Dan Snow's History Hit - The Fall of the Ancient Maya

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

What happens when a civilisation at its peak begins to fail? Historians have long been fascinated by the Maya Collapse in the 9th century: why the great cities of Mesoamerica were abandoned, why their populations disappeared, and why the construction of magnificent monuments came to a halt.To trace the story of this mighty fall, Dan travels to the ancient Maya cities hidden in the jungles of Belize to investigate star wars, climate crisis, and the Spanish conquest that delivered the final blow. He also ventures deep into Belize's extraordinary cave system with archaeologist Dr Rafael Guerra to uncover how the Maya turned to human sacrifice in an attempt to appease forces beyond their control- leading to an astonishing discovery.If you'd like to visit any of the places mentioned in this episode, like the ancient cities of Caracol, Lamanai or Belize's many caves, you can find out more at www.travelbelize.org.If you want more Maya history, you can sign up to watch our History Hit documentary The Secrets of the Maya at https://access.historyhit.com/videos/secrets-of-the-mayaWith huge thanks to Jonnell Augustine and Simon Noralez from the Belize Tourism Board, Natalie Wilson and Gabriella Bustone from Finn Partners. Thank you to all our contributors, including archaeologists Dr Adrian Chase, Dr Rafael Guerra, guide Reuben Arevalo and Juan Cal.Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit history hit.com slash subscribe. It was 1502. In the Gulf of Honduras, an extraordinary meeting was about to take place in a hollowed-out tree-trunk canoe, 25 mire. Men, women and children, made their way across open water towards an island. With them, goods to trade with other indigenous communities. In their boat was packed brightly coloured cotton clothing, flint knives, hardwood swords. At their feet, They are the most precious cargo of all, cacao beans. Suddenly they noticed something on the horizon. What looked like three floating islands, with tall trees stripped bare,

standing upright with ropes hanging down. As they paddled closer, they saw dark masses moving. Only faces and hands could be seen. But unlike the Maya, these faces were covered in hair. The mire had never seen anything like it. As the canoes got close to the islands, those aboard discovered they were, in fact,

enormous boats, or ships, I should say. Rope ladders were thrown down by the odd-looking crewman. And, setting an example, the mire chief climbed up. Gifts were exchanged, amazement on both sides. Neither could speak the other's language, but they examined each other's clothes, faces and ornaments with awe and wonder. This was the first contact between the Maya

and the ships of Christopher Columbus on his fourth voyage of discovery. It wouldn't be for another nine years when a Spanish ship wrecked off the coast of Cozumel that the Spanish set foot on Maya land. Those first steps were the death knell of the great Mesoamerican civilizations, Aztec, Inca and Maya.

all brought to their knees by disease, and the violence of Europeans who had come searching for gold and souls to save. But what's interesting about the Maya in particular is that when the Spanish arrived, they found a society already in decline, a civilization where the great cities had already been abandoned, where populations were dwindling, and where monuments were already strangled by vegetation, with little explanation as to why. For the Maya, the Spanish conquest was merely the final blow in a long unraveling, something that still puzzles experts today. So, what exactly happened to the Maya? You're listening to Dan Snow's History, and this is part two of our mini-series as we continue our journey deep into the jungles of Belize, to trace the rise and fall of this once mighty ancient culture that mastered the sweltering tropics of the rainforests and the arid mountains of Central America,

who built one of the world's most extraordinary ancient civilizations and then fell apart. This is episode two. The Maya collapse. This Belizeian jungle is something else. It's a verdant wonderland of color. I've never seen so many different shades of green. It's so thick that you cannot see sometimes more than a meter or two

from the trail that I'm hiking along. Now, in these rainforests, There are jaguar, pumas, osolots and jaguarundies, and the howler monkeys. Then above me in the canopy I can hear the calls of the toucans and the parrots and parakeets. And if you stop for a second, you just catch a little flit of them going from branch to branch, a little dash of colour in amongst the green of the trees. I really can appreciate why the Maya believed that the natural world was divine. It was alive with spiritual forces.

Anthropologists describe their worldview as animistic, that is to say that they believe that mountains and caves and rivers and animals and something as mundane as maize could possess sacred power. For them, the forests and the rain and the landscapes, they weren't just resources. They were part of a sacred environment inhabited by gods and abated by ancestors and powerful beings. and they believe they had to keep these forces and entities in balance. They needed to maintain the cosmic balance, stop anything disastrous from happening. And the way that they attempt to do that was through performing ritual. And there were certain places you will not be surprised to learn that were especially key to those practices that were especially sacred.

And I'm walking up to one now. There's a vast limestone cliff. You can see the white of the rock against the green of the jungle. I've walked up to it now and there's a small entrance to a cave on my left. I could probably crawl through that, but to my right is a much, much bigger entrance.

There's some static tights hanging from the roof. There's some creepers from the forestry above, climbing down into the entrance to the cave. This is a beautiful place. And to the Maya, it was more than beautiful. It was sacred. It was enormously special. Because in the rainy season in particular,

there would have been a gush of water emerging from this cave mouth to irrigate the channels and the terraces below. It was literally life-giving. This is known as the Actung Chapat Cave, the Centipede Cave. I'm a bit nervous about what that entails. We've been given special permission to film,

and it's not open to people, no tourists, no locals, although many caves in Belize are. And the reason that I'm here, the reason this is so special is this is a place where archaeologists know that my human sacrifices took place. There are artifacts still in this cave. So I'm heading and see what we can find. And up here at the mouth of the cave, I am meeting Raphael, the archaeologist.

How you doing, buddy? Morning, Dad. Thanks for waiting for me here. What an astonishing place. You can see why this was sacred, cathedral-like to the moria. Yes, exactly. If you look at the entrance, this would be seen as a liminal space of boundary between the natural and supernatural world. Here entrances like this are entrances or portals into that supernatural realm,

where the Maya are able to connect to their ancestors as well as those spirits who take care of the world around them. So certain times of the year, even today, the Maya will go to entrances like this to perform rituals trying to get fertility, especially when it comes to rain, as well as agriculture itself. Here in Belize, it's the limestone landscape, a lot of it. There must be caves under the ground.

You must be finding new caves at a time, exploring. Exactly, for the last 25 years, I've been exploring through various different parts of the jungle. In fact, my first trip here was in 1998, about 28 years ago. And just coming through here, we can spot about 12 different caves in the area. There's some quite savage exposure on this entrance, lots of sharp drops. How are we going to get in there? Yeah, so right now we're going to go here on the left side.

As we move along close to that wall, we're going to set up some ropes so we can move along easily. The ancient Maya probably had some kind of system set up, almost like a stairway or a way. entranceway into here that is now a long collapse along the way. So likely they had something set up here that they could easily move into the cave itself. Maya loved to mold and shape the landscape, didn't they? Exactly. The Maya are very connected to their landscape and using it to their advantage. Early on as I was walking up, I saw a lot of these check dams or wares along the old creek bed, as well as farming terraces and one of this small little structures on a ground we can see how the Maya modifying the landscape to suit their needs as time goes

along a lot of these actually start to happen after 60080 especially around caves where we see a lot more intense use and a lot more modification of the landscape at that point in time lead the way that's amazing we're now climbing on all fours really vertically up this side of this big big cavern here the Maya perceived the underworld to have nine different levels oh really no it is four levels going down, a fifth level at the bottom, and then four levels coming back up. The fifth level is meant to be a big, big open space where the gods commune. And in my experience, doing caves across Belize, big, big open spaces is generally when you find more activity. Okay. Because these are perceived, again, by the Maya, to be where the gods commune or they're omnipresent. And certain

dieties are believed to live or dwell in the underworld. Most of those are earth-related spirits, which include mountain gods, earth lords, agricultural diodes. In the Maya creation mythology, both the sun and the moon emerge from the underworld at the beginning of time. So caves, Shibalba, the underworld, is in the place of where life comes from. So it's an important space for the ancient Maya. And so we are heading now to a big open space. We're heading to a big open space now. We should see more material as we move into that space. But under our feet we're seeing so many shards of earthenware, pottery. Last time we came up here we saw it in Centipede.

Oh my God. And that's why the cave is called Centipede Cave, right? Yes, we regularly see centipedes in this cave here. Oftentimes the Maya would have to submit to crawling like this then, especially when they're getting into big open rooms, sort of submitting to the gods of the underworld. so they can get into that open space. How are the Maya seeing when they're in here? So when the Maya are traveling through spaces like this,

they're using torches usually made from Pitch Pines. The first group that came in here in 1982 actually identified several pieces of torches in here. Oh, really? Wow. In the very back, close to what we call the skylight, we have holes that's been cut into the walls as torch holders. Oh, cool. Light is very interesting in here.

Light will spread across limestone. This is just his natural ability of limestone to spread light across the room. Maybe up here we can do a little test up here so you can see what it looks like. This is just every single corner you turn here. You see some wild new... Something different.

I mean, I've been into this cave quite a handful of times, and every time I come in, I see something new in this cave itself. And imagine the Maya coming in all the time. Well, at least once a year. year, but you would have a fires going, music going, probably imbibing in some kind of alcoholic drink. This is crazy. This is like an aircraft hangar-sized space.

If you look in even in these corners, you can start to see ceramics in there, you know, ceramics over here. Yeah, there's a huge amount on the floor. This is a very, very big chamber here. So here, like I told you, that big open space I was talking about this is what we're looking at here. And when we get to open spaces like this, we tend to find hearts. We'll see if we see one. Usually They're kind of hard to spot because there are only three rocks on the ground in a triangular formation. Then you see charcoal and ashes in the middle. Oh, like a half, okay.

Yeah, and they serve to create light in here. Yeah, it's completely crazy. Even underneath, if you look closely underneath here, you can see material underneath here, you're just kind of popping out. What sort of rituals are taking place here? What are they doing here? So in this case here, what we're seeing in this cave here is mostly related to agriculture. So bringing gifts behind, leaving them behind for the rain gods to use, so they can create the right amount of rainfall for the planting season.

And what kind of gifts are those? In most cases, they tend to be seeds. When they find them that they're preserved, they generally corn, beans, and squash is the most common that we see. A lot of what happens in caves like this pertains to fertility and crops itself and also a bit of sympathetic magic. So you bring things that you're hoping. to get similar to. So you're bringing seeds, then you hope you get agriculture.

And what about blood? Are people sacrificing their own, offering their own blood? So, yeah, we see mostly the upper class. Of course, they're rich so they can use proxy blood. So you can choose somebody to release that blood for yourself. But the blood is released from different parts of the body. It drops into a bowl. And that bowl is lined with bark or cloth. Then they add the sap from the copyle tree and they burn it to this ritual burning. They're meant to see something we call the vision serpent. which is a meteor, a way of communing with the supernatural world. Of course, we know that when you're doing this,

you're likely taking some kind of psychoactive material. And in Belize, there's no lack of that. We have one specific animal called a cane toad, which is an alkaloid in two glands behind its eyes here. And then ingested in the right amount, you can get high from it. Then there's a lot of plants, including the night shades. We have a big group of night shades, in the Maya area.

So are you telling me that they're coming in here, they're taking part in religious rituals, it is the most dramatic and spooky place in the world, and they're also taking hallucinogens? Yeah, the hallucinogen or the psychoactive material allows you to have that spiritual journey into the supernatural world, and it's very common among many groups across the Americas

from North America to South America. In North America, we see the use of peyote, one of the cacti in that area. In this era, we have a lot of different plants we can use, and for the salt we see the use of the ayahuasca vine. I can't think of a more intense experience than coming into this cave with fire and lots of other people and chanting and hallucinogens

and a powerful sense of belief. I mean, it must have been overwhelming. Oh, definitely, and you think about the people who are being brought in as those human offerings as well. So it's not just you coming with these gifts, but at some point in time, they're bringing physical humans that are being left behind.

human sacrifice as well. So you think that humans would have been brought into this cave and sacrifice? Is that a regular thing or an extremist? It is something that we still struggle with trying to figure out when are humans being brought in. We know that early on we see human sacrifice, especially in the outside. They're tied to different things across time. In specific in caves, they're tied to agriculture and fertility.

The concept of human sacrifice for the Maya is sort of that ultimate gift that you can give to the God, the ultimate blood gift you can give them. Now everything I'm seeing suddenly looks like a piece of bone. Yeah. So a lot of deformations in here because they are made of calcium. Yeah. When they fall on the ground, in this light that we have, they tend to look like bones. And that's one of the issues we had in the 1990s when we were doing research. We didn't have any light, it has all halogen. So we had to be very careful as what we labeled or tagged as human remains or human bones. When do you think in particular,

humans would have been sacrificed? When there's extreme conditions such as dry, dry conditions. And this is when we see, when we look at the paleo climate record, and the incidence of human sacrifices in caves, they sort of match. When there's drier conditions, we have more human bones as opposed to when there's wetter conditions. So it's seen as a high value, it's a particularly precious thing

to sacrifice the gods. Yes, essentially it's sort of a high value commodity. It's sort of a, you're ace in the pocket. as such, you know, when you really, really need. That's when you can pull it out and put it on the table. This could be a member of the community, someone precious to those people. In most instances that we've seen,

and from Spanish record, indicates that likely inside caves, it would have been a bit more voluntary. Voluntary. But in some cases, we do find where people are interpreted as being captives of war. And we know that often when Amaya captured high-ranking officials from different cities, they would be used as human offerings as well.

So it's not just relegated to your own community, but something that is very, very precious to you. Do you think this space might have been used for things like that? Yeah, in general we see it that Maya would have a specific place for human offerings or human sacrifices. So it would bring people in their spaces like this where likely they're using to do human sacrifices. The Spanish, when they came to the new world, it spoke about some of these sacrifices at Chichinica, and it shows that we're sacrificing people by different methods. The most common that we see is the removal of the heart where they cut below the rib cage

and then pull the heart from the person presumably while you're still alive. You can see some bigger pieces of shorts down here. Over here. Oh, no. There we go. Look, is that a human jaw? Yeah, yep, exactly.

It's a human mandible right there. No, you're kidding. It may have been washed down for a little bit farther back in here. It could see just the mandible. Normally, it'll find the rest of the head still close by. It's only just sticking out of the mud, so... That's incredible. That there right there looks like teeth.

Oh yeah. Just embedded in the rock itself. Let's go around here, see if we see any more of the remains. It might be covered in mud itself. And given this feels like a place where the sediment has been coming and going, there's a lot of flooding, and so we've just seen there sticking out of the silt, the lower jaw of a human being. And given that this is very dynamic in here, there's lots of

flooding and deposition and silt. This had just been uncovered. It could have been a product of erosion. It's possible this hasn't ever been seen before since that unfortunate person was brought in here and sacrificed. So towards the end of the Maya period, you mentioned 600, 900, 950. Are you seeing a lot of human sacrifice?

Yes, we are seeing a lot more human sacrifice during that time as well as a lot more material inside caves. In fact, in general, We see almost 95% of caves are being used at this time. Wow. Prior to that, we don't see as much use. In one particular cave I had an opportunity to be going into. We found over 49,000 human bones.

What? 49,000. Now, if you think about how many bones a human has, and you translate into 49,000, that's a lot of people that we're looking at. And most of those were, in fact, younger individuals, younger children, which is something that we see,

a trend all the until Spanish show up, that the Maya were performed. to have younger individuals as part of that sacrificial offering to the rain gods themselves. I suppose there's nothing more precious than your community's kids. Yes, a bit of innocence, but also it's an ultimate sacrifice for the parents to help the community. Is it possible to tell us, do you think that's an adult or child?

It's hard to say so heavily calcified here, but just the fact that there's several pieces might indicate a younger individual, because different parts of the bones and the skulls start to fuse at different parts or different times in the year or years. And it could be because it's coming apart that it might be a younger individual and it's not all the pieces of fuse together. We're now just spread out.

We're searching along the edge of this sediment pile where it meets the bedrock to try and see if we can find any more human remains. And it's quite overwhelming, really. It almost leaves you speechless because I was going to think I sort of recognize the mind. There's the massive building projects and the irrigation and the focus on food and the charismatic leaders galloping. Be off the wall with people following them dutifully behind and it felt like a culture that I recognize from other periods of history and even my own lifetime. But then you come into a cave like this, you penetrate deep, deep, deep into the earth. You see evidence of what was going on here.

You imagine the flickering torchlight and the hallucinic drugs and the, chanting and you imagine them offering up a child to be sacrificed. There's something that just stops you in your tracks about seeing human remains, especially in a place as atmospheric as this. I don't think I've ever been anywhere like it, the idea that you find that jawbone, probably belonging to a victim of human sacrifice. And for a thousand years, it's just been here in the dark

with water slowly dripping on it from up above. It makes this story of the Maya seem so much more human. I've climbed giant pyramids. You've seen huge cities in the jungle. But here is one fragment of someone who actually experienced that culture, that world. Finally, you get up face to face with the Maya. You listen to Dan Snow's history. Don't go anywhere. There's more to come.

In times of crisis, the Maya were coming to the caves to... Ask their gods for help, for salvation. And it's fascinating to know that the archaeology inside Belize's caves does tally with the wider archaeological record that shows that from 750 to 9.50 or so a.D. Major cities like Tikal and Kalikmul were abandoned. Building ceased. Royal inscriptions abruptly stopped,

and the populations disappeared right across this wide Central American region. This period has traditionally been called the Maya collapse, and had long been considered something of a mystery. Why did the Maya, a civilization seemingly at its peak, go into such decline? Well, as you'd expect, experts have spent decades trying to answer that question, and one of them is Dr Adrian Chase, who has spent his career studying the ancient Maya city of Caracol, deep in the jungles of Belize. And we're just strolling through the jungle through this site that you have been coming to since you were abated. in arms, literally, and have done so much to help interpret and understand.

Take Caracol's an example, but let's talk generally about the Maya world. Well, it's the first sign of trouble, not just this city, but system-wide. Yeah, so one of the interesting things is people really like to talk about the Maya collapse, and often there's a lot of different lenses to look at it. So a really common one is to look at climate collapse. Before that, people have looked at foreign invasions. they'd looked at internal revolution and sort of a Marxist model.

You've had people talk about a breakdown in elite power, too much war, so there are many different models. One of the key things is that it's not like a snap of your finger and it's collapsed. It's a slow process. So some of the first cities that start

declining and disappearing happen by 700, and the full collapse doesn't occur until after 900. So you have this 200-year period, where you see a cessation of monumental writing, you see an end to monumental construction like building up Kanaat, Karakol, and you sometimes see violence at some sites right at the end. So it's likely that it's a mix of factors.

For some places it's environmental. For others, as you lose certain sites on the trade network, it makes trade a lot more difficult, and there seems to be a breakdown between East-West trade and a shift toward coastal trade. At the same time, it's not like everybody stays. put. So you actually have people leaving and they're probably migrating north in helping establish the cities that flourish during the post-classic. So another way to think of this collapse is a

transformation of society where people are choosing what they want to keep, what they want to abandon. And one of the things they give up is they give up cities of 100,000 people. They focus on smaller settlements of tens of thousands. And they give up the divine kingship. So you start to see in the post-classic, a separation between the high priest and sort of the executive role, the war leader. So these trade routes breaking out, food and other objects flowing across this region, starts to break down, that starts to undermine their ability to sustain cities like this. So let's go ahead and use Caracol as an example and focus on how this city declines. One of the key things is that there's this long period from 680 to 798,

where there's a lot of wealth sharing. And so you see a strong group of people that are sort of middle status, people have access to jade, they have obsidian, they have marine shell, they have all these things that are being traded in from elsewhere. So they're requiring trade networks to do their daily life. But there's no named strong warrior king in charge of things at that point. Yeah, there's one or two monuments in the middle, but for the most part, it's sort of a cessation of monumental writing.

It starts in 680. And then, on the other end, it's bracketed by the return of Hokkawil, who comes in at 798, and he comes in and tries to be this really strong sort of Well, let's just call him a strong man kind of classic period, Maya King. And it doesn't work. He tries that for 22 years. And then he ends up adapting this larger alliance network. And what you see in this period is you see a breakdown of that strong group of people in the middle.

You start to see halves and have-nots. Some people getting all the long-distance trade goods. Others are not. And when this happens, you start to see different patterns among the elite. So it almost looks like more wealth sharing in the upper class, with less stuff trickling down. And as that happens, you can imagine, you know what your grandparents were talking about.

They were talking about all of this wealth, all these nice things. You can't get them anymore. You've had someone else tell you that there's opportunities out north, and so you pack up and leave. Okay. And as enough people pack up and leave,

you start having the tax base you need to maintain all of the roads, all the plazas. So the system ends up having this huge issue, probably like a lot of modern cities where the population declines and they were planning to grow forever. So this is not a cinematic depiction

of collapse here. This is not a sort of climate change disease in brutal warfare. This feels more like transition, it feels more like adaptation. So during most of Caracol history it's on the major East-West trade routes and then in this terminal

classic right before 900 it's now at the end of the trade route And you really want to be in the middle where all the goods are moving back and forth. So suddenly places like Caracol and Tikal are not at the beating heart of this trading network, this globalized world. They're totally on the fringes of it. Yeah, so they go from being in the center of that east-west nexus to the end where you have to go all the way up river to go from the coastal trade. And the coastal trade takes off for the post-classic. When the Spanish are coming across, they document Maya traders and canoes hauling all sorts of goods.

And these are canoes with 30 people all helping row or move it around, along with tons of cargo, which could be precious goods, textiles, cacao. I think they even documented some metalworking on one of the canoes. And at the same time, you do actually see some intense violence on the sites. Near the end at Caracol, before 900, let's say 880s, 890s. You see violence on the top of Kana, the main palace at Karakol. It's the place where the ruler's family lived, and there were people living there even while there were no monuments being erected, which suggests that there's some residual rulership still

living up there. But Hope Kowiel is up there in his descendants or his replacements. The hieroglyphic record actually gets a little funny. They start switching rulers really quickly, which could mean that they're electing rulers, or it could mean that things are really bad, and they're having to switch rulers quite quickly. But in this final phase after 880, they end up burning the top of Kana. There's an unburied infant left there. There's a whole bunch of ceramics left on the floors in situ. So people left in a heart. hurry. And when that happens, that's sort of the end of the main government center, and you can imagine the rest of the city doesn't last much longer, because you can't really stay here if you can't

get your obsidian to cut things. If you can't get salt coming in from the coast, there's no natural native salt, and you're not getting all of those other goods that your ancestors used to get. Here we've just walked up to the back of the temple, the wooden lentil here at Caracol. It probably dates to 41 C.E. This structure, at the heart of it, is the earliest monumental building at Caracol in the downtown. And the first is this long platform that dates to 360 BC. So this is first one of the earliest places that you see people coming together and building a large structure. So initial inhabitants are living here.

They get together and start building their community center. They maintain this community center all the way through to the end till 900. And you see caches throughout from different time periods, but some of the final caches happen from around 900 to maybe 950. And you can think of that as a deconstructing. of this sacred space as they're going to move elsewhere. Before you want to leave the space, you want to deconsecrate the sacred nature of the temple so you can then consecrate some other space. You don't want to leave it unfinished.

And so there's a final act of ritual. It occurs after probably most of the people have left the site. At that point, what you see today, you may have seen an earlier version of the jungle roaring back. It doesn't take long for vegetation to grow here, and so within eight years, this would already look pretty decrepit. You'd still see remnants of the plaster, it would have been faded, colors might be dripping off the side a little bit, some of the stucco could have fallen apart, but people were coming here. And then, after 950,000,

people do not come here again for the site until people are coming to investigate hardwoods in the forest to get cedar and mahogany for consumption in the British market after the 1900s. So we shouldn't think of the my collapse necessarily as a great big Hollywood cataclysm. of pestilence, war, and climate breakdown, it could be something that would have felt a little bit more mundane at the time.

It's a story of the economics and the inevitable ebb and flow of human affairs. And I think the key thing is, while the city itself here, or in other Maya cities do collapse in the classic period, from the perspective of the city, the people themselves persist. And so you see the later generations they move elsewhere, they take some traditions with them, but when they move, they have choices to make new traditions, to change the models of Maya society,

and that's part of why the post-classic looks a bit different. After the great southern cities declined in the 9th century, power in the Maya world shifted north, up to the Yucatan peninsula that covers the southern part of modern-day Mexico, where Chichenitzer rose as one of the most formidable centers in Mesoamerica in the aftermath of the so-called collapse. Chichenitzer was sustained by fertile land, access to freshwater.

And it was well positioned. It was near the coast and on major trade networks where it stretched from there across the Gulf and the Caribbean. Tichinica was able to support a large population, despite the problems faced by the former super cities. As a result, it became the political and commercial powerhouse of the Maya world, in what we could call in the West the medieval period. But as time drew on by the 16th century,

Chichinitzer had also fallen into decline. Its immense structures still dominated the landscape, but it was used more as a site for pilgrimage. That's not to say the Yucatan was emptied of population, far from it. It was still home to thriving kingdoms of thousands of people. The Maya world was still vibrant, and those kingdoms, those smaller, still vied for supremacy with each other. All that vying for supremacy gave the Spanish an opportunity once they'd arrived. Following that first encounter off the coast of Honduras in 502 with Christopher Columbus's crew. The next chance meeting between the Maya and the Spanish, well, it was less amicable.

In 1511, European survivors of a shipwreck off the coast Jamaica landed on a Yucatan beach in modern-day Mexico in a pitiful state after drifting for 13 days in an open boat. Half the crew had died of thirst and hunger. They just arrived ashore when a group of Maya came across them. Later, Spanish accounts claimed that half of the shipwreck sailors were taken almost immediately as sacrificed victims, perishing on an altar. Their chests slit open, their hearts torn out. The other half were imprisoned or enslaved as they waited to be sacrificed to a later date. There is a curious story, though, of two Spanish men who survived.

One, Geronimo de Eguilar, who became the slave of a Maya chief, who spared his life. Another, Gonzalo Guero, who actually became a war leader of a nearby Maya town, and married and had children with a Maya woman completely integrating into the indigenous society. The next Spanish to arrive, however, were less easily subdued. In 1517, more Spanish expeditions appeared on the Yucatan Peninsula. Hernandez de Corderba arrived on a coastal island in search of slaves, and, he hoped, gold. He was amazed to find evidence of civilisation on the island. Permanent structures unlike the huts he'd come across in the Caribbean.

Coruba then sailed north to arrive on the Mexican mainland. There, the Spanish were met with fierce resistance by the Maya. In a bloody battle, the Maya used hit-and-run tactics. They ambushed, they trapped the cavalry in pits, they launched volleys of missiles from forest cover. The Spanish used artillery from their ships to help. But despite European gunpowder, they were no match for the Maya with their spears of hardened obsidian, their bows and arrows and clubs. Cordoba died from 33 wounds sustained in the battle. The Maya had beaten off the invaders for now.

But the Spanish were desperate to find gold and conquer this new world and launched even more, even larger raids. In 1519, Hernan Cortez set sail with 11 ships, 508 men and 16 horses. His army pushed north away from Maya territory up towards central Mexico, the land of the Aztecs, his band would bring this mighty empire to its knees within a couple of years. Alongside those soldiers and providing justification for much of them, the conquest were priests. Just as with the rest of the New World, the Spanish believed that there was a divine mission to convert to Christianity.

Missionaries went in search of indigenous towns and cities to find souls to save. And one of the settlements they arrived in was deep in the jungle, of Belize in Lamanai, which was still very much inhabited. It was thriving right into the 16th century. The sun is coming up and Tim and I are on a boat trip down the new lagoon river through the sinuous waterways of this remote jungle river. We move through different landscapes on the banks, sometimes jungle. Other times we're going through towns in each of those towns have got evocative names, De Blune Bank, Savannah, Bound to Shine, guinea grass, And we just passed shipyard which is a Mennonite settlement.

All that harks back to Belize's rich and varied, more recent history, history of European privates and loggers and Chinese laborers, enslaved people brought from Africa and the Caribbean, who fought for and successfully achieved freedom and lived in these jungles beyond the reach of the slavers. I've been told, you've got to keep your hands in Sandovo here because of the crocodiles, I've seen enough to believe that that is certainly true. Crocodiles were sacred for Maya,

and indeed they seem to have been sacred to every culture that's lived adjacent to them. Here these fearsome creatures were revered as powerful cosmic beings and were central to their creation myths. I'm on my way to the oldest Maya site in this region. It's called Lamini, which is Maya for submerged crocodile. And this waterway was essential to the identity of that place in more than just name. The fact that it was astride this river is I'm sure a reason.

It's survived for so long through the Maya Pier and indeed actually survived well into the 16th century. After a few twists and turns, I think we're coming up to it now. Yeah, this is definitely here. Here we go. You listen to Dan Snow's history hits. The best is yet to come. Stick with us.

So it's great to be to arrive by water, isn't it? Because this was the artery. This is the reason this city's here and it's wealthy. It's all the passing truce. Yes, the river was the major trading route to bring stuff in and to take stuff out. And a lot of stuff was even shared to other cities farther away from here. This is Ruben Avarado, an expert guide at Lamanai. How long have you been guiding here?

I've been guiding for over 30 years in the country, but mainly Lamanai. Is this one of your favorite myocytes? It is. probably because I grew up in here. Okay. So you're a little bit biased. A mixture of Maya and Spanish. You're a mixture of Maya and Spanish?

Yes, I'm a mestizo. Mestizo. And why is this one of the great Maya cities? Why it's so important? Well, lamana is very important because it was occupied for the longest. We have basically like concrete evidence for about 3,000 years of occupation. Okay. I suppose many of the Maya sites that we think of,

like Caracol, they're right in the jungle. This is actually almost coastal. It's on the water. Well, they were just looking for specific things that they needed, you know, and finding fertile soil and fresh water was a plus, and that's the reason they put a city in here. We estimate a population of about 40 to 60,000 people just in here.

We have concrete evidence from 1,500 B.C. Till when archaeologists came here, in 1974, there were still a couple of families on site. So the Spaniards got to see it, the British had to see it as well. So this survives the so-called Maya collapse? Yes, major cities were abandoned around 950 AD. That's the collapse of the Maya, and that is because of a drought that started on the central lowlands, and it was affecting everyone.

Lamanah is suffering. Don't get me wrong, they're suffering, but not as much, because they have a big lagoon here. They still had fresh water for them to use, as well as for planting and irrigation. You can even put it as Mayas were victims of their own success. This drought happened because of climate change, to where you have big cities,

you have to clear the jungle. Once you clear the jungle, you don't get humidity, no rain. Oh, interesting. So that's where the drought comes. So I guess if you're ruling over a city and it stops raining, what are you going to do? You're in trouble. Being a ruler, here, you were like a god.

Now that, you know, this drought is happening, they were unhappy with royalty, So we're not entirely sure what happened to rulers that were ruling at that point. We know that rulers that were depicted on cellars were defaced and even burnt down by the locals. So people are blaming the rulers for the lack of water. There's no point being the intermediary between the people and the gods if it's not working out. Exactly. So when the Spanish arrived in this area in the 16th century,

they would have found a thriving, a sustainable Maya settlement. here, were they a city? Yes, the city was here, not as how you would find it on its peak. Okay, yeah. Less people. They were still using some of the structures. They were still having ceremonies. They would actually have seen a Maya city operating Maya city. Oh yes, they did. They recorded this. How much of this has never been excavated? Ninety-six percent is still buried by Mother Nature. Ninety-six percent still like to bury. That's crazy. Yeah, we have an exposed or archaeologists have exposed of nearly 4%. And as you look at the temples, like, you know, some of them, they have only removed the trees and they have done a little bit of work on it, but nothing to show you steps or terraces.

So can you imagine what's beneath our feet now? Exactly. More likely plaza. You two, there's a massive temple right there. A big temple there. Look at that. Yeah. Totally unexcavated that temple. Where are we going next, Reuben? Well, we're heading to Mass Temple. Mass Temple, it's very unique because it started construction around 100 BC with its last remodification around 625 AD. But what's neat about it is that it was still in news because when the Spanias arrived, you know, that was, you know, active. We're just walking out now through the trees. one of the many extraordinary things about this site is just the vegetation is so thick on the ground

so as you're walking towards these temples and structures you just catch glimpses of them through the palm leaves through the branches through the vines and i'm afraid to say it's a cliche but it feels a little bit like a sort of Indiana Jones temple the setting those two faces those two masks flank the central staircase you climb up this pyramidal structure when you're young and you dream about archaeology and exploration, this is what you're thinking about. The setting, the noises of the jungle, and then the spectacular monumental archaeology

when you reach it. It's overwhelmingly beautiful. The low sun is sithing through the foliage, which means that different parts of the temple are etched in gold. Look at these astonishing carvings. We're just coming up to them now. The mask depicts a ruler.

that ruled here around 450 AD. 450, okay. Is the city at its sort of peak then? Is this a prosperous time? Yes, it is, but the peak of the Maya throughout the Maya world will be around 6 to 700 AD. These masks are extraordinary, aren't they? Yes, these are three meters in height.

It's just difficult to imagine what the Spanish would have felt as they arrived here. The challenge it presented to them. You think you're coming to some kind of primitive virgin land and you arrive at this proud, indigenous, sophisticated, defiant culture. This place was a challenge really to everything the Spanish believed and everything the Spanish hoped to achieve in this area. If they wanted to exploit it for money, if they wanted to save souls, prove the primacy of their religion, they needed to, they needed to sort of smash this

culture. They had to eradicate it. So Ruben, the Spanish respond to this place by just, what, superimposed and they just build churches right on top of this Maya site. Yes. The first church was built around 1544. That's when the Spanias first came in. So it's pretty soon after they arrive. Yes. And what they did, they built a church to try to get the local Maya to practice their religion. As we can say, they succeeded because some families actually joined. But at the same time, the Spanias wanted to move from here because all they wanted was gold.

And there was no gold in here. So they asked one of the local families to be in charge of church while they move out. And hands were raised. And a family got voted or in charge of church. And that family called them Maya after the Spanias left to come to church. And that was to destroy the church. That's why right now you only see the foundation of the church. A hundred years after this and missionists to scout the areas to see how the churches were doing.

When they came here, they were not happy because the church was destroyed. So they told them, Maya, well, you have destroyed our church, you build us another church. And these are the stones that you're going to be using. So they went and removed stones from post-classic buildings, you know, and said, hey, use the stones, build us a church. And the Maya were building the church with this. those stones, but as they were building where the altar section would have been, they were putting figurines that depicted their own gods in the wall.

No. So that with the mentality, you know, that if they came to church, they would worship multiple gods, not just one, the way Christianity was going. So they put all these gods in the walls. They finished the altar section, put a huge roof, top roof, you know. And they were like, wait a minute. why are we doing this? And that's the time they rebel.

And they kicked the Spanias out. Once they kicked the Spanias out, they came and ripped the walls again to get their figurines back, and then they put fire on the roof. So they burned down the second church. So this is an interesting example of successful resistance to that Spanish invasion,

that Spanish conquest of this region. Yes. I mean, put it to you this way. The Mayan didn't really want Spanias and their religion here. And also the Spanias didn't find it appropriate for them to be here, not because of, you know,

the way they and Maya treat them or anything, but because what was their interest? They were here for gold. They're not going to find it here. It's a bit of a swampy mosquito-ridden... Well, that's what they claim. You know, the Spanish claim that this area was too swampy and he had too many mosquitoes

and they couldn't be here. Plus, the commanders in those days had a law. If you want to move back to Spain, you need to have this amount of gold for the king. So you were like kind of forced to find that gold, you know, so that you can take it to the king. So in the 1500s, 600s, there's still a Maya community operating here. What about other famous Maya sites? In our close regions like Mexico, Guatemala, major cities were abandoned and people just disintegrated away from the city. Leaving to about 10% of the population in this country

as pure Maya is because, first of all, you get the drought that wipe a lot of people. I mean, you get a lot of wars between different communities trying to come in here because of what laminae has, and then because of diseases that were brought in also by the Europeans. What happens this site after the Spanish fully do conquer the area? Well, the Maya continue their occupation in here. They kept on doing their own business, planting, fishing, hunting. I mean, they didn't build, no construction, but they had a place to live and where to feed from. When David Pendergast came here in 1974, there were still two families on site.

But of course, it was a far cry from the great city it once was, Lamanai's great temples slowly disappearing under the vegetation. which wasn't just the results of Spanish steel, epidemics of European diseases. Smallpox, measles, influenza swept through communities from the 1500s onwards. Those diseases were unknown in the Mesoamerican world. They travelled faster than horses,

and great swathes of indigenous people were killed. Leadership structures were shattered, societies weakened. That all made it much easier for the Spanish when they did show up to conquer these reduced Maya kingdoms, or they could exploit rivalries between these now desperate city states. And alongside that conquest came cultural destruction. Temple dismantled. Christianity imposed. Populations reorganized into colonial towns.

Maya books and sacred objects destroyed. The final military defeat came in 1697, when Spanish forces captured the island capital of the Itza Maya in modern-day Guatemala. The last independent Maya kingdom fell. But as Lamanai shows us, Maya civilization may have ended in the 17th century, but the Maya people remain. Although their ancient cities disappeared under vegetation,

their way of life endured through the families that did survive. So this is the sound of the Maya today. A very vibrant culture. I'm at a special event now. It's Maya Day in southern Belize. where this is actually with the majority of Belize's Maya people live. I'm very near the borders with Honduras and Guatemala. There are three identified indigenous groups,

the Yucatec Maya, the Mopan Maya, and the Kekshi Maya. They account for around 10% of Belize's population, among the many other ethnic groups that make up the rich tapestry of Belize life. I'm in a big open space. There are stalls all around the edge, roofed with palm fronds and there's people cooking traditional food there are people

teaching traditional Maya crafts and in the centre of it all now we are watching an elaborate dance we've got 20 people dressed magnificently the range of magnificent headgear masks beautiful colours there's great vibe here lots of families lots of what everyone keeps referring to as elders which they look about Mayesh be honest

but then of course then actually lots young people in fact these guys here have got very very cool t-shirts on. To be Maya is to be well. Guys, guys, what's this mean? Tell me. Excuse me. What's your t-shirt mean?

Tell me about it. My name is Juan Kahal. I am a Maya-Herche, young person. I come from the village of San Marcos, one of the Maya-Earche communities in southern Belize. And that to be Maya means is to be well. To be Maya means is that we have our lands, we have resources,

we have beautiful landscapes, and that where we come from, is rich beyond the wealth that is, that as society interprets. A lot of times, society interpret wealth as in cash. We interpret wealth as in having resources, having life in abundance. And in our language, I guess, sa, to catch all, we are still happy. At commonal, we are together, we are collectively here to celebrate each other. Being Maya in the 21st century, I am proud to say I can still speak my language.

I am able to understand that before me, my ancestors were people who had an ingenuity that science and archaeologists are still unerting and are still trying to decipher. So we are here to celebrate that, that our ancestors were once in their grandeur, and that as we continue to be Maya in the 21st century that nothing should ever stop us. And for as long as we can remember that, we will prevail, we will be Maya, we will continue to be Maya in the next decade. And that is the message today. Silence all and Banjosh.

Thank you. Well, what a place to end it, folks. I'm about to go and hit this Maya food tent pretty hard. So I'm just going to say at this point, thank you for listening. It has been an incredible adventure to be in Belize. And if you want to do this, you can. If you want to explore my history or any other aspects of Belize wildlife cuisine, wild coastline that is actually one of the best in the world

that I didn't really properly see on this trip, you can find out more information at www.w. Travel Belize.org. We're going to put that link in the show notes. And you should also check out the documentary we've been making for our TV channel, for our subscription video on demand channel, history hit. If you've enjoyed this episode, let us know. by leaving us for review wherever you get your podcasts.

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