How the Mayans were able to accurately predict solar eclipses for centuries
Living Maya and Indigenous Continuity
- Multiple comments stress that “the Maya” are not extinct: millions still speak Mayan languages (e.g., Kaqchikel) in Guatemala, Mexico, and even US diasporas.
- Several people note how schooling (especially in the US) creates an impression that Indigenous peoples mostly “disappeared,” when many nations remain populous and culturally active.
- Examples like the Mapuche and Comanche are cited as groups that resisted conquest well into the 19th century.
Colonialism, Native American History, and Framing
- Extended debate over how history is taught:
- One side emphasizes genocidal US policies (bison extermination, forced removals, residential schools, forced sterilizations) and how Native resistance and later wars are underplayed in curricula.
- Others highlight pre‑existing intertribal warfare, argue that “Native Americans” is a colonial catch-all for many distinct polities, and resist a simple “people A destroyed people B” narrative.
- Disagreement over responsibility and scale:
- Some argue European disease and settler colonialism clearly account for the majority of the demographic collapse.
- Others stress that internal declines and conflicts predated or paralleled colonial expansion, and warn against ignoring that complexity.
- Distinction drawn between “traditional” colonialism (indigenous labor exploited) and settler colonialism (indigenous people treated as obstacles to removal).
Destruction and Survival of Knowledge
- Discussion of Spanish destruction of Maya codices: accounts describe systematic burning of libraries as “idolatrous.”
- Some argue this was the broader Spanish system at work; others stress it was specific clergy, noting at least one organizer was recalled for trial but later absolved and promoted.
- Parallel interest in Incan quipu as a surviving, knot-based record system that may encode not just accounting but histories and laws, and how modern techniques might eventually decode more.
Maya Technology, Culture, and Calendars
- Pushback against claims that Maya were “backward”: they lacked practical wheeled transport largely because of terrain and lack of draft animals, not ignorance of the wheel.
- Lidar and archaeology show extensive infrastructure and urbanism across Mesoamerica.
- Clarifications that Aztec and Maya are distinct, though both practiced some forms of human sacrifice.
- Detailed explanation of the 260‑day ritual calendar:
- Possible roots in gestation length, solar zenith passages, and numerology (20×13 with cultural significance).
- Coexisted with a 365‑day solar cycle; the 260‑day cycle was primarily ritual/divinatory.
- Brief skepticism about retrospective mathematical models of eclipse prediction (“wet streets cause rain”), but no deep technical counteranalysis.
- A closing question highlights that precise eclipse prediction can arise from long empirical records without a heliocentric model, which commenters implicitly accept.