article_snippet.sent: But just why so many settlements were simply abandoned, long before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, remains a mystery to which these long lost sites may provide an answer.
article_snippet.sent: Ninety-nine percent of settlements in the central and southern lowlands of the Yucatan peninsula were abandoned in a matter of 200 years.
article_snippet.sent: By 1000 AD, practically everything was abandoned.
article_snippet.sent: That was the situation when the Spaniards came.
article_snippet.sent: But not so in the northern section of the Yucatan peninsula and the Guatemala highlands, where there was no rupture until the arrival of the Spaniards.