Yucatán

The Mayan civilization was one of the most advanced Mesoamerican civilizations. This civilization lasted for approximately 3,000 years and inhabited a vast region that is now modern day Guatemala and the Yucatan peninsula. Their flowering culture left many interesting innovations in which they describe a view of the future, our present. Their civilization seemed to grow more over the time until it suddenly started to vanish. There are many conclusions as to why the civilization eventually came…

“Nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty,” is considered one of the most influential quotes uttered by President Teddy Roosevelt before his death in 1919, which marked the end of the twenty-sixth president’s term and his final hours on earth. During his lifetime, one could argue Roosevelt lived up to his comments and to his maximum potential, confronting issues that not a soul would desire to encounter. Many could debate that President…

Marina, Malintzin, and Malinche are few of the names given to Hernán Cortes’ personal translator. She was a daughter to a father and mother to the Chiefs of a town called Paynala. When she was a little girl, her father died and her mother gave her away to some people of Xicalango. Then, they gave her away to people of Tabasco who would then end up giving her away to Cortes. She served not only as an interpreter but she also had a son of Cortes who they named Martin. To the Spanish, like Bernal…

Most historians would question where the things we humans cherished so deeply come from. As historians it’s their job to answer or try to answer these questions. They answer would be from civilizations. A civilization and a culture get compared to each other all the time and get mistaken for being the same things but in fact they are not. A culture is the sum total of any groups, political, economic, social and intellectual activities no matter how fundamental or advanced these activities might…

For this week you have two reading assignments. Read Chapter 12 Lowland MesoAmerica in your text and Chapter 13 in the book Elixir. The Mayans especially harnessed water resources to store water for times of shortage as well as using intricate canals for growing crops. But water had a more important role in Mayan symbology and ritual than just to grow crops. Your assignment for the week is to talk about how the The Maya people are a group of Mesoamericans who are indigenous to parts of…

think that we are the only living thing in that enormous immensity” (2002). As it was a few years ago, I and my two accomplices: Shyrlena, my daughter and Alexis, my granddaughter had the experience of wandering the grounds of the Mayan people in Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. During that experience I accumulated some, maybe not so air tight, takeaways of my own, as…

Americas, Teotihuacan fell in 750, while the Anasazi culture flourished and grew from 700 onwards. The Tiwanaku and Wari controlled the Peruvian Highlands in the Andes between 600 and 1000. Between 800 and 900, the Mayan centers were abandoned in the Yucatan Peninsula, and the Mississippian cultures began to develop in the 900’s in North America. The Toltec founded their capital of Tula in 968. In India, Chandra Gupta founded the Gupta Empire in 320, but it goes bankrupt and collapses in 550…

Middle America is a prime spot for hurricanes. Countries located inside of Middle America become victim to these tropical storms every year. There have been different storms that have affected the people of Middle America greatly. On November 24th, 2016, while American’s were busy celebrating Thanksgiving, the people of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama and other surrounding countries were preparing for one such storm, Hurricane Otto. Hurricane Otto was a terrible storm that had multiple short…

evidence of large collapses in the Maya population, these regions contain some of the world’s most organically rich lands which helped contribute to the success of the Maya people (Toledo). The area that the Maya consumed is sometimes called the Yucatán Peninsula and expands from low coastal plains with everlasting rivers, and even into higher elevated uplands, where drainage is mostly in the ground itself and water is seasonally sparse. There are many coinciding lines of evidence that show that…

into nine major physiographic regions: Baja California, the Pacific Coastal Lowlands, the Mexican Plateau, the Sierra Madre Oriental, the Sierra Madre Occidental, the Cordillera Neo-Volcánica, the Gulf Coastal Plain, the Southern Highlands, and the Yucatán Peninsula. (Parkes, H. B., 2018) Mexico is on the tectonic plat called “the ring of fire” that can cause earthquakes on occasion. Mexico has an active volcano Popocatepetl (Nahuatl: “smoking…