Professor Graham has been working on Mayan sites such as the city of Lamanai in Belize since 1973. Sometime c800-1000AD the Maya, who flourished in Meso-America – the tropical areas of Yucatan, Belize, Guatamala - suffered a collapse, with its huge stone-built cities such as Tikal apparently abandoned, reduced to ruin and covered with tropical forest well before the Spanish Conquest. Possible causes suggested have been environmental degradation or over-use of the land, but Professor Graham is doubtful about this. Evidence from sites such as Lamanai suggests occupation continued after the collapse. Was it due to warfare? There were certainly many dynastic struggles, as in Europe. The Maya had a way of looking at the world that was different, but their world was still political. They had the biggest cities of all the Central American peoples, and some areas had gold, making them rich. Today 10,000,000 people speak 28 related languages, not all of them mutually comprehensible, although linguists have traced them back to a possible single language in c3-4000BC. The collective name “Maya” actually covers many peoples, not all the same, but linked. They tended to call themselves after their own city. The elite were literate and wrote on bark – a lot of Mayan books were burnt by the Spanish after the Conquest. As in Europe, the ruling families did share aspects of culture, such as symbolism, which everybody would recognise. There were no horses, no wheel, so everybody walked. The Mayans had a sophisticated calendar, starting at 3114BC - although they knew there was a time before that - which contained dates far into the future. They mapped the heavens for many years, and observed and recorded what they saw. They already knew – ahead of the Europeans - that planetary orbits were not always circular. They had seven-day weeks, and also months, but with a different number of days.

In Northern Belize, the city of Lamanai is still under forest: a LIDAR survey was conducted five years ago. It may have been like a modern suburb, with spaces between the buildings, evidence of urbanism. There is also evidence of terracing, perhaps part of food production for the city. Evidence has been found at some city sites of thatched wooden buildings erected in the plazas and courtyards. If the population later lived in such buildings, these would not be picked up on LIDAR. And perhaps these later dwellings tend to be cleared away when stone buildings are being excavated. A Mayan “tradition” that Professor Graham regards as a myth is human sacrifice, stating that their language has no concept of it. She questions that warriors captured enemies for priests to carry out rituals such as cutting out their hearts. Young boys taught Spanish were asked about such traditions and perhaps just repeated what they had heard. So the killings may also have been part of warfare.

With regard to the so-called “collapse”, Professor Graham acknowledges that something happened at certain sites, but thinks that environmental issues could have been dealt with. At Tipu people seemed to be doing well, but there was no pottery and not much flint, but there were huge structures there, so there can be intense occupation and not much to show for it. She wonders if some of the changes were due to changes in trade, escalating warfare, out-of-control population growth. “Raised” or “drained” fields have been excavated: such fields are an adaptation to rising sea levels, perhaps local people adjusting to environmental problems and practising extensive agriculture. It has been claimed that more silt was washing into lakes as a result of over-farming, and trees were being cut down, but Professor Graham thinks this would not cause collapse. They did not need pasture as there were not a lot of grazing animals, although they had a lot of crops.

Yvonne Masson