| The beginning of Mayan life in Central America (known as Mesoamerica to archaeologists) occurred around 5000 BC, when wandering nomads from the north found they could settle down and domesticate plants. These early crops consisted of corn, beans and other plants. The domestication of plants required that people stay in one location to tend the fields. Thus were born the first Mayan settlements. | |||
|
With the growth of settlements and farming, so came innovations to make life easier. Some of the more important inventions include pottery vessels for storage, cooking and serving of food. Because of its weight and fragility, pottery is not often used by nomads. The presence of pottery normally indicates a tendency to long term settlement.
Much of what archaeologists know of the early Preclassic period in Belize comes from the Mayan site of Cuello, outside of Orangewalk town. Radiocarbon dating from a series of buildings and trash dumps (archaeologists love places where people threw their trash) reveal occupation from about 2500 BC. These structures were small buildings with clay platforms and fired clay hearths. |
||
| Other items of preclassic origin that were identified include stone utensils for grinding corn and a fluted stone projectile point. During the preclassic time, corn progressed from being a small cobbed, low yielding crop to larger cobbed, high-yielding varieties. The farmers were learning how to maximize their efforts, and passed on what they learned to succeeding generations. |
|
||
| With the improvement in farming, the invention of more sophisticated tools, and the growth in size of settlements, the Maya culture became associated with a civilization with larger cities containing ceremonial centers. | |||
|
It might be easier to visualize
what occurred during the Preclassic Period from the following brief chronology:
|
||
|
As time progressed, the sites became more numerous and larger. The sites exhibited more organization with public buildings, elaborate burials, and jade jewlerly. Jade became a spectacular marker of the elite, both in quantity owned and in the quality of the workmanship. Near the end of the Preclassic Period, trading flourished as networks formed between the growing settlements. Most of the major ceremonial centers , including many in Belize, were started about this time. But by far the most important site of this period in Belize, as far as archaeologists are concerned, was Cuello. |
|||
