{{Short description|Period in Maya history}}
{{Maya civilization}}
The '''Preclassic''' period in [[Maya Civilization|Maya history]] stretches from the beginning of permanent village life c. 1000 BC until the advent of the Classic Period c. 250 AD, and is subdivided into Early (prior to 1000 BC), Middle (1000–400 BC), and Late (400 BC – 250 AD).  Major archaeological sites of this period include [[Nakbe]], [[Uaxactun]], [[Seibal]], [[San Bartolo (Maya site)|San Bartolo]], [[Cival]], and [[El Mirador]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Schele|first1=Linda|last2=Freidel|first2=David|title=Kingship in the Late Preclassic Maya Lowlands: The Instruments and Places of Ritual Power|journal=American Anthropologist|date=1988|volume=90|issue=3|pages=547–567|doi=10.1525/aa.1988.90.3.02a00020 }}</ref>

Maya society underwent a series of profound transformations between c. 100 AD and 250 AD, which resulted in the cessation of monumental building at many Preclassic cities and the inferred collapse of their political and economic systems, often characterized as the "Preclassic [[Societal collapse|Collapse]]."

==History==

===Early Preclassic (2000 BC–1000 BC)===
The roots of Maya civilization remain obscure, although broad parameters are increasingly well known. Paleo-environmental data indicate the presence of agriculturalists in the [[Maya lowlands]] by c. 3000 BC, although permanent agricultural settlements seem to have developed only gradually.  Analysis of bones from early Maya grave sites indicate that, although [[maize]] had already become a major component of the diet (under 30% at Ceullo, Belize) by this time, fish, meat from game animals, and other hunted or gathered foods still made up a major component of the diet.<ref name=sharer>{{Cite book|author=Sharer, Robert with Traxler, Loa|title=The Ancient Maya|page=263}}</ref>  Along with the gradual development of agriculture, basic forms of pottery began to appear, with simple designs and some [[slip (ceramics)|slipped]] vessels.  Around this time, the [[Olmec]] culture began to emerge in nearby Tabasco, granting the early Maya an important trading partner and beginning a period of prolonged contact that would have profound effects on Maya society.

===Middle Preclassic (1000 BC–400 BC)===
[[File:Formative Period southern Mesoamerica 2.svg|325px|left|thumb|Southern Maya area sites]]

By around the year 1000 BC, the Maya city of [[Aguada Fénix]] was built in [[Tabasco]], this archaeological site corresponds to a time of great change for Maya society. Since before its construction, the Mayas were nomads and did not use ceramics. They lived from hunting, fishing, and growing corn. However, from the construction of Aguada Fénix, it is shown that they began to use ceramics and became sedentary.<ref name="Novedades 1">{{Cite web |title=Aguada Fénix explicaría el surgimiento de La Venta |author=Novedades de Tabasco |date=18 July 2020 |url=https://novedadesdetabasco.com.mx/2020/07/18/aguada-fenix-explicaria-el-surgimiento-de-la-venta/ |access-date=13 May 2021}}</ref> Aguada Fénix marks the beginning of the construction of the Maya city-states that would flourish years later.<ref name="BBC_1">{{Cite news |title=Aguada Fénix: cómo se descubrió en México la construcción monumental maya más antigua y más grande jamás encontrada |author=BBC |newspaper=BBC News Mundo |url=https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-52915213 |access-date=13 May 2021}}</ref>  

The centuries of agricultural village life had begun to form the beginnings of a complex society:  Prestige goods such as [[Obsidian use in Mesoamerica|obsidian]] [[Mirrors in Mesoamerican culture|mirrors]] and jade mosaics began to appear, increasing the demand for more extensive trade.  Canals and irrigation schemes demanding coordinated human effort began to appear with increasing complexity and scale.  Gradually, villages began to include central plazas and earthen mounds, occasionally enhanced by masonry.  For instance, the site of [[La Blanca, San Marcos (archaeological site)|La Blanca]] featured a central mound more than seventy-five feet tall and contained a masonry fragment strongly resembling a head in the distinctive [[Olmec]] style.  Carved stone [[stele]] also began to appear during this period, adorned with portraits of rulers but still devoid of writing.  Warfare appears to have intensified during this period, as evidenced by advanced weaponry, rulers beginning to be portrayed as warriors, and  the appearance of mass graves and decapitated skeletons.

Beginning around 900 BC, the Pacific coastal region fell under the dominance of the La Blanca statelet, which collapsed around 600BC, to be replaced by a polity centered on the El Ujuxte site.  Another early statelet was probably based at the site of [[Chalchuapa]], a town with extensive earthen mounds arranged around several plazas.  However, it was likely ruled by the first true Maya city-state, [[Kaminaljuyu]].  Lying within modern-day [[Guatemala City]] on the shores of Lake Miraflores, Kaminaljuyu developed a powerful government structure that organized massive irrigation campaigns and built numerous intricately designed stone monuments to its rulers.  These monuments clearly depict war captives and often show the rulers holding weapons, indicating the Kaminaljuyu polity engaged in active warfare, dominating the Guatemalan highlands for centuries.  Kaminaljuyu's main export was the essential resource [[obsidian]], a beautiful volcanic glass that easily fractured into sharp edges, providing arrowheads, knives, and other weapons as well as prestige goods like mirrors.<ref>Sharpe, Ashley E., Bárbara Arroyo, Javier Estrada, Gloria Ajú, and Emanuel Serech. “Dogs for the Gods, Fish for the Feast: The Ceremonial Role of Animals at Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala.” Latin American Antiquity 33, no. 2 (2022): 222. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27362414.
</ref> Through trade routes linking the Pacific coast to the Guatemalan highlands and extending to central Mexico (including early interactions with Teotihuacan), Kaminaljuyu imported coastal goods such as marine shells, salt-dried fish, and salt while exporting obsidian tools and blades widely across Mesoamerica, thereby enhancing its regional influence.<ref>Sharpe, Ashley E., Bárbara Arroyo, Javier Estrada, Gloria Ajú, and Emanuel Serech. “Dogs for the Gods, Fish for the Feast: The Ceremonial Role of Animals at Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala.” Latin American Antiquity 33, no. 2 (2022): 239. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27362414.
</ref>

Although it is difficult to firmly identify the ethnicity of a people from meager archeological remains, it appears that during this period the Maya began a systematic northward expansion, occupying the [[Petén Basin]] where such cities as [[El Mirador]], [[Tikal]], [[Calakmul]], and [[Tayasal]] would be built.  The dominant site of these early colonists was [[Nakbe]] in the El Mirador basin, where the first attested Maya ballcourt and [[sacbeob]] (stone causeways) were built.  The rulers of Nakbe constructed several stone platforms and erected intricately carved stone and stucco monuments.

During this period, the Olmec culture reached its zenith, centered on the capital of [[La Venta]] in modern-day [[Tabasco]] near the early Maya centers.  Speakers of a [[Mixe–Zoquean]] language, the Olmec are generally recognized as the first true civilization in North America.  Their capital city of [[La Venta]] contains extensive earthworks and stone monuments, including several of the distinctive Olmec stone heads.  The Olmec share several features with later Maya culture, including extensive [[jaguar-worship]], a diet dominated by maize, and the use of the [[Theobroma cacao|cacao]] plant.  Several words entered Mayan from a Mixe–Zoquean language, presumably due to Olmec influence.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Campbell|first1=Lyle|last2=Kaufman|first2=Terrence|title=A Linguistic Look at the Olmecs|journal=American Antiquity|date=1976|volume=41|issue=1|pages=80–89|doi=10.2307/279044 |jstor=279044|s2cid=162230234 }}</ref> Many of these borrowings relate to prestige concepts and high culture,{{like what?|date=December 2018}} indicating that the Middle Preclassic Maya were deeply impressed and influenced by their northwestern neighbors.

===Late Preclassic (400 BC–100 AD)===
The Late Preclassic saw the rise of the first Maya states, the Kan Kingdom<ref>[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/el-mirador-the-lost-city-of-the-maya-1741461/ El Mirador, the Lost City of the Maya], ''Smithsonianmag.com.'' Retrieved 10 Dec 2025.</ref> in the Maya lowlands, with its capital at [[El Mirador]] in Guatemala, and a state in the highlands with its capital at [[Kaminaljuyu]]. These rival later Classic Maya city-states for scale and monumental architecture.<ref name="Sharer and Traxler 2006">Sharer and Traxler, ''The Ancient Maya'', 6th ed. (Stanford University Press, 2006).</ref> The lowland site of [[San Bartolo (Maya site)|San Bartolo]] contains the earliest known Maya writing, from around 300 BC,<ref>Bahn (ed.), ''Archaeology: The Essential Guide to Our Human Past'' (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2017)</ref> and has murals from around 100 BC depicting Maya creations myths as well as the corontation of a king. The coronation mural shows that there was a Mayan monarchy at this time. <ref name="Sharer and Traxler 2006" />

===Terminal Preclassic (100 AD–250 AD)===
The Maya states and cities of the Late Preclassic declined in the Terminal Preclassic. El Mirador was almost entirely abandoned, as were many other cities, and the construction of stelae carved with texts in the highlands ceased.<ref name="Sharer and Traxler 2006" />

===Preclassic Collapse===
The story of the mysterious lost civilization that suddenly collapsed for an unknown reason has captured the popular imagination for well over a century.  What is not as widely known is that there were two such "collapses", the first at the end of the Preclassic, and the more famous [[Classic Maya collapse]].  The "Preclassic collapse" refers to the systematic decline and abandoning of the major Preclassic cities such as El Mirador around 100 AD.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Acemoğlu |first1=Daron |last2=Robinson |first2=James A. |title=Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty |year=2012 |page=[https://archive.org/details/whynationsfailor00acem/page/143 143] |publisher=Crown |isbn=978-0-307-71921-8 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/whynationsfailor00acem/page/143 }}</ref>
A number of theories have been proposed to explain this collapse, but there is as little consensus here as there is for the causes of the more famous collapse leading to the Postclassic period.

==Culture==

===Social structure===
The archaeological site of [[Kʼo]], associated with the Classic [[Maya city]] of [[Holmul]] located in modern-day [[Guatemala]], boasts what may be the royal tomb of the earliest known Maya ruler.<ref>John Tomasic and Steven Bozarth (2011), [https://kansas.academia.edu/JohnTomasic/Papers/1275495/ ''New Data from a Preclassic Tomb at Kʼo, Guatemala.''] Kansas.academia.edu p9</ref> This tomb has been dated to 350–300 BC, and it contains the earliest evidence of the institution of [[ajaw]] (ruler) in the Maya Lowlands.

===Writing===
{{more|Maya script}}

===Art and architecture===
Early [[Maya architecture]] is based on the general Mesoamerican architectural traditions. The stepped pyramids were constructed from the [[Terminal Pre-classic]] period onwards.

In 2010, archaeologists at [[Chiapa de Corzo (Mesoamerican site)|Chiapa de Corzo]], southern [[Chiapas]], Mexico, announced they have found a dignitary's tomb inside a pyramid that may be the oldest type of burial discovered in [[Mesoamerica]].  The grave dates from about 2,700 years ago.<ref name="redOrbit">{{cite web |url=http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1867007/tomb_discovered_inside_southern_mexico_pyramid/|title = Tomb Discovered Inside Southern Mexico Pyramid|access-date=2012-01-13|date=2010-05-18}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Takalik Abaj]]
*[[Potbelly sculpture]]

==Footnotes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
{{refbegin|indent=yes}}<!--BEGIN biblio format. -->
*{{cite book |author=Martin, Simon |author-link=Simon Martin (Mayanist) |author2=Nikolai Grube |author2-link=Nikolai Grube |year=2000 |title=Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens: Deciphering the Dynasties of the Ancient Maya |location=London and New York |publisher=[[Thames & Hudson]] |isbn=0-500-05103-8 |oclc=47358325 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/chronicleofmayak00mart }}
*{{cite book |author=Sharer, Robert J. |author-link=Robert Sharer |author2=Loa P. Traxler |year=2006 |title=The Ancient Maya |edition=6th (fully revised) |location=Stanford, CA |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]] |isbn=0-8047-4817-9 |oclc=57577446 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/ancientmaya0006shar }}
{{refend}}<!-- END biblio format style -->

==Further reading==
{{refbegin|indent=yes}}<!--BEGIN biblio format. -->
*{{cite book |author=Estrada-Belli, Francisco   |year=2011 |title=The First Maya Civilization: Ritual and Power Before the Classic Period |publisher=[[Routledge]] |location=Abingdon, Oxfordshire and New York |isbn=978-0-415-42994-8}}
{{refend}}<!-- END biblio format style -->

{{Maya}}
{{Maya sites}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Maya Preclassic Period| ]]
[[Category:Formative period in the Americas]]
[[Category:History of the Yucatán Peninsula]]
[[Category:Mesoamerican cultures]]
[[Category:Pre-Columbian cultures of Mexico]]
[[Category:2nd-millennium BC establishments in the Maya civilization]]
[[Category:3rd-century disestablishments in the Maya civilization]]
[[Category:2nd millennium BC in the Maya civilization]]
[[Category:1st millennium BC in the Maya civilization]]
[[Category:1st century in the Maya civilization]]
[[Category:2nd century in the Maya civilization]]
[[Category:3rd century in the Maya civilization]]