Incas were not writing at this point. They had a knot system.

To remind people who are what, Aztecs (Mexico now) were North American in today's term, Maya were also North American, bordering Central America (Yucatán peninsula in Mexico) and the Incas were all the way down in South America in Peru.

Meso American is a weird term that does describe the Aztecs and Mayan people... Historically. But, not the Incas and it doesn't really give you the full picture of what we consider to be located where today--which makes people confused about the differences between the three.

Another quick distinction is that Peru has some extremely old cultures that most likely are the far past ancestral peoples of the Incas (with some cultures being a whopping 5000 years old at Caral), but the Incan Empire itself at its height only lasted about a century before being met with the Spaniards and disease.

Kinda same goes for the Aztecs whose ancestral people were influenced by the ancient Mayans (whose archaic age was 4000 yrs ago), though Mayans themselves also stuck around. Anyway, the Aztecs at their height only lasted about a century as well before the Spaniards and disease.

Mayans were really the older culture out of the three that at least seems to exist as a singular cultural entity between the Incas and Aztecs in archaeological records, their cities seem to have been around for millennia. But unlike the Aztecs, the Mayans had their heyday in the past and were a shadow of their former self in comparison to the newly invigorated and growing Aztec and Incan neighbours.

And a lot that did get preserved just got held in private collections or sent to the Vatican where they’ve been locked away (at least some like the Codex Borgia have been scanned and are now publicly available digitally).

I have done zero research but here's my guess.

Modern pregnancy lasts 280 days.

Malnutrition and other lifestyle factors shorten that, so a 260-day gestation may have been standard, at the time and in that place.

The corn part, I imagine, is actually broken down into three cycles of just over 86 days, which is right around how long corn takes to go from seed to harvest: so each year allowed for three cycles of crop, because they were in the tropics, where you can grow all year.

It's also important to understand that this idea of "day" is different, in cultures who use multiple calendars - the Chinese and the Jewish are known for using both a solar and a lunar calendar, which don't sync up, but are used together to understand one's position in time.

I'd guess that's more how this calendar worked, as it was more about seasons than it was about the length of a day, because it's not like you'd have a 260-day year that resulted in 33-hour days: you can't change the earth's rotation any more than you can the position of the moon and stars.

So the functional day was still 24-hours-ish, but then there was another calendar used for rituals, planting, etc.: basically every civilization makes calendars to figure out when floods come.

Floods bring fertility to the soil, allowing it to produce - that's why all major civilizations originate in flood plains - it's why, once you figure out the flood cycle, complex language and temporality emerge very quickly.

Humans are already familiar with cyclic floods in our own, everywhere we exist, from pre-history: we saw that people producing children also seemed to have a cycle and it gets kinda'...wet.

Women's menstrual cycle has been referred to as a "flood" in many cultures, throughout history, strengthening this connection, with the time of menstruation also called a "moon," in many cultures, strengthening that connection, as well.

In ancient Rome, the owning couple was required to have sex in any newly-anointed agricultural field, to ensure productivity.

Connections between sex and agriculture exist in nearly every culture.

So my guess is that the Mesoamericans were birthing slightly malnourished children slightly premature, and it was the standard at the time, while also bringing in a corn crop three times a year (let's call them "trimesters" wink wink).

I don’t know about maize, but that’s around how long it takes to gestate a baby, especially if you count from the missed period.

Don't forget the human menstrual cycle is quite regular as well. Could have been around 26 days so it would cover two "glyphs" which seems to be like months.

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It's easy to underestimate just how ground breaking it is to have high resolution aerial imagery for the entire world. And not only one set, but a constantly updating set across multiple bandwidths that can be customized to your exact needs. There's discoveries that we'll find years from now and we'll go back into the old archives and find it, but who was ever going to randomly stumble into that specific section of endless rainforest?

That much closer to collecting social security.

You would live more years though.

The 260 days calendar is exclusively for ritual purposes. It's used in conjunction with other astronomical calendars: Solar calendar of 360 days (plus 5 bad days...) Moon calendar, and also a Venus calendar (this one quite important!)

And other bigger cycles.

The Dresden codex it's a beautiful and rich ritual calendar, really interesting.

In much of the ancient world getting enough sunlight was not the problem.

Actually not only sun and moon, but also Venus, and other celestial objects.

Many sites include some astronomical observation points, done of them to keep the solar year calendar in place, like knowing when to add more days to accommodate the 365 solar year in conjunction with the the solstices.

Sunshine was a huge deal before lightbulbs.

Artificial lighting used to be really expensive, so light in the morning and evening, while receiving shade at midday would have absolutely thought of.

My opinion is the modern world, especially in developed nations, is too dependent on conveniences like light bulbs, microwaves, salted roads. Now no one has to give any thought to other people or the world around them, just what they need in the moment. People being selfish isn’t new, but now the whole world seems to cater to being selfish.

More that these cities were heavily planned, and every building had to be in orientation with the city plan. Individuals weren't making decisions on how to build their buildings.

Such things really contribute to diversity in thoughts. To be aware of cultural and historical diversity is to recognise the basic humanity of each human.. sad that once some people claimed them to be animals and even cannibalistic

No, this has no bearing on anything said in Ancient Apocalypse.

Also, In general, I found the show's episode on Mesoamerica (Ep2) to be pretty terrible and misrepresenative: Hancock relies on the general public ignorance about Mesoamerica to present accepted info as extraordinary, and then acts as if that info totally undermines everything archaeologists say they know, when in reality it's not really a big deal

For example, with Cholula, he presents the fact that the Pyramid has layers as some sort of unexpected find, the implication being that it calls into question the pyramid's age. But pyramids being built sequentially in layers like a Russian doll is VERY common in Mesoamerica: with expansions built as new kings took power or during important cosmological milestones. And the specific layers of the Great Pyramid of Cholula is well studied in particular, due to fact that the structure wasn't destroyed by the Spanish (see below). Hancock even explicitly says he doesn't even dispute that dating (which makes this whole segment feel pointless and dishonest, since he's clearly still trying to make people skeptical)

I also found his segment of "What made these people build it here?" to be sort of absurd and confusing. Why is anything built anywhere? He's approaching it as if there MUST be a special reason (apparently in some of his books he outright thinks pyramids have some occult magic energy, so maybe that's why), but even sort of answers his own question by noting it was built over a spring. This is actually not uncommon in Mesoamerica: Pools of water, mirrors, caves, etc were all tied to underworld entrances in Mesoamerican cosmology, with Pyramids at Teotihuacan or Chichen Itza's Temple of Kukulkan also being over pools/caves. He tries to present this as some sort of global pattern, bringing up that the Giza Pyramid in Egypt and one in Southeast Asia was too, but he doesn't actually provide evidence those aren't isolated examples

This sort of comparison between different world pyramids (and his assertion that "all pyramids have connections to death and rebirth") also falls flat since as Mesoamerican pyramids were primarily temples, not tombs like in Egypt (I know Hancock disputes Egyptian pyramids were tombs, but Egypt sn't my area so I can't comment). Yes, there were occasionally buried remains and ceremonial goods left in Mesoamerican pyramids, but these were usually ritual offerings to consecrate the construction of new phases/layers of the pyramid's construction, not burials the monument itself was dedicated to. Fundamentally Meso. and Egyptian pyramids were different structures that just have a similar shape. (There's even Meso. Pyramids used as administrative buildings, sorta!)

The show also misrepresents Geoffrey McCafferty (the Cholula Researcher's) statements (something he has claimed himself): At one point, Hancock asks "Is that enough to be confident enough about the full story", and of course he basically says "No, there's a lot of work to be done to teach us more about Mesoamerica". That's not saying "Everything we think we know is wrong" (which is what Hancock implies it to be) it's just saying that there's still more excavations to do that will help fill in what gaps are left, as there's always more we can learn. And when he said something like "Knowing more about Cholula would let us rethink Mesoamerican as a whole": The researcher's point was likely that a better understanding of Cholula would give us a better picture of how social, political and religious trends changed in Mesoamerica over time (since Cholula existed as small village in 1000BC all the way to being a large city with 40k denizens as of Spanish contact) and since the city had widespread religious influence, that more info on Cholula would likewise yield insights into other parts of Mesoamerica

The 3d Cholula render the episode used is also pretty wrong: It just had buildings evenly spaced in a solid sheet around the Pyramid. No roads, city planning, etc: Mesoamerican cities usually had a central urban core with temples, palaces and other elite housing, civic buildings, ball courts, etc, all richly painted and decorated, organized around open plazas for communal activities and ritualistic alignment. And then around that you had suburbs of commoner housing interspersed with agricultural land, etc, with the suburbs gradually decreasing in density the further out you go (in some cases, covering hundreds of square kilometers). Both the core and in some cases the suburbs had roads, aquaducts, etc. The Pyramid in the render was also grey and mossy, in ruins. If this is meant to be at the Pyramid's apex, then it should be painted and adorned with sculptures, reliefs, etc. If it's depicting it as of Spanish contact (which is what the graphics suggest), then it would've been buried in soil: The entire reason it's intact today is the Spanish mistook it as a hill, as Cholua's denizens had switched to using a new Great Pyramid dedicated to Quetzalcoatl centuries before contact. The show also mislabels some Teotihuacan frescos as being from Cholula; gets some of the dating wrong; incorrectly claims the whole pyramid was adobe and straw when many construction layers had stone as either the outer facade or even for the inner structural fill

Moving onto Texcotzinco: Firstly, this is an INCREDIBLE site more people should know about: This was a royal estate/retreat for rulers of Texcoco, the second most powerful Aztec city. It sourced water from 5 miles of aqueducts (some elevated 150 feet off the ground) which brought the water to a series of pools and channels to control the flow rate on an adjacent hill, then across the gorge between there and Texcotzinco, where it flowed into a circuit around Texcotzinco's summit, into the site's painted shrines, pools, fountains, etc, and then formed artificial waterfalls which watered the botanical gardens at the hill's base, which had different sections to mimic different Mexican biomes. Of course it also had a palace at the top of the mountain's peak, etc. We outright have written sources discussing the site being designed in the 1460s AD by Nezahualcoyotl, Texcoco's most famous king who also designed levee and aqueduct systems at other Aztec cities. Now, It should be noted that these accounts are written by his descendant, Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl in the late 16th/early 17th century, for the specific purpose of glorifying Texcoco to the Spanish, and we do know he twisted details, like claiming he worshipped a monotheistic god and rejected sacrifice. There's a whole book on this, "The Allure of Nezahualcoyotl", but as far as I know it doesn't dispute he built the site. Dr. Susan Toby Evans has a lot of papers on Texcotzinco, but a lot of her faculty page's links are down: I did find one mention that the site probably had some shrines built under earlier Texcoca rulers before Nezahualcoyotl, and the papers do mention there being archaeological evidence for dating rather then just textual sources, but sadly no specifics are listed.

However, Hancock's points are still unconvincing: The guy he talks about Texcotzinco with pretty much gives zero actual scientific analysis or actual criticism of any sort of dating method, just vague commentary about weathering, so there's no real evidence to review, and isn't a specialist of the site like the Cholula guy was: this guy just runs an Atlantis blog. Hancock's other point is that there's Tlaloc iconography at the site, and uses a pre-Aztec Tlaloc sculpture from another site to imply Texcotzinco could be pre Aztec too... BUT WE ALL ALREADY KNOW TLALOC IS PRE AZTEC! The evolution of Tlaloc and other Mesoamerican rain gods from Olmec ""were jaguar" (there's some debate of what they're depicting) sculptures is VERY well documented, there's even full Digimon style charts showing the specific stages of development the iconography went through at different times in different parts of Mesoamerica! So the presence of Tlaloc iconography doesn't inherently suggest any time period, and if anything the Tlaloc depictions at the site are consistent with Aztec period examples. Even if Texcotzinco DID have Pre-Aztec construction, it would likely just mean it was from the dozens of Pre-Aztec civilizations in Mesoamerica we already know about. Again, Hancock relies on the fact that most viewers don't know much on Mesoamerica to present normal finds as unusual

Lastly (skipping Xochicalo as i'm at the char. limit) Hancock's telling of the myth with Quetzalcoatl mixes details from different accounts or just gets stuff wrong: The flood he references is from myths detailing the cyclical creation and destruction of the world (and was done by Chalchiuhtlicue, not Tlaloc), wheras Quetzalcoatl sailing on a raft of snakes comes from Aztec accounts about the 10th century Toltec lord Ce Acatl Topiltzin, who is tied to Quetzalcoatl: These are largely separate narratives eons apart. And even then, only SOME of the latter involve the raft, and in them, he is LEAVING rather then arriving. Even these versions recorded in the early colonial period we know have Catholic influences from Friars re-writing them to aid in conversion and to make their rule seem pre-ordained. Stuff like Cortes being mistaken for Quetzalcoatl (a myth invented for similar reasons) comes from these, too. Hancock's telling is, if anything, closer to even later and more nonsense versions that make Quetzalcoatl white, blond, etc. Some of the earlier ones do have him as bearded, but the Mesoamericans had facial hair! We know it was customary in Aztec society for everyone other then rulers (Moctezuma II had facial hair!) or the elderly to shave, and Topiltzin was both

I'll also post some links, images, etc of some of what I mentioned below in a follow up reply.

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