Which culture was more advanced, the incas from peru or the mayans from guatemala?

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Dr Fred

The cultural advancement was unequal. In many ways both civilizations had their own advantages.

The Mayans had a written language, and that certainly gives them a plus.

On the other hand the Incas were able to use metals, mainly gold and silver, copper and bronze. Metal was totally absent from mayan sites (although a very small number of artifacts were imported).

In terms of government, the Inca had a centralized government, unlike the Mayans where most cities were independent states. Certainly the ability to run a single nation as the Inca did makes them more advanced. The control of a large nation involving taxes, trade and communication is a substantial accomplishment. By contrast the Mayans were independent but culturally similar city states, and the Aztecs although they had a large "Empire" it was more the case of a large number of local cities that sent tribute to the Aztecs as opposed to a central government.

Construction is somewhat of a toss up. Both civilizations built substantial construction monuments. The Mayans extensively used plaster and in some cases even brick, and included elaborate art into their buildings. On the other hand the Incas had a construction style that involved very precise masonry without the use of mortar, which is extremely strong and as solid today as when it was made.

In terms of art it is difficult to compare cultures. The Mayan's definitely made a lot more stone sculptures some of very high artistic quality. On the other hand many Inca metal items that have survived are of high artistic quality. The perishable art of each country is difficult to compare. The Mayan pottery of the classical period is probably more sophisticated, but that may be my personal opinion, much Inca pottery was very artistic. Paintings and stucco by the Mayans was also better but few surviving examples exist from either culture.

In terms of infrastructure both civilizations built extensive road networks, terraced agriculture and large scale irrigation projects. A few of the Inca projects stand out because of their massive scale as being "better".

In terms of military power, the win goes to the Incas. They were able to mobilize much larger military forces which appeared to be well organized and involved elaborate tactics. On the other hand the Mayan were more often involved in small scale warfare.

In terms of mathmatics and astrology, it is difficult to really score the Incas due to their lack of a written system. The mayan system of numbers is as good as our modern system including having a zero.

So much of the Mayan and Inca civilization has been lost, especially as the Mayans had substantialy declined 500 years before contact with the Spanish. It is difficult to really understand the advances in textiles, woodworking and other perishable items that each civilization had. Both civilizations were subatantially destroyed several years before any of the Spanish made substantial written records of thier civilizations, and the written record by the Spanish is not comparable for the two cultures (as the few records were obviously biased and written by only a few individuals).

One strike against the Mayans is that the classical Mayans did not have a sustainable system and they underwent a cultural collapse some 500 years before the Spanish came. While the pre-Inca cultures of South America also had undergone collapses, the Incas were near the top of their cultural achievement when they met the Spanish, while the Mayans were in a "Dark Age" of several hundred years where they were substantially less advanced than in the past by most measures.

Mrs. Obama rules!

They are different, depending on what you considered to be advanced. Mayas were more advanced in astrological things while Incas were more advanced in architecture, medicine, food preservation, metalurgy, etc. The most big civilization were the Incas, they also had the most gold and silver so that is why the spanish persued their way down to Cuzco and did not go much to Mexico or Guatemala. Nowadays that historians and archaeologists have discovered everything about all these Latin american civilizations, the Incas have been declared to be the most advanced overall and the ones who have contributed more to mankind.

Da Bomb

The Mayans were the first to have a written language of the 2 cultures.

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