We've only recently figured out
what happened to the Mayans

18 year of drought pretty much would finish anybody

becides coming up with the "concept" of a symbol for zero
they practiced Neurosurgery
with some pretty crude tools/methods
( by today's standards )

they are also "credited" with the first "written" landuage

that's just simply NOT true
as  Sumerians did/lived 10,000 years ago
the Mayans 2,000 years ago or so....

however what they DID
is even MORE "incredible" !!!

they created a written "symbolic" notation of SOUND

that means

the collection of symbols
when read outloud
"sound" the same
reguardless of speaker !

that's pretty much MORE like "digital" tape
as it's ability to mask "accents"
such as WE ALL have

the "sound symbol" methods
eliminated that problem 

I just did a Google Search on "Maya"

what came up I find "offensive"
but here it is

http://www.indians.org/welker/maya.htm