Plan of Preclassic El Mirador (c. 200 BC)

For generations, archaeologists have tried to determine just when ancient Maya civilization emerged and what that period of emergence meant to the later, fully developed Classic period (250–900). Early in this century, archaeologists did not expect to find buildings that predated the presence of Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions on stone, and, perhaps as a result of their intellectual expectations, they found few clues to the rise of civilization and the formation of an ethnic and cultural identity.