New radiocarbon data indicate the Maya began building their cities as early as 1000 BCE, according to Takeshi Inomata and his team of archaelogists from the University of Arizona-Tucson. Focusing on one site in particular, Ceibal (Guatemala), Inomata says it "predates other examples by roughly 200 years." For years, archaeologists have postied that these Maya were influenced by the older Olmec civ...ilization, but a trend is emerging--one Inomata agrees with--that the sudden emergence of these vast temple complexes were the result of broad-sweeping cultural influence thorughout the entire region over a period of time. This begs one to ask for the other shoe to drop: what was the impetus for this wholesale shift in society from hunting-gathering to religon, agriculture, and massive stone constructions?
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