Peninsulas Codexery

Yucatán Peninsula

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Southeast Mexico contains a large peninsula, which also extends into parts of Belize and Guatemala.[1] The area of this landform is about 181,000 km², and its surface is made up of porous limestone with minimal topographic variation.[2]

Key facts and history

A massive asteroid about 10 to 15 kilometers in diameter struck the area 66 million years ago, creating the Chicxulub crater.[3] The peninsula was the central location of the ancient Maya lowlands and contains many Maya archaeological sites such as Chichen Itza, Coba, Tulum, and Uxmal.[4] Historically, the economy relied on cattle ranching, logging, chicle, and henequen production.[5] Off the northern coastline, close to the settlement of Chicxulub, the crater sits deeply buried and centered.[6]

During the 9th century, the central Maya region experienced a broad political collapse, which triggered civil conflicts and caused people to move northward.[7] Starting in the 1970s, the economy has been redirected toward tourism, particularly within Quintana Roo.[5] Mérida, located in Yucatán state, is the most densely populated area, whereas Quintana Roo has the fewest inhabitants on the peninsula.[5]

What the cited sources add

The Karst Geochemistry and Hydrogeology source explains that the “Ring of Cenotes” outlines a shock-wave from the Chicxulub impact in 66-million-year-old rock.[8] That source also states that all cenotes on the peninsula formed much more recently, probably no more than 130,000 years ago during the Last Interglacial.[8] According to Hajovsky, Hernán Cortés, in his July 1519 first letter to the Spanish Crown, reported that the name arose when Spanish explorers misinterpreted a Maya reply meaning “I don’t understand”.[9] A 2020 PLOS ONE study describes the discovery of a skeleton in Chan Hol cave near Tulum, dated to 9,900 years old, belonging to a woman approximately 30 years of age.[10][11]

The same study suggests that the Tulúm skeletons indicate either multiple groups reached the American continent first, or that early settlers living in isolation on the Yucatán peninsula developed a different skull morphology.[11]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Yucatán Peninsula" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; "Yucatán", Collins English Dictionary; ; ; "Yucatán", Oxford University Press}}{{dead link, September 2022 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Yucatán Peninsula" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: McColl, "Encyclopedia of World Geography", Facts On File, 2005, p. 1002–1003; "Natural Wonders of the World", Reader's Digest Association, Inc, 1980, p. 420 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Yucatán Peninsula" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Osterloff, "How an asteroid ended the age of the dinosaurs", Natural History Museum, 2018; Renne, "Time Scales of Critical Events Around the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary", Science, 2013, p. 684–687 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Yucatán Peninsula" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Natural Wonders of the World", Reader's Digest Association, Inc, 1980, p. 420; "Yucatan Peninsula Archaeological Map | 27 Ancient Maya Sites", mayaruins.com (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Yucatán Peninsula" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Yucatán Peninsula peninsula, Central America", Encyclopedia Britannica (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Yucatán Peninsula" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Yarris, "Alvarez Theory on Dinosaur Die-Out Upheld: Experts Find Asteroid Guilty of Killing the Dinosaurs", News Center, 9 March 2010 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Yucatán Peninsula" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "What really caused the collapse of the Mayan civilization?", National Geographic (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. "Chicxulub Crater and Ring of Cenotes", Karst Geochemistry and Hydrogeology, 4 April 2018. facts only, no text reused. sites.northwestern.edu
  9. Hajovsky, "How Yucatan got its name", Everything Cozumel, 2011. facts only, no text reused. everythingcozumel.com
  10. Wikipedia, "Yucatán Peninsula" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Stinnesbeck, "New evidence for an early settlement of the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico: The Chan Hol 3 woman and her meaning for the Peopling of the Americas", PLOS ONE, 5 February 2020 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  11. PLOS, "9,900-Year-Old Skeleton Discovered in Submerged Mexican Cave Has a Distinctive Skull", SciTechDaily, 5 February 2020. facts only, no text reused. scitechdaily.com

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Yucatán Peninsula (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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