(A) Guatemala is in Central America, not South America. Central America being part of North America. In countless ways, Mexico and Central America are far more connected to the US than to South America.<p>(B) a lot of these cities discovered in the jungle is not because it was naturally not jungle before. Instead, it was jungle that the Maya deforested and cultivated the land. The amount of deforestation by the ancient Maya was similar (though smaller scale) to that of the Europeans.<p>This point in particular is critical in breaking the myth of the Maya as a super environmental people on harmony with nature. It makes them an overly simplistic &quot;native people&quot;. The reality is they might have caused their own demise through environmental destruction (or at least the classical cities, the post classical are a different story)