1500 BC to 150

The first Maya cities

By 1000 BC farming villages dotted the Pacific coast and the highlands. Kaminaljuyu, under today's Guatemala City, and Takalik Abaj, near the Pacific, grew into early centres with carved stone monuments. In the northern lowlands El Mirador flourished in the last centuries BC, raising La Danta, one of the largest pyramids in the world by volume.