When most people think of ancient Maya civilization, they imagine godlike kings building towering pyramids and reveling in bloody human sacrifice. But commoners also played a significant role in the ...

There are still Mayan cities and sites being discovered. The Classic Maya civilization grew to about 40 cities at its peak.

A civilization dries up By the time of Tikal's decline sometime around 900, Maya civilization and culture had been developing for at least 1,000 years and the empire had amassed an estimated ...

Then, in 964, the Itzás, a Maya-speaking people from the Petén rain forest around Tikal, moved into the city. Archeologists have fully explored only about 20 or 30 of several hundred buildings ...

likely had abundant crops when Maya civilization collapsed during the eighth and ninth centuries. The research also shows the region’s three main kingdoms were each functioning in very different ways.

On the edge of a small cornfield near the ruined Maya city of Chichén Itzá, in the sparse shade of a tropical tree, a voice ricochets wildly up the mouth of a well. “¡Lo vi! ¡Lo vi!” ...