The term Early Preclassic indicates the moment in which Mayan societies had their own cultural traits that distinguished them from other Mesoamerican groups.
The societies are now sedentary agricultural villages, which is why ceramics appear for the first time. On the Pacific Coast this period begins around 1,800 BC, but in the rest of the Mayan area it is defined from 1,000 or 1,200 BC.
It is at the beginning of Middle Preclassic, around the year 800 BC, when the first complex societies appear in the Mayan Area, in the form of chiefdoms or chiefdoms.
These settlements show signs of a hierarchical organization, with the presence of a dignitary who enjoys privileges, represented in the first examples of monumental architecture, and the presence of imported objects of high value, reflecting the existence of exchange networks.
At this time the Mayans established a strong connection with the Olmec civilization that developed on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, which is why it is common to find iconographic elements associated with this region.
It is at this time that the first expressions of political power appear in the form of art objects, especially stone sculptures. The end of this period is located between 400 and 300 BC, which coincides with the abandonment of the Olmec centers.
Initially, the Preclassic period was defined as a time of formation prior to the Classic Mayan Civilization, so much so that some researchers prefer the term Formative.
However, today it is indisputable that the Mayan Civilization had already developed as such during the Late Preclassic, which covers the year 300 BC to 250 AD. At this time there are monumental centers that housed thousands of people, whose architecture denotes a high degree of labor organization.
The use of art as a means of political legitimation reaches a high level of development, both in sculptures and architectural elements, and the use of writing begins.
The iconography of the Late Preclassic is highly rich in symbols, which shows the existence of institutionalized religious systems that were based on mythological narratives, for the elaboration of large public ceremonies. The large number of settlements of different scales indicates that the territorial organization is already hierarchical, where a larger center has dominion over other smaller ones around it.
For these reasons, it has been formulated that the Mayan sites of this era correspond to “early states”, where political power did not fall entirely on a single ruler, but was distributed in a system of a bureaucratic nature, made up of specialists in different areas. areas.
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