Geography Affects the Early Maya

It was said that the Maya was started as early as 1000 B.C.

They began to clear land in order to create farmland

Animals different from what we eat today like monkeys and deer became a stable source of food

Trees provided materials needed to build shelter and general buildings

Early Mayans were known for being traders
~one of the main things they traded was obsidian, a rock later used as a weapon

It developed in a region of low lands full of forests making farming hard in a place called Mesoamerica

Trade greatly increased the population, and villages grew

By AD 200, Maya civilization became one of the most influential of its time.