Apocalypse no: how almost everything we thought we knew about the Maya is wrong

[Eugene]

Related: New regional-scale Classic Maya population density estimates and settlement distribution models through airborne lidar scanning (Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports)

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Source: The Guardian

Apocalypse no: how almost everything we thought we knew about the Maya is wrong

For many years the prevailing debate about the Maya centred upon why their civilisation collapsed. Now, many scholars are asking: how did the Maya survive?

By Marcus Haraldsson
Thu 12 Feb 2026 05.00 GMT
Last modified on Thu 12 Feb 2026 16.57 GMT

As a seven-year-old, Francisco Estrada-Belli was afraid all of history would have been discovered by the time he was old enough to contribute. The year was 1970 and he and his parents had come from Rome to visit relatives in the Central American country of Guatemala. On the trip, they visited the ancient Maya ruins at Tikal. “I was completely mesmerised,” Estrada-Belli told me recently. “It was jungle everywhere, there were animals, and then these enormous, majestic temples. I asked questions but felt the answers were not good enough. I decided there and then that I wanted to be answering them.”

Fifty-five years later, Estrada-Belli is now one of the archaeologists helping to rewrite the history of the Maya peoples who built Tikal. Thanks to technological advances, we are entering a new age of discovery in the field of ancient history. Improved DNA analysis, advances in plant and climate science, soil and isotope chemistry, linguistics and other techniques such as a laser mapping technology called Lidar, are overturning long-held beliefs. Nowhere is this more true than when it comes to Maya archaeology.

Last year, Estrada-Belli’s team, including his Tulane University colleague Marcello A Canuto, published a study with a central finding that would have seemed, just a few years ago, like an outrageously speculative overestimate. When Estrada-Belli first came to Tikal as a child, the best estimate for the classic-era (AD600-900) population of the surrounding Maya lowlands – encompassing present day southern Mexico, Belize and northern Guatemala – would have been about 2 million people. Today, his team believes that the region was home to up to 16 million. That is more than five times the area’s current population. This would mean that more people lived in the classic-era Maya lowlands than on the Italian peninsula during the peak of the Roman empire – all crammed into an area a third of the size.

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Outsiders’ power over the story of the Maya is written into the people’s very name. After their arrival in the early 1500s, the Spanish named local populations “Maya” after the ruined city of Mayapán in present day Mexico. Yet the Maya never saw themselves as one people and were never governed under one empire. They spoke many languages – 30 of which are still around – and belong to an intricate mix of cultures and identities.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/feb/12/apocalypse-no-how-almost-everything-we-thought-we-knew-about-the-maya-is-wrong

[mike_c]

1. years ago, in northern Belize...

... I went riding in the jungle for a day with a local guide. He showed me that nearly every forested hill we rode over was a collapsed or covered building, and flat spots were ancient plazas and ball courts. Mile after mile of rubble under the jungle.