Mayan Demise: Not War or Starvation
August 9, 2009
War and famine are regularly provided as explanations for the demise of the ancient Mayan civilization. Now, a study of garbage pits by archaeologist Kitty Emery of the Florida Museum of Natural History shows that political unrest is the more likely cause.
The only time that hunting populations of large animals appear to have headed south, based on the garbage pits, is the earliest era, when the region was first colonized by the Maya, Emery says. “Pretty quickly, things stabilized and stayed that way, in what looks to have been a managed fashion, for a long time,” she says.
Studies of human remains led by Texas A&M’s Lori Wright have also shown scant evidence of dietary changes during the collapse period in Petexbatun, finding no evidence of the anemia of increased child mortality at two sites.
So what happened in the collapse, at least in this part of the Maya world? “It was a bellicose place,” Emery acknowledges, with evidence of warfare and walls across some ceremonial sites. “But the bodies aren’t there,” from any massive fighting, she says. More likely, there was just a political collapse in which rulers came to be seen over a two-century period as no longer delivering the goods, better crops or more rain.
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I'd take some Tequila