The conquest of Mesoamerica by Spanish explorers and colonists began in the 1500s and was led primarily by Cortes in Mexico and Alvarado in Guatemala. The brutality of these Europeans in battling the Maya and Aztec peoples is legendary.
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The Maya Indians were so short that some scholars called them the pygmies of Central America: the men averaged only five feet two, the women four feet eight.
Descendants of the ancient Maya abound throughout southern Mesoamerica. The population is estimated at eight million, likely as many as there were at the time of conquest.
The Maya had a polytheistic religion, which means they worshipped many gods, including Itzam Na (Creator God), Kinich Ahau (Sun God), Ah Puch (one of several death gods), and Buluc Chabtan (War God). They practiced animism, which is the belief that all things, including inanimate objects, had a soul.
The Maya are perhaps most known for their many majestic pyramids. They built two kinds of pyramids. Both types of pyramids were similar in many ways. They each had the familiar pyramid shape.