The Population of Tikal: Implications for Maya Demography

The Classic Maya (AD 250-900) of central and southern Yucatan were long seen as exceptional in many ways. We now know that they did not invent Mesoamerican writing or calendars, that they were just as warlike as other ancient peoples, that many innovations in art and architecture attributed to them had diverse origins, and that their celebratedcollapseis not what it seems. One exceptionalist claim stubbornly persists: the Maya were canny tropical ecologists who managed their fragile tropica...