THE MAYA COLLAPSES
Overview
• Why Maya?
• Maya Environment
• Maya Agriculture
• Maya History
• Mayan Collapse
The City was desolate…. Here were the remains
of a cultivated, polished, and peculiar people,
who had passed through all stages incident to
the rise and fall of nations, reached their golden
age, and perished…In the romance of the
world’s history nothing ever impressed me more
forcibly than the spectacle of this once great and
lovely city, overturned, desolate, and
lost,….overgrown with trees for miles around,
and without even a name to distinguish it.
-John Stephens
What about Maya?
• Mayan Writings
- still being use to reconstruct Mayan History
• Mayan Art & Architecture
- Archeologists
• Climate & Environmental changes
- Contribute to Collapse
• Remaining Mayan Culture
- Some culture survived collapse
Maya Art
Maya Pottery
Mayan Architecture
Maya Environment
Maya Environment
• Seasonal Tropical Forest
- May <-> October
-Unpredictable Rain Fall
• Seasonal Desert
- January <-> April
- Maya located 1000miles from of equator
• Yucatan Peninsula
- Karst terrain
- South is HIGH above water table
Maya Agriculture
• Slash and Burn farming style
- Corn was 70% of Maya Diet
• Limitations
-Farm animals
- Drought and Humid Climate
- farm style made for fallow ground
- little protein yield
• Increased Production
- terracing of hill slopes
-canals
- Irrigation
Maya History
• Pre-Classic Period 2000 B.C. - 250 A.D.
- Villages and Pottery -1000 B.C.
- Substantial Buildings - 500 B.C.
- Writings – 400 B.C.
• Classic Period 250 A.D. – 900 A.D.
-Kings and Dynasties
- most advanced Native American civilization
- Culturally most advanced society with extensive preserved writings.
• Post Classic 900 A.D. – 1500 A.D.
- Collapse of Classic Maya
- Re-focus of Population
- Depopulation
COLLAPSE
Deforestation and Erosion
Civil Hostilities
Climate Change
Political and Cultural
Collapse
• Deforestation and Erosion
- Agricultural farming style
- Cause for Depopulation
• Climate Change
-Unpredictable Rainfall
- Humidity
• Civil Hostilities
- Competition for food
Collapse
• Political
- Kings Competition for Land
- Wars
- Spaniards bring diseases
•
Cultural
- Starvation
- Thirst
- lower Birthrates
- High Death Rates
THE END
Lest one be misled into thinking that crashes are a risk only for small
peripheral societies in fragile areas, the Maya warn us that crashes can
also befall the most advanced and creative societies.