The Maya people are well known to be one of the most advanced ancient people. For example; they invented the sophisticated Writing System of Hieroglyphs, they had advanced  architecture because they had perfect knowledge of time and weather patterns and the Maya people realy excelled in Agriculture. Ramlogan (2004,pg 6) points out that ‘the Mayan did not have strong animal rearing skills).

  How The Mayan Agriculture was like

Agriculture in  Mesoamerica was not easy. In a tropical climate where daylight does not very much vary between summer and winter, this was not so easy. The weather sometimes was not favourable because at times there could be heavy downpour during the rainy season. Other times there would be no rain at all making it difficult to do any farming activities.

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The Mayans developed knowledge that enabled them to accurately track the seasons. As mentioned above, they had perfect knowledge of seasons, weather and time. This made them to plant incredibly well because they made their own calendars, that were used to plan their planting and harvesting at the correct time. They would begin working in the fields as soon as dawn breaks and it  was important to do as much work as they could before noon before it gets very hot. MacAnany et al (2007,p.4) noted that ‘without siffecient food stores, societies in the world may not have the resilience to survive famine and drought in years to come.’

They had a sacred site which today is known as “Mundo Perdido” ( the lost world) which served a very visible purpose. There they would climb Mundo Perdido to observe the sky to the east. From up there they would see three small structures they had built below. The structures today are known as  E1, E2 and E3 . Viewed from the piramid ( Mundo Perdido) , during the summer solstice, the sun would rise behind E1, during the equinoxes it rises behind E2 and during the winter solstice it rises behind E3.  During the winter solstice, the land was dry , the summer solstice was a time of heavy rain. This site gave the Mayans accurate weather predictions .

The crops they grew are; Maize (corn), beans, squash , sweet potato, cocoa bean for making chocolate.

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The threeTypes of farming in The Mayan society

• Terrace farming

This made it easier to plant in mounterious regions and also increased the amount of land available to grow crops. Walls were built to make small flat fields one on top of the other. Most of the terraces were small.

• Slash and Burn

Also known as ‘shifting cultivation’ or ‘swidden’ , a technique used to clear space for crops. They cut and burnt sections of the rain forest and the left ash was high in nuitrients and crops planted there grew well for a while and when the nutrients ran out, they moved to other parts of the rain forest and did the same.

• Raised Fields 

This technique was used in lands that were to wet to use and bulgy. They dug up canals and pilled up the soil to make small islands where they would grow crops. They also harvested the fish that swam in the canal.