduced from those of their descendants. Modern
scientists are more rigorous; besides, they have the advantage
of sophisticated technology, like radiocarbon dating, which
can help test their theories.
</p>
<p> Near the Mexican border of Guatamala, in the Maya city of Dos
Pilas and the surrounding Petexbatun region, Arthur Demarest's
excavations have put him at the forefront of the revisionists.
He divides the history of the region into two periods: before
761 and after. Before that year, he says, wars were well-orchestrated
battles to seize dynastic power and procure royal captives for
very public and ornate executions. But after 761, he notes,
"wars led to wholesale destruction of property and people, reflecting
a breakdown of social order comparable to modern Somalia." In
that year the king and warriors of nearby Tamarindito and Arroyo
de Piedra besieged Dos Pilas. Says Demarest: "They defeated
the king of Dos Pilas and probably dragged him back to Tamarindito
to sacrifice him." The reason for the abrupt change in the Maya's
battleground behavior, he suspects, was that the ruling elite
had grown large enough to produce intense rivalries among its
members. Their ferocious competition, which exploded into civil
war, may have been what finally triggered the society's breakdown.
Similar breakdowns, he believes, happened in other areas as
well.
</p>
<p> Arlen and Diane Chase, archaeologists at the University of Central
Florida, believe their work at Caracol, in present-day Belize,
also shows that escalating warfare was largely responsible for
that ancient city's abrupt extinction. Among the evidence they
cite: burn marks on buildings, the uncharacteristically unburied
body of a six-year-old child lying on the floor of a pyramid,
and an increase in war imagery on late monuments and pottery.
"Of course we found weapons too," says Arlen.
</p>
<p> While many Mayanists agree that wars contributed to the collapse,
no one thinks they were the whole story. Another factor was
overexploitation of the rain-forest ecosystem, on which the
Maya depended for food. University of Arizona archaeologist
T. Patrick Culbert says pollen recovered from underground debris
shows clearly that "there was almost no tropical forest left."
</p>
<p> Water shortages might have played a role in the collapse as
well: University of Cincinnati archaeologist Vernon Scarborough
has found evidence of sophisticated reservoir systems in Tikal
and other landlocked Maya cities (some of the settlements newly
discovered this week also have reservoirs). Since those cities
depended on stored rainfall during the four dry months of the
year, they would have been extremely vulnerable to a prolonged
drought.
</p>
<p> Overpopulation was another problem. On the basis of data collected
from about 20 sites, Culbert estimates that there were as many
as 200 people per sq km in the southern lowlands of Central
America. Says Culbert: "This is an astonishingly high figure;
it ranks up there with the most heavily populated parts of the
pre-industrial world. And the north may have been even more
densely populated."
</p>
<p> One inevitable consequence of overpopulation and a disintegrating
agricultural system would be malnutrition--and in fact, some
researchers are beginning to find preliminary evidence of undernourishment
in children's skeletons from the late Classic period. Given
all the stresses on Maya society, says Culbert, what ultimately
sent it over the edge "could have been something totally trivial--two bad hurricane seasons, say, or a crazy king. An enormously
strained system like this could have been pushed over in a million
ways."
</p>
<p> What sorts of lessons can be drawn from the Maya collapse? Most
experts point to the environmental messages. "The Maya were
overpopulated and they overexploited their environment and millions
of them died," says Culbert bluntly. "That knowledge isn't going
to solve the modern world situation, but it's silly to ignore
it and say it has nothing to do with us." National Geographic
archaeologist George Stuart agrees. The most important message,
he says, is "not to cut down the rain forest." But others are
not so sure. Says Stephen Houston, a hieroglyphics expert from
Vanderbilt University: "I think we should be careful of finding
too many lessons in the Maya. They were a different society,
and the glue that held them together was different."
</p>
<p> Just how different the Maya were is clear from their everyday
lives, on which archaeologists are increasingly focusing. From
the contents of graves and burial caches, the architecture of
ordinary houses, and scenes painted on pottery, Demarest and
others are learning what an average Maya day was like.
</p>
<p> The typical Maya family (averaging five to seven members, archaeologists
guess) probably arose before dawn to a breakfast of hot chocolate--or, if they weren't rich enough, a thick, hot corn drink
called atole--and tortillas or tamales. The house was usually
a one-room hut built of interwoven poles covered with dried
mud. Meals of corn, squash and beans, supplemented with the
occasional turkey or rabbit, were probably eaten on the run.
</p>
<p> During the growing season, men would spend most of the day in
the fields, while women usually stayed closer to home, weaving
or sewing and preparing food. At the end of the day the family
would reconvene at home, where the head of the household might
perform a quick bloodletting, the central act of piety, accompanied
by prayers and chanting to the ancestors. Days that were not
devoted to agriculture might be spent building pyramids and
temples. In exchange for their toil, the people expected to
attend royal marriages and ceremonies marking important astrological
and calendrical events. At these occasions the king might perform
a bloodletting, sacrifice a captive or preside over a ball game--the losers to be beheaded, or sometimes tied in a ball and
bounced down the stone steps of a pyramid. Like modern-day hot-dog
vendors, craftsmen and farmers might show up for these games
to set up stands and barter for pots, cacao and beads.
</p>
<p> The Maya also had a highly devel oped--and to modern eyes,
highly bi zarre--aesthetic sense. "Slightly crossed eyes
were held in great esteem," writes Yale anthropologist Michael
Coe in his book The Maya. "Parents attempted to induce the condition
by hanging small beads over the noses of their children." The
Maya also seemed to go in for shaping their children's skulls:
they liked to flatten them (although this may have simply been
the inadvertent result of strapping babies to cradle boards)
or squeeze them into a cone. Some Mayanists speculate that the
conehead effect was the result of trying to approximate the
shape of an ear of corn.
</p>
<p> The Maya filed their teeth (it's unclear whether they used an
anesthetic), sometimes into a T shape and sometimes to a point.
They also inlaid their teeth with small, round plaques of jade
or pyrite. According to Coe, young men painted themselves black
until marriage and later engaged in ritual tattooing and scarring.
</p>
<p> Information about the Maya has come not just from physical objects
but also from the elaborate hieroglyphics they left behind.
Indeed, the study of Maya writing has become a coequal--and
sometimes competitive--path of inquiry. For some reason it
has attracted more than its share of amateurs. In the early
1970s, "discoveries came at the pace of a raging prairie fire,"
writes Coe in his latest book, Breaking the Maya Code. Former
University of South Alabama art teacher Linda Schele burst into
the epigraphical world. On a 1970 visit to Mexico, she was mesmerized
by the ruins at Palenque. Three years later, she was accomplished
enough to collaborate with two others in a mind-boggling feat
of decipherment: during a conference at modern Palenque, the
trio took a mere 2 1/2 hours to decode the history of Palenque
and its rulers from the beginning of the 7th century to its
fall around the late 8th century--and got it right.
</p>
<p> How was this possible? Because, say the professionals, deciphering
glyphs depends as much on intuition and instinct as it does
on knowledge of a given writing system. Insight can strike like
lightning. Says Schele, now an art historian at the University
of Texas at Austin: "These moments of clarity are just extraordinary.
The greatest thrills of my career came in those moments when
the inscription becomes clear and we suddenly understand the
humans who created this legacy for the first time."
</p>
<p> The Palenque decipherment work began an epigraphic revolution.
Since then, the field has been blessed with a number of young,
gifted epigraphers, including Stephen Houston, 34, and David
Stuart, 28, who began his career as a child. The son of Maya
archaeologists George and Gene Stuart, he made his first trip
to Maya ruins at the age of three, and by 1984, at 18, was so
skilled at deciphering glyphs that he became the youngest recipient
ever of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant. Stuart's next
project is nothing less than cataloging every known Maya inscription,
a task he guesses could take him the rest of his life. "There
is at least another century of work; it will go on long after
I'm gone," he says.
</p>
<p> Like most official records, glyphs undoubtedly contain a healthy
dose of propaganda. Imagine, argues Richard Leven thal, director
of UCLA's Institute of Archaeology, that you tried to understand
the Gulf War by reading Saddam Hussein's pronouncements. Says
Arlen Chase: "You get this real warped view of what Maya politics
and Classic society look like if you just use epigraphy. It's
important, but archaeology is the only way to test it." Observes
Houston: "Of course it's propaganda, but to jump from that to
a blanket dismissal is preposterous."
</p>
<p> The argument over how to interpret Maya writing--along with
arguments over just about every other aspect of Maya archaeology--won't be resolved anytime soon. New discoveries are constantly
reinventing the conventional wisdom. At Ca racol, for example,
the Chases have uncovered an unprecedented 74 relic-filled tombs;
their location, in living areas, supports the idea of ancestor
worship, and the number of burial chambers provides evidence,
the Chases think, that the Maya had a large, prosperous "middle
class."
</p>
<p> In Dos Pilas, Arthur Demarest is turning his attention to garbage
piles. "Those are the most important finds," he says, "not the
tombs, because you find everything they ate, their tools--a real cross-section of life, in really good preservation."
A colleague plans to study the chemical composition of ancient
soil and pollen samples and exhumed human bones to learn more
about the Maya diet, common diseases, agricultural practices
and even what the climate was like.
</p>
<p> As they excavate deeper into the Maya past, archaeologists and
other scientists are still struggling to make sense of this
legacy of triumph and self-destruction. And there usually comes
a point when a Mayanist has to decide how to draw joyful inspiration
from the culture's destiny. "It's a very rare thing for the
past to be a source of deep-seated pessimism," says David Freidel,
an anthropologist at Southern Methodist University. So Freidel
has come up with this way to think of the Maya: "When I see
the past, what I see are not just the failures of human effort,
of human imagination, but that unquenchable desire to make of
