The Maya

Chronological table

1. Introduction

The setting

Natural resources

Areas

Periods

Peoples and languages

Climate change and its cultural impact

2. The earliest Maya

Early hunters

Archaic collectors and cultivators

Early preclassic villages

The middle preclassic expansion

Preclassic Kaminaljuyu

The May lowlands

3. The rise of Maya civilization

The birth of the calendar

The Hero Twins and the creation of the world

Izapa and the Pacific coast

Kaminaljuyu and the Maya highlands

The Peten and the Maya lowlands

The Mirador basin

San Bartolo

From preclassic to classic in the Maya lowlands

4. Classic splendor : the early period

Teotihuacan : military giant

The Esperanza culture

Tzak'ol culture in the central area

Copan in the early classic

The Northern area

5. Classic splendor : the late period

Classic sites in the central area

Copan and Quirigua Tikal

Calakmul

Yaxchilan, Piedras Negras, and Bonampak

The Petexbatun

Palenque

Comalcalco and Tonina

Classic sites in the northern area : Río Bec, Chenes, and Coba

Art of the late classic

6. The terminal classic

The great collapse

Seibal and the Putun Maya

Puuk sites in the northern area

The terminal classic at Chichen Itza

Ek' Bahlam

The Cotzumalhuapa problem

The end of an era

7. The post-classic

The Toltec invasion and Chichen Itza

The Itza and the city of Mayapan

The independent states of Yucatan

The central area in the post-classic

Maya-Mexican dynasties in the southern area

The Spanish conquest

8. Maya life on the eve of the conquest

The farm and the chase

Industry and commerce

The life cycle

Society and politics

9. Maya thought and culture

The universe and the gods

The earth and the gods

The classic Maya underworld

Rites and ritual practitioners

Numbers and the calendar

The sun and the moon

The celestial wanderers and the stars

The nature of Maya writing

History graven in stone

Maya superstates

History and the supernatural

Name-tagging

Spiritual alter-egos

10. The enduring Maya

The new Spanish order

The highland Maya, yesterday and today

The Tzotzil Maya of Zinacantan

The Yucatec Maya

The war of the Castes

The Maya of Chan K'om

The Lakandon

Uprising in Chiapas

The great terror

The Maya future

Visiting the Maya area

Dynastic rulers of classic Maya cities.