The ancient stone buildings in southern Mexico, Belize, Honduras and Guatemala always fascinate everyone who sees them. Often, in television specials for example, the Maya are discussed as if they no longer exist. "What happened to this culture?" is the classic rhetorical question. I want to start off by saying that the Maya, the name for a large heterogeneous group of related cultures in Mesoamerica, are very much alive and mostly well. This is a short presentation about the structures that their ancestors built, lived in and abandoned-long before the first tourist took any interest in Mayaland. The modern Maya didn't know much about these buildings when first questioned. Their names for the structures were often generic-Xlappahk ("Old Walls")-for example, was repeatedly applied. And yet we know from many lines of reasoning that it was indeed their ancestors that built these buildings. The reason for the abandonment of the buildings and the highly structured, social organization that went with them is still being debated (see San Franciso Chronicle, 4/12/95, p A7). The recent decipherment of many Mayan glyph series sheds light on the political in-fighting and state-level nature of the ancient Maya culture, but no simple answer to the fundamental question is forthcoming. One thing is for sure: the ancient Maya had a complex, state-dominated social environment that eventually stopped building massive stone cities and became de-centralized. Although there were powerful families, rulers and priests when the Spaniards arrived, they did not wield the same control as their ancestors must have had over the common people.

Although the ancient Maya made many notable achievements-including rubberized rain clothing, barkless dogs, stingless honey bees, a most accurate calendar, a unique counting system including the concept of zero, and an excellent set of astronomical observations, it is the buildings that remain for all to see and to amaze.

The modern Maya are being confronted with mind-numbing changes as the countries in which they find themselves develop. Most young Yucatecan Maya no longer speak Maya (although most of their parents do) and many are seeking employment outside of their local villages-in order to have money to buy the things that they perceive to be linked with a successful life. As the "Mundo Maya" project develops the Maya world for ecotourism, we can expect these ancient structures to assume an even greater importance than they already have both for the local economies and as a magnet to attract attention to the plight of the Maya, both ancient and modern.