This was a field presentation I gave during my field course in Belize. We visited a Maya ruin site as well as a Maya elder who taught us some of their traditional practices. I gave my presentation at the Monkey Bay Field Station the night before travelling to the ruins.
The Collapse of the Maya Empire
Ancient Maya civilizations were well ahead of their time in terms of the tools they used to build the pyramids, temples, and other ceremonial buildings. At the time they didn’t use wheels for tools rather, for toys instead. They also didn’t have metal tools to assist them in building but used other techniques. The Maya people had significant knowledge about astronomy and had a calendar based on the solar year. This calendar consists of a few separate corresponding calendars that all work together but are different counts. Some terms used in the format include Kin: 1 day, Uinal: 20 days, Tun: 360 days, Katun: 7,200 days, and Baktun: 144,000 days.
The Maya people spoke in 15 different dialects however they still maintained social cohesion. Some of the animals they caught to eat are considered delicacies today such as iguanas. Many of the people living here at the time were farmers, hunters, and horticulturalists. They worked together to create a functioning society. It was estimated that between two to three million people were a part of this civilization over the span of the three countries.
The pyramids they built were strategically thought of in placement and they were positioned to note the essential points in the calendar such as the solstice and equinox. A solstice is when the Sun is at its most northerly or southerly to the equator and equinox is when the Sun crosses the Earth’s equator.
When referring to the Maya timeline there are typically two main classifications, the Classic period which was AD 250-100 and Terminal Classic period which was AD 750-1000. Events that occurred are often referred to within these two time periods to help classify them.
There were six major reasons that led to their collapse:
- Environmental Degradation: the Maya practiced extensive agriculture, including slash-and-burn techniques, which led to deforestation and soil erosion. This likely resulted in agricultural decline, which in turn put pressure on the population.
The Maya peoples cut down trees in order to plant cornfields and used the wood as fuel for cooking and heating limestone to use for buildings. However, this changed the local climate and led to soil erosion which made it more difficult to farm on the land. Prior to this they had luscious crops and were able to survive off of them but when it started to decrease people eventually started leaving because they weren’t able to survive there.
- Climate Change: there is evidence of prolonged droughts in the Maya region during the period of civilization’s decline. These droughts could have severely impacted agricultural productivity and the availability of water, leading to food shortages and societal stress. The past climate changes were mainly caused by natural sources, but future changes are caused by anthropogenic impacts. Food security is impacted by climate change because some crops are reliant on their environment and when there are significant changes crops tend to decrease in production.
Current climate change research focuses more on human made global warming while trying to understand the impacts from the past as well. Climate change is quite dynamic and there are many factors that play a part. We can use climate change trends to help us predict what will happen in the future especially with the increasing research being done. We can use these methods to look at the past Maya civilizations and use today’s techniques to help us understand what they went through. Some examples of these are 1. using appropriate materials serving on climate archives (lake or ocean sediment cores), 2. Isotope based dating using carbon or uranium concentrations, or tree ring dating, 3. Suitable indicators for the amount of rainfall (composition of isotopes).
- Political Instability: Internal conflicts, competition for resources, and the fragmentation of political power likely weakened the Maya city-states. Warfare may have been widespread, further destabilizing the region
- Trade Distribution: the collapse of long-distance trade networks due to economic or political factors could have disrupted the flow of good and resources upon which the Maya depended
- Social Factors: changes in social structures, such as shifts in power dynamics or challenges to traditional authority, may have contributed to societal unrest and instability
- Disease: Epidemics of diseases introduced by European contact may have further weakened the population, making them more susceptible to other stressors. Diseases to their crops have also significantly impacted their populations because it decreased the amount of food available to them through crop rot, diseases from animals, foliar diseases. Plant-hopper diseases such as maize mosaic virus decimates fields of corn making them unfit for consumption.
The collapse of the Maya civilizations was likely a gradual process that occurred over centuries rather than a sudden event. Many Maya cities were abandoned or significantly depopulated by the 9th century, but Maya culture persisted in some form, with many cities continuing to be inhabited on a smaller scale. In Belize Maya sites being abandoned or experiencing significant population decline during this period.
Modern tools such as LiDAR technology have been a significant source of finding more information on the Maya ruins. LiDAR uses small lasers at the surface to measure the time it takes the laser to return to the source and in many cases is used in GIS. The city of Caracol is one of the largest Maya archaeological sites and with data that has been discovered from this site we now know it was a very elaborate site. Data taken in 2009 was used to help evaluate this site and lead to some findings. Intricate rituals were held here and their city planning methods were very interesting as well. The Maya people were believed to be very advanced in this way.
Key Takeaways
- This wasn’t an immediate collapse, rather a process that occurred over centuries
- The most common suggestion of the collapse was environmental degradation through agricultural necessities
- Their society was very intricate and intelligent in certain aspects such as astronomy and their building techniques