The Petén Basin is a geographical subregion of the Maya Lowlands, primarily located in northern

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

within the Department of El Petén, and into the state of

Campeche Campeche, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Campeche, is one of the 31 states which, with Mexico City, make up the Administrative divisions of Mexico, 32 federal entities of Mexico. Located in southeast Mexico, it is bordered by the sta ...

in southeastern

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. During the Late Preclassic and Classic periods of

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...

Mesoamerican chronology Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian, prehispanic Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian (first human habitation until 3500 BCE); the Archaic (before 2600 BCE), the Preclassic or Formative (2500 BC ...

many major centers of the

Maya civilization The Maya civilization () was a Mesoamerican civilization that existed from antiquity to the early modern period. It is known by its ancient temples and glyphs (script). The Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writin ...

flourished, such as

Tikal Tikal (; ''Tik'al'' in modern Mayan orthography) is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal, found in a rainforest in Guatemala. It is one of the largest archaeological sites and urban centers of the Pre-Col ...

and

Calakmul Calakmul (; also Kalakmul and other less frequent variants) is a Maya civilization, Maya archaeological site in the Mexican state of Campeche, deep in the jungles of the greater Petén Basin region. It is from the Guatemalan border. Calakmul w ...

. A distinctive Petén-style of

Maya architecture The Mayan architecture of the Maya civilization spans across several thousands of years, several eras of political change, and architectural innovation before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Often, the buildings most dramatic and easily ...

and inscriptions arose. The archaeological sites La Sufricaya and Holmul are also located in this region.

History

By the first half of the 1st millennium BCE, the Petén and Mirador Basin of this region were already well-established with a number of monumental sites and cities of the

. Significant Maya sites of this Preclassic era of

include Nakbé, El Mirador, Naachtun, San Bartolo and Cival in the Mirador Basin.

Classic Period

Later, Petén became the heartland of the Maya Classic Period (c. 200 – 900 CE). At its height around 750 it is estimated that the Petén Basin was home to several million people, being one of the most

densely populated Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

regions of the world at the time. Some areas are estimated to have had ca 2,000 people/km². Mesoamerican agriculture was very extensive, and there is some evidence suggesting that the land was depleted by unsustainable overfarming, resulting in a

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food caused by several possible factors, including, but not limited to war, natural disasters, crop failure, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenom ...

which was an important factor in the collapse of the Classic Maya states of this area. The population is estimated to have dropped by two-thirds between the mid 9th century and the mid 10th century. ;Archaeological sites Archaeological sites preserve important remnants of the Classic Maya in Petén Basin, such as: *On the Usumacinta River: Uaxactún,

, Holmul, La Sufricaya, Machaquilá, Naranjo, Nakum, Piedras Negras,

Altar de Sacrificios Altar de Sacrificios is a ceremonial center and archaeological site of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization, situated near the confluence of the Pasión River, Pasión and Salinas River (Guatemala), Salinas Rivers (where they combine to form the U ...

*On the San Pedro Mártir River: Waka' formerly El Perú *In the Petexbatún area: Ceibal and Aguateca *On La Pasión River: Cancuén *On Lake Yaxha: Topoxté and Yaxhá Tikal National Park is one of the only sites to be designated a

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

for both archaeological and biodiversity reasons. Many thousands of house mounds where worshipers and workers once lived were discovered at Tikal.Heider, K. (2014). Tikal. San Francisco: California, USA : Kanopy Streaming. http://library.simmons.edu/record=b2156058~S0.

Spanish colonial period

After the Classic Period collapse the population of the area continued to drop dramatically, especially after the introduction of

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by Variola virus (often called Smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus '' Orthopoxvirus''. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (W ...

along with European explorers. The smallpox plague arrived around 1519 or 1520, preceding by several years the first

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

ans to visit the region.

Hernán Cortés Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca (December 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions o ...

led the first expedition to pass through the Petén Basin, in 1524 to 1525, and reported that the region mostly had small hamlets separated by thick forest, with Tayasal being the only sizable inhabited city they observed. After Cortés' expedition, the colonial Spanish largely tried to conquer Petén Basin, with several attempts mainly from

Belize Belize is a country on the north-eastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a maritime boundary with Honduras to the southeast. P ...

and Alta Verapaz, for generations until an expedition from

Yucatán Yucatán, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Yucatán, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, constitute the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 106 separate municipalities, and its capital city is Mérida. ...

and Cobán in Alta Verapaz, succeeded in conquering the last independent Maya

polities A polity is a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of political institutionalized social relations, and have a capacity to mobilize resources. A polity can be any group of people organized for governance ...

around 1697, such as

Zacpeten Zacpeten is a pre-Columbian Maya civilization, Maya archaeological site in the northern Petén Department of Guatemala. It is notable as one of the few Maya communities that maintained their independence through the early phases of Spanish conqu ...

(capital of the

Kowoj The Kowoj oʔwox(also recorded as ''Ko'woh'', ''Couoh'', ''Coguo'', ''Cohuo'', ''Kob'ow'' and ''Kob'ox'', and ''Kowo'') was a Maya civilization, Maya group and polity, from the Late Postclassic period (ca. 1250–1697) of Mesoamerican chrono ...

Maya), the Itza Maya center of Tayasal, and other towns in the Lake Petén Itza region such as Quexil (modern Spanish name, in Maya: ''Ek'ixil'') and Yalain. (''see:''

Spanish conquest of Yucatán The Spanish conquest of Yucatán was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish Empire, Spanish ''conquistadores'' against the Mesoamerican chronology, Late Postclassic Maya civilization, Maya states and polities in the Yucatán Peninsula, a vast ...

). The Spanish town of Flores was established atop the site of Tayasal, but this remained an isolated backwater through the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain era and after Mexican independence. When Guatemalan President Rafael Carrera sent a small force to Flores to claim the region for Guatemala in the 1840s, the governments of

and the state of

decided the Petén Basin area was not worth the trouble of contesting.

History

Classic Period

Spanish colonial period

See also

References

Further reading