By Alex Pallas
The Mayans were one of the best known civilisations in the meso-american area and their collapse is still a mystery. There are many different theories as to what the main factors were in their collapse and no one answer or explanation is wrong or right. There is no way to tell what happened exactly there is only small amounts of evidence and peoples opinions. The Majority of theories that experts have come up with can be categorised into three groups:
1. Drought caused by climate change
2. Politics/Warfare - that they fought to much and had poor leadership and;
3. Over exploitation of the land and self inflicted environmental problems
Interestingly these resemble the 5 point framework that Jared Diamond came up with which i will talk about later. I believe that it was a combination of these and some other factors that brought down the Mayans. The reason they collapsed and the factors that led to their collapse is highly debated and after reading many different theories i have come to my own conclusion as to what happened. The collapse of the Mayans took place towards the end of the 9th century after three seperate droughts which many believe was the main factor of their collapse. I think this would have been one of the main factors if not the main one. If we use Jared Diamonds 5 point framework outlining the reasons he believes societies collapse we can get a better picture of what happened to the mayans. Diamonds framework outlines the 5 main factors he thinks have the most impact on societal collapse. These are Environmental damage, Climate change, Hostile enemies, Loss of Allies/Trade partners and Response to Crisis. Here is the information i found on the collapse of the Mayans categorised into jared diamonds 5 point framework.
Environmental Damage: The Mayans environmental damage was mainly self-inflicted. They deforested most of the land to make huge temples and monuments to their gods and overfarmed to try and keep up with the growing demand for food. This led to a depletion of their already strained resources from overpopulation. They were so overpopulated and their resources so depleted from deforestation that they were nearly 100% dependant on the seasonly crops. One crop failure meant they would be hugely short of food and a drought would mean they would be short of water as well. This would have meant that much population would be starved or had to move away from the cities to somewhere else to survive elsewhere.
Climate Change: There is quite definitive proof that there was three droughts between 800AD and 900AD. Annual titanium levels indicate the amount of rainfall per year and samples taken from the Mayan area show that there were three droughts all lasting less than 10 years which may have been a big factor in the collapse of the mayans. They all marked periodic downturns in Mayan culture and could have been a major factor in the abandoment of cities. This could be because 95% of their population centres relied on lakes, ponds and rivers that contained and average of 18 months supply of water for drinking and agriculture.
Hostile Enemies: The Mayans didn't have that many external hostile enemies although there were many internal wars and disputes which may have impacted on their collapse. The Mayans were never one civilisation as the Aztecs were. They were several diferent kingdoms all divided with kings of more successful cities owning other kings and no one leader. They were constantly and although this constant warfare may not have been a major factor in the demise of the Mayans, it certainly would have had an effect. A society united will last longer than one divided and fighting constantly.
Loss Of Allies / Trade partners: The Mayans mainly traded in Obsidian and other luxury items such as cacao and feathers. The loss of trade partners would not have had much impact on the Mayans collapse because the majority of their food supplies were produced locally. The break down of trade routes would not have been a cause of the collapse it probably was an effect. When they began to run out of resources and the droughts began to struck they would have been less worried about trading luxury goods and would have left the trade routes to break down.
Response To Crisis: The Mayans response to crisis was probably another one of the major factors that resulted in their collapse. The Mayans were a very religious people and believe in blood sacrifiices to appease their gods. When the droughts hit and the resources became scarcer the peoples beliefs in their royals divine powers faltered and they began to think they needed more royal blood to make their gods happy and stop the hardship for their people. This was not very smart as then they had no leaders, and therefore could not try and solve the problems at hand: the drought and the lack of resources. Other than this there was very little other response that i could find except to make thinner concrete slabs for their temples, in what would appear to be a feeble attempt to save resources.
After using Diamonds 5 point framework to categorise the different problems facing the Mayans i found that it was a very useful means for seeing what kind of factors cause a society to collapse because its easy to see how each one can have its affect. I dont think it was just the drought or the overpopulation that destroyed the Mayans i think it was a combination of a lot of things that all when put together brought them down and destroyed their society. The first thing that happened was the overpopulation and the over farming and depletion of resources. They had so many people to feed and were using so much of their resources on building monuments to their gods to try and please them. This made them heavily reliant on the seaonal crops and when the droughts came they couldnt cope with the extra pressure of failing crops and reduced water supply in rivers and lakes leaving them on the brink of collapse. Their fate was sealed by their response to the crisis which was to sacrifice the blood of their royalty which meant they had no leaders to try and help them solve their problem and eventually forced them to abandon their cities and monuments. The most critical points here are the droughts, the waste of resources on statues and temples and overpopulation. I still believe that Jared Diamonds theory that response is critical in nearly every societies collapse. Easter Island, another collapsed society that also wasted resources on building giant monuments to its gods and failed to preserve its resources to survive. Another similarity is that they both continued to praise their gods and built their monuments/sacrifices while their society was collapsing around them.
Though these two societies are similar in these aspects they are different in that the Mayans had three droughts to contend with whereas the inhabitants of easter island had very little climate change worries. Also the Mayans did not completely collapse, just the Classic Mayans did. the Mayans more to the north survived for longer as they had more supply to water but then eventually collapsed as well.
What can contemporary society learn from the collapse of this past society?
There are many things we can learn from studying these past societies and how they collapsed. First of all we can learn that we need to preserve our resources and not waste them on things with little importance to the overall society and its ability to succeed. Although we try we stil end up guzzling oil by the barrel faster than we can supply it. Also we can learn that deforesting and cutting down excessive trees destroys the land and leaves us prone to droughts and climate change. But most importantly it tells us that we must have good leadership. The Mayans leaders were the ones who cut down trees and were also the ones who made the temples and worshipped the gods. We look back at the Mayans and think them silly for believing that they must sacrifice their own to keep the gods at bay but then we go and spend millions of dollars and send our soldiers and use resources to keep away the terrorists and protect us from weapons of mass destruction that dont seem to exist.
However we are much smarter than the ancient civilisations before us. We have studied their collapses and have identified reasons why they collapsed and are trying to prevent ourselves from collapsing. We recognise what appear to be the problems that will cause us to collapse such as climate change and pollution and lack of renewable energy. This is all good and this gives us a chance to keep going on but is it too late? Or maybe we will fix this and completely overlook another fatal flaw in our society like the societies before us did. The Mayans believed that sacrificing people and making thinner tiles for their temples would prevent collapse as we believe that our efforts to reverse global warming will help us survive. In the end time will tell and our descendants will be able to look back and see our civilisation has "chosen to fail or succeed."
Bibliography
Diamond,(2006) Collapse How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive, Penguin, USA.
Classic Maya Collapse, 12 March 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Maya_collapse
National Geographic News Stefan Lovgrenfor National Geographic News
March 13, 2003 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/03/0313_030313_mayadrought.html
Some Thoughts Concerning Collapse of the Classic Maya Civilization4/11/98by Jeeni Criscenzo(c)1998 Jeeni Criscenzo http://www.jaguar-sun.com/ideas.html
Maya Culture Collapse: Current Theory Last updated 16/03/2008 13:15:20 -0600© 2005 Copyright, Authentic Maya http://www.authenticmaya.com/maya_culture_collapse.htm
Werewolf Rampant, Sunday, March 16, 2008 http://flight-of-the-phoenix.blogspot.com/2008/03/summary-of-theories-about-collapse-of.html
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