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I remember this same thing. I think it is likely that there was never just one Mayan civilization, but that these different Mayan civilizations may have broadly shared a similar culture.

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That's a bit like saying there's no European civilization, just a bunch of different European civilizations sharing a broadly similar culture.

Or maybe ancient Greece, with its city-state structure is the better comparison.

Ancient Greek city states are the favorite analogy of mayanists. There's a lot of similarities with the Maya polities.

I don't quite think that first analogy works. Greek city states or old feudal-like European states with shared culture and language are more like what I was thinking of.

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