4 ms·

I remember in school and in old textbooks hearing the question, “What happened to the Mayan people? They totally disappeared!” and at the same time reading that

I remember in school and in old textbooks hearing the question, “What happened to the Mayan people? They totally disappeared!” and at the same time reading that there are dozens of Mayan languages spoken in the Yucatán to this day. I had the impression that the subject experts just would not accept the possibility that a human civilization might exist that doesn’t resemble what they had preconceived, as if failing to see the sky because it isn’t the exact shade of blue they thought it would be.

codingdave 2y ago
One of the state parks in Utah (I forget which one), has a sign that says: "Where did the Ancestral Puebloan people go?" With the answer of "We're right here. Come say hi to us at the information desk."
- rnoorda 2y ago
  I don't know if it's the one you're thinking of, but I believe I saw a similar sign at Capitol Reef National Park.
- throw0101b 2y ago
  > "Where did the Ancestral Puebloan people go?" With the answer of "We're right here. Come say hi to us at the information desk." "Where did the Ancient Roman civilization go?" "They're eating gelato and drinking espresso at the cafe."
  - alejohausner 2y ago
    There's an episode in "The Sopranos" where Tony confronts a jewish man he has cornered: Ever heard of Massada? For two years, 900 Jews held their own against 15,000 Roman soldiers. They chose death before enslavement. And the Romans, where are they now? Tony: You're looking at 'em, asshole. I always liked that scene. It argues that the mafia think of themselves as heirs to the violent Roman empire.
- paleotrope 2y ago
  This is where academic writing filters into pop history then into the culture and then back to the academics who are like, "we never said that" It's all so entertaining for the pop historians.
TeaBrain 2y ago
I remember this same thing. I think it is likely that there was never just one Mayan civilization, but that these different Mayan civilizations may have broadly shared a similar culture.
- dontlikeyoueith 2y ago
  That's a bit like saying there's no European civilization, just a bunch of different European civilizations sharing a broadly similar culture. Or maybe ancient Greece, with its city-state structure is the better comparison.
  - AlotOfReading 2y ago
    Ancient Greek city states are the favorite analogy of mayanists. There's a lot of similarities with the Maya polities.
  - TeaBrain 2y ago
    I don't quite think that first analogy works. Greek city states or old feudal-like European states with shared culture and language are more like what I was thinking of.
ericmcer 2y ago
Well it depends how you interpret wiping out a group of people. If you were to base it off DNA, then we are still slowly working towards wiping out the Neanderthals. If you were to base it off “pure” genes (when did the last 100% Neanderthal die) then it gets hairier because we have all been mixed so thoroughly. It also raises philosophical questions about what a “Mayan” person is, like is there a genetic sequence that is Mayan? Or is it anyone who lived in that time/place?
- marssaxman 2y ago
  The Mayan fellow I met in Cancun last year did not seem to be troubled by any such philosophical questions. He is Maya, his family is Maya, they have always been Maya; that's his sense of identity. There is no Spanish spoken in his village; he had to learn it after he arrived in Cancun, looking for work.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
thaumasiotes 2y ago
> I remember in school and in old textbooks hearing the question, “What happened to the Mayan people? They totally disappeared!” and at the same time reading that there are dozens of Mayan languages spoken in the Yucatán to this day. These aren't technically incompatible; for a better-understood example, you can look at Turkey, which speaks the language of the long since dead Turks that conquered it without leaving any demographic impact. It would be accurate to say that the Turks completely disappeared from Turkey, at the same time that the region continues to speak Turkic languages. I think an analogous situation holds in Hungary.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  Well, Turkish and Magyar spread because of elite diffusion. Turkic kingdoms ruled much of Anatolia for over a millennia, so Turkic languages spread rapidly due to it's prominence among that elite. Based on genetics, there were only a couple thousand Turkic people that lead the initial settlement. Languages can spread (and die out) rapidly. Look at the sinicization of Manchuria in the 19th century.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    > Well, Turkish and Magyar spread because of elite diffusion. I don't really see why that would mean that Mayan didn't spread through elite diffusion?
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      Mayan Languages are a different story from Turkish and Magyar. There is a close genetic affinity between ancient and modern Mayans [0] that doesn't exist between Anatolian Turks and Turkmen, or Magyars and Khanty. The Mayans never died out - they remained in the Yucatán and what is now Guatemala to this day, and weren't fully conquered until the early 1700s. Furthermore, the language has always been alive and well because Spanish and Mezito settlers never tried settling in much of the Mayan region, because of how late they were conquered. Even today, Mayan groups like EZLN/Zapatistas have strong autonomy (and the guns to back it). It's also had an impact in the US, as most undocumented immigrants from Guatemala tend to be ethnic Mayans from the highlands, and can barely speak Spanish because Guatemala puts almost no money in rural development. This has drastically clogged the immigration court system as the number of Mayan-English translators is extremely limited (I think UIUC is the only university that still teaches modern Mayan due to it's training contract with the CIA). [0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_genetics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_genetics
jcranmer 2y ago
> I had the impression that the subject experts just would not accept the possibility that a human civilization might exist that doesn’t resemble what they had preconceived No, the Mayanists are absolutely adamant that the Mayan people are right there, living in the same place their ancestors lived. Scholars today are some of the most vociferous in pointing this fact out. The problem is the people who write the textbooks, the popular science books, the newspaper articles, who generally decline to forward this answer to the popular sphere. Those are the people who just can't accept the idea that maybe civilization isn't a one-way road to greater and greater heights, to no end of frustration for the subject matter experts who know that to be the case.
- lukan 2y ago
  " Those are the people who just can't accept the idea that maybe civilization isn't a one-way road to greater and greater heights" Or maybe they know, but care more for the greater dramatic effect, like we can witness in normal news everyday.
- graemep 2y ago
  People who write newspaper articles get their facts consistently wrong on almost every subject.
canjobear 2y ago
It's true that Maya are still around today. But there is a legitimate big mystery of why their large-scale civilization collapsed, well before the arrival of Europeans. I think what you heard in school was some kind of telephone-game-like corruption of the legitimate question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Maya_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Maya_collapse
- pvaldes 2y ago
  Moronic destruction of the ecosystems, followed by endless war for the remaining resources. The usual suspects. People have consistently shoot themselves in the foot with droughts after removing the forest for a few generations. Is happening right now in several parts of the planet.
pvaldes 2y ago
> there are dozens of Mayan languages spoken in the Yucatán to this day Both facts can coexist. Mayan people ruled over other several smaller cultures. Former slaves adopt the cultural habits of their rulers, sometimes for a lot of time after the ruler has gone. Afroamericans in USA that descend from slaves still use the English, as their language. Think about it.

codingdave 2y ago

One of the state parks in Utah (I forget which one), has a sign that says: "Where did the Ancestral Puebloan people go?" With the answer of "We're right here. Come say hi to us at the information desk."

rnoorda 2y ago
I don't know if it's the one you're thinking of, but I believe I saw a similar sign at Capitol Reef National Park.
throw0101b 2y ago
> "Where did the Ancestral Puebloan people go?" With the answer of "We're right here. Come say hi to us at the information desk." "Where did the Ancient Roman civilization go?" "They're eating gelato and drinking espresso at the cafe."
- alejohausner 2y ago
  There's an episode in "The Sopranos" where Tony confronts a jewish man he has cornered: Ever heard of Massada? For two years, 900 Jews held their own against 15,000 Roman soldiers. They chose death before enslavement. And the Romans, where are they now? Tony: You're looking at 'em, asshole. I always liked that scene. It argues that the mafia think of themselves as heirs to the violent Roman empire.
paleotrope 2y ago
This is where academic writing filters into pop history then into the culture and then back to the academics who are like, "we never said that" It's all so entertaining for the pop historians.

TeaBrain 2y ago

I remember this same thing. I think it is likely that there was never just one Mayan civilization, but that these different Mayan civilizations may have broadly shared a similar culture.

dontlikeyoueith 2y ago
That's a bit like saying there's no European civilization, just a bunch of different European civilizations sharing a broadly similar culture. Or maybe ancient Greece, with its city-state structure is the better comparison.
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  Ancient Greek city states are the favorite analogy of mayanists. There's a lot of similarities with the Maya polities.
- TeaBrain 2y ago
  I don't quite think that first analogy works. Greek city states or old feudal-like European states with shared culture and language are more like what I was thinking of.

ericmcer 2y ago

Well it depends how you interpret wiping out a group of people. If you were to base it off DNA, then we are still slowly working towards wiping out the Neanderthals. If you were to base it off “pure” genes (when did the last 100% Neanderthal die) then it gets hairier because we have all been mixed so thoroughly. It also raises philosophical questions about what a “Mayan” person is, like is there a genetic sequence that is Mayan? Or is it anyone who lived in that time/place?

marssaxman 2y ago
The Mayan fellow I met in Cancun last year did not seem to be troubled by any such philosophical questions. He is Maya, his family is Maya, they have always been Maya; that's his sense of identity. There is no Spanish spoken in his village; he had to learn it after he arrived in Cancun, looking for work.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

thaumasiotes 2y ago

> I remember in school and in old textbooks hearing the question, “What happened to the Mayan people? They totally disappeared!” and at the same time reading that there are dozens of Mayan languages spoken in the Yucatán to this day. These aren't technically incompatible; for a better-understood example, you can look at Turkey, which speaks the language of the long since dead Turks that conquered it without leaving any demographic impact. It would be accurate to say that the Turks completely disappeared from Turkey, at the same time that the region continues to speak Turkic languages. I think an analogous situation holds in Hungary.

alephnerd 2y ago
Well, Turkish and Magyar spread because of elite diffusion. Turkic kingdoms ruled much of Anatolia for over a millennia, so Turkic languages spread rapidly due to it's prominence among that elite. Based on genetics, there were only a couple thousand Turkic people that lead the initial settlement. Languages can spread (and die out) rapidly. Look at the sinicization of Manchuria in the 19th century.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > Well, Turkish and Magyar spread because of elite diffusion. I don't really see why that would mean that Mayan didn't spread through elite diffusion?
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    Mayan Languages are a different story from Turkish and Magyar. There is a close genetic affinity between ancient and modern Mayans [0] that doesn't exist between Anatolian Turks and Turkmen, or Magyars and Khanty. The Mayans never died out - they remained in the Yucatán and what is now Guatemala to this day, and weren't fully conquered until the early 1700s. Furthermore, the language has always been alive and well because Spanish and Mezito settlers never tried settling in much of the Mayan region, because of how late they were conquered. Even today, Mayan groups like EZLN/Zapatistas have strong autonomy (and the guns to back it). It's also had an impact in the US, as most undocumented immigrants from Guatemala tend to be ethnic Mayans from the highlands, and can barely speak Spanish because Guatemala puts almost no money in rural development. This has drastically clogged the immigration court system as the number of Mayan-English translators is extremely limited (I think UIUC is the only university that still teaches modern Mayan due to it's training contract with the CIA). [0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_genetics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_genetics

jcranmer 2y ago

> I had the impression that the subject experts just would not accept the possibility that a human civilization might exist that doesn’t resemble what they had preconceived No, the Mayanists are absolutely adamant that the Mayan people are right there, living in the same place their ancestors lived. Scholars today are some of the most vociferous in pointing this fact out. The problem is the people who write the textbooks, the popular science books, the newspaper articles, who generally decline to forward this answer to the popular sphere. Those are the people who just can't accept the idea that maybe civilization isn't a one-way road to greater and greater heights, to no end of frustration for the subject matter experts who know that to be the case.

lukan 2y ago
" Those are the people who just can't accept the idea that maybe civilization isn't a one-way road to greater and greater heights" Or maybe they know, but care more for the greater dramatic effect, like we can witness in normal news everyday.
graemep 2y ago
People who write newspaper articles get their facts consistently wrong on almost every subject.

canjobear 2y ago

It's true that Maya are still around today. But there is a legitimate big mystery of why their large-scale civilization collapsed, well before the arrival of Europeans. I think what you heard in school was some kind of telephone-game-like corruption of the legitimate question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Maya_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Maya_collapse

pvaldes 2y ago
Moronic destruction of the ecosystems, followed by endless war for the remaining resources. The usual suspects. People have consistently shoot themselves in the foot with droughts after removing the forest for a few generations. Is happening right now in several parts of the planet.

pvaldes 2y ago

> there are dozens of Mayan languages spoken in the Yucatán to this day Both facts can coexist. Mayan people ruled over other several smaller cultures. Former slaves adopt the cultural habits of their rulers, sometimes for a lot of time after the ruler has gone. Afroamericans in USA that descend from slaves still use the English, as their language. Think about it.