U.S history essay question?

Need help from a history buff. Essay question about Mayan civilization?

• I need to write an essay in the coming days about the Maya. The essay question is: "Our understanding of the ancient Maya has changed dramatically over the course of the past half century. While initially viewed as a society composed of a peaceful, stargazing, priestly elite and a widely dispersed agrarian non-elite populace, we now know how inaccurate this understanding truly is. Discuss the archaeological, epigraphic, and iconographic data that altered our understanding of the ancient Maya. Include in your discussion how these similar datasets inform our understanding of the collapse of ancient Maya society in the southern Maya lowlands (Guatemala, Belize, Chiapas, and western Honduras). Obviously I don't expect anyone to write an essay, but could outline what you would write about on this topic?

• Answer:

  Break it down as an outline. One piece at a time Introduction: Our understanding of the ancient Maya has changed dramatically over the course of the past half century. While initially viewed as a society composed of a peaceful, stargazing, priestly elite and a widely dispersed agrarian non-elite populace, we now know how inaccurate this understanding truly is. Discuss the archaeological, data and how that altered our understanding of the ancient Maya Discuss the epigraphic data and how that altered our understanding of the ancient Maya Discuss the iconographic data and how that altered our understanding of the ancient Maya. In the tree discussions Include these similar datasets inform our understanding of the collapse of ancient Maya society in the southern Maya lowlands (Guatemala, Belize, Chiapas, and western Honduras). In short examine the discoveries in the various fields that change our interpretation of the Maya from peaceful to how we interpret then today. Focus on the Southern Maya homelands.