How the Mayans were able to accurately predict solar eclipses for centuries

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

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.