Classic Maya collapse
This article is part of a series on the |
Maya civilization |
---|
History |
Spanish conquest of the Maya |
|
In
The Classic Period of Mesoamerican chronology is generally defined as the period from 250 to 900 CE, the last century of which is referred to as the Terminal Classic.[2] The Classic Maya collapse is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in archaeology. Urban centers of the southern lowlands, among them Palenque, Copán, Tikal, and Calakmul, went into decline during the 8th and 9th centuries and were abandoned shortly thereafter. Archaeologically, this decline is indicated by the cessation of monumental inscriptions[3] and the reduction of large-scale architectural construction at the primary urban centers of the Classic Period.[citation needed]
Although termed a collapse, it did not mark the end of the Maya civilization but rather a shift away from the Southern Lowlands as a power center; the Northern
Because parts of Maya civilization unambiguously continued, a number of scholars strongly dislike the term "collapse".[5] Regarding the proposed collapse, E. Wyllys Andrews IV went as far as to say, "in my belief no such thing happened."[6]
Progression of the decline
The Maya often recorded dates on monuments they built. Few dated monuments were being built circa 500 – around ten per year in 514, for example. The number steadily increased to twenty per year by 672 and forty by around 750. After this, the number of dated monuments begins to falter relatively quickly, collapsing back to ten by 800 and to zero by 900. Likewise, recorded lists of kings complement this analysis.
A third piece of evidence of the progression of Maya decline, gathered by Ann Corinne Freter, Nancy Gonlin, and David Webster, uses a technique called obsidian hydration dating. The technique allowed them to map the spread and growth of settlements in the Copán Valley and estimate their populations. Between 400 and 450, the population was estimated at a peak of twenty-eight thousand, between 750 and 800 – larger than London at the time. The population then began to steadily decline. By 900 the population had fallen to fifteen thousand, and by 1200 the population was again less than 1000. [citation needed]
Theories
More than 80 different theories or variations of theories attempting to explain the Classic Maya collapse have been identified.
Foreign invasion
The archaeological evidence of the Toltec intrusion into Seibal, Peten, suggests to some the theory of foreign invasion. The latest hypothesis states that the southern lowlands were invaded by a non-Maya group whose homelands were probably in the gulf coast lowlands. This invasion began in the 9th century and set off, within 100 years, a group of events that destroyed the Classic Maya. It is believed that this invasion was somehow influenced by the Toltec people of central Mexico. However, most Mayanists do not believe that foreign invasion was the main cause of the Classic Maya collapse; they postulate that no military defeat can explain or be the cause of the protracted and complex Classic collapse process. Teotihuacan influence across the Maya region may have involved some form of military invasion; however, it is generally noted that significant Teotihuacan-Maya interactions date from at least the Early Classic period, well before the episodes of Late Classic collapse.[11]
The foreign invasion theory does not answer the question of where the inhabitants went. David Webster believed that the population should have increased because of the lack of elite power. Further, it is not understood why the governmental institutions were not remade following the revolts, which happened under similar circumstances in places like China. A study by anthropologist Elliot M. Abrams came to the conclusion that buildings, specifically in Copán, did not require an extensive amount of time and workers to construct.[12] However, this theory was developed during a period when the archaeological evidence showed that there were fewer Maya people than there are now known to have been.[13] Revolutions, peasant revolts, and social turmoil change circumstances, and are often followed by foreign wars, but they run their course. There are no documented revolutions that caused wholesale abandonment of entire regions.[citation needed]
Collapse of trade routes
It has been hypothesized that the decline of the Maya is related to the collapse of their intricate trade systems, especially those connected to the central Mexican city of
Epidemic diseases
The
Drought theory
The drought theory holds that rapid
Climatic factors were first implicated in the collapse as early as 1931 by Mayanists
According to Gill in The Great Maya Droughts:
[Studies of] Yucatecan lake sediment cores ... provide unambiguous evidence for a severe 200-year drought from AD 800 to 1000 ... the most severe in the last 7,000 years ... precisely at the time of the Maya Collapse.[26]
The role of drought in the collapse of Classic Maya civilization has remained controversial, however, largely because the majority of
A study published in the journal
Critics of the drought theory question the spatial patterns of drought and its relation to the timing of the degradation of Maya city-states. Archaeological research demonstrates that while many regions of the Maya Lowlands were indeed abandoned during the eighth to eleventh centuries CE, other regions experienced only minor disruption, or even flourished.[35][30] Although the spatial patterns of societal collapse are complex, population centers continued in many coastal regions and in the northern Yucatán Peninsula, including as Chichen Itza, Uxmal, and Coba, whereas most states in the central regions collapsed and landscapes were depopulated. The reasons for this spatial heterogeneity in societal disintegration are largely unknown, but researches have hypothesised that central regions may have been more affected because of a very deep water table (which would have exacerbated the effects of drought), or that the longevity of the northern regions was likely facilitated by access to the coast, and thus trade routes.[30]
Other critics of the megadrought theory, including David Webster, note that much of the evidence of drought comes from the northern Yucatán and not the southern part of the peninsula, where Classic Maya civilization flourished. Webster states that if water sources were to have dried up, then several city-states would have moved to other water sources. That Gill suggests that all water in the region would have dried up and destroyed Maya civilization is a stretch, according to Webster,[36] although Webster does not have a precise competing theory explaining the Classic Maya Collapse. Since publication, further records from the more southerly states have strengthened the argument of a synchronous drought occurring across the Yucatán Peninsula.[30]
Climatic changes are, with increasing frequency, found to be major drivers in the rise and fall of civilizations all over the world.
Within the past five years new tools and new data for archaeologists, climatologists, and historians have brought us to the edge of a new era in the study of global and hemispheric climate change and its cultural impacts. The climate of the Holocene, previously assumed static, now displays a surprising dynamism, which has affected the agricultural bases of pre-industrial societies. The list of Holocene climate alterations and their socio-economic effects has rapidly become too complex for brief summary.[39]
A number of causal mechanisms for droughts in the Maya area have been proposed, but there is no consensus among researchers regarding a single causal mechanism. Instead, it is likely that multiple mechanisms were involved,[30] including solar variability,[40] shifts in the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone,[41] changes in tropical cyclone frequency[27] and deforestation.
The Maya are often perceived as having lived in a rainforest, but technically, they lived in a seasonal desert without access to stable sources of drinking water.
Systemic ecological collapse model
Some ecological theories of Maya decline focus on the worsening agricultural and resource conditions in the
More recent investigations have shown a complicated variety of intensive agricultural techniques utilized by the Maya, explaining the high population of the Classic Maya polities. Modern archaeologists now comprehend the sophisticated intensive and productive agricultural techniques of the ancient Maya, and several of the Maya agricultural methods have not yet been reproduced. Intensive agricultural methods were developed and utilized by all the Mesoamerican cultures to boost their food production and give them a competitive advantage over less skillful peoples.
In addition to mountainous terrain, Mesoamericans successfully exploited the very problematic tropical rainforest for 1,500 years.[47] The agricultural techniques utilized by the Maya were entirely dependent upon ample supplies of water, lending credit to the drought theory of collapse. The Maya thrived in territory that would be uninhabitable to most peoples. Their success over two millennia in this environment was "amazing."[48]
Sociological
Anthropologist Joseph Tainter wrote extensively about the collapse of the Southern Lowland Maya in his 1988 study The Collapse of Complex Societies. His theory about Maya collapse encompasses some of the above explanations, but focuses specifically on the development of and the declining marginal returns from the increasing social complexity of the competing Maya city-states.[49] Psychologist Julian Jaynes suggested that the collapse was due to a failure in the social control systems of religion and political authority, due to increasing socioeconomic complexity that overwhelmed the power of traditional rituals and the king's authority to compel obedience.[50]
See also
- Societal collapse, the collapse of a complex human society
- Bronze Age collapse, a similar collapse in the ancient Middle East
Notes
- ^ What Caused the Maya Collapse? Archaeologists Uncover New Clues
- ^ See Stuart and Stuart (1993, p. 12), McKillop (2006, p. 90, pp. 339–340)
- ^ a b Кнорозов, Ю. В. Письменность индейцев майя. — М.—Л.: Изд-во АН СССР, 1963. — 664 с.
- ISBN 978-9703200894.
El "Pueblo Maya" lo constituyen actualmente algo menos de 6 millones de hablantes de 25 idiomas
- ^ Aimers, James J. "What Maya Collapse? Terminal Classic Variation in the Maya Lowlands." J Archaeol Res (2007) 15:329–377
- ^ Andrews IV, E. W. (1973). The development of Maya civilization after the abandonment of the southern cities. In Culbert, T. P. (ed.), The Classic Maya Collapse, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, pp. 243–265
- ^ "49 Km - Flight distance between Copan Ruinas and quirigua".
- ISBN 978-1-84668-429-6.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ^ Gill (2000, p. 371)
- ^ "Like most things, collapse explanations are subject to fashion, and the one most in the limelight today is climatic change, or more specifically, megadrought." Quote is from Webster (2002, p. 239); see also article by Diamond (2003)
- ^ See Braswell(2003)
- ISBN 978-0-292-70462-6.
- ^ Webster (2002 pp. 221–223)
- ^ Webster (2002 pp. 231)
- ^ Webster (2002 pp. 231–234)
- ^ a b Webster (2002 pp. 232)
- ^ Anderson and May (1982); R. Anderson (1982); Lycett (1985).
- PMID 9066902.
- ^ Santley, Killion, and Lycett (1986, pp. 140–141)
- ^ a b Webster (2002, p. 239)
- ^ Coe (1999, pp. 26–27)
- ^ Gann & Thompson, The History of the Maya, 1931
- S2CID 4270939.
- ^ Gill (2000, passim.)
- ^ Webster (2002, p. 99)
- ^ Gill (2000, p.276 )
- ^ S2CID 37704953.
- Science Daily. 2012-02-23. Retrieved 2012-02-25.
- ^ "Mild drought caused Maya collapse in Mexico, Guatemala". BBC News. 2012-02-25. Retrieved 2012-02-25.
- ^ .
- PMID 30072537.
- ^ a b "Scientists measure severity of drought during the Maya collapse". University of Cambridge. 2018-09-02. Retrieved 2019-01-10.
- ^ "Severe Drought May Have Helped Hasten Ancient Maya's Collapse". Eos. 2018-09-02. Retrieved 2019-01-10.
- ^ "Severe Drought May Have Helped Hasten Ancient Maya's Collapse". The Washington Post. 2018-09-02. Retrieved 2019-01-10.
- ^ Mann (2006, p. 312)
- ^ Webster (2002, pp. 243–245)
- ^ See for example papers by deMenocal (2001); Weiss (1997); Weiss and Bradley (2001)
- ^ Weiss and Bradley (2001)
- ^ Quote is from Weiss (1997)
- S2CID 29875609.
- S2CID 128596188.
- ^ Gill (2000, p. 382); Webster (2002, p. 239)
- ^ Gill (2000, p. 386)
- ^ As reported in McKillop (2006, p. 89)
- ^ See synopsis in Dunning et al.(2002)
- ^ Demarest (2004, pp. 130–147); Sabloff (1994, pp. 81–84, 139–140)
- ^ Sabloff (1994, p. 171), citing Rice and Rice (1984)
- ^ Demarest (2004, p. 129)
- ^ Tainter (1988, pp. 152–177)
- ISBN 978-0-618-05707-8.
References
- Braswell, Geoffrey E. (2003). "Introduction: Reinterpreting Early Classic Interaction". In Geoffrey E. Braswell (ed.). The Maya and Teotihuacan: Reinterpreting Early Classic Interaction. Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. 1–44. OCLC 49936017.
- OCLC 15895415.
- OCLC 6143975.
- OCLC 51438896.
- deMenocal, Peter B. (2001-04-27). "Cultural Responses to Climate Change During the Late Holocene" (PDF). PMID 11303088. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2008-12-17. Retrieved 2007-10-17.
- OCLC 4532730.
- Douglas, Peter M.J.; Demarest, Arthur A.; Brenner, Mark; Canuto, Marcello A. (2 May 2016). "Impacts of Climate Change on the Collapse of Lowland Maya Civilization". Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 44: 613–645. .
- Dunning, Nicholas P.; Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach; Timothy Beach; John G. Jones; S2CID 53545012.
- Evans, Nicholas P.; Bauska, Thomas K.; Gázquez-Sánchez, Fernando; Brenner, Mark; Curtis, Jason H.; Hodell, David A. (3 Aug 2018). "Quantification of drought during the collapse of the classic Maya civilization". PMID 30072537.
- Favier, Jean; Anik Blaise; Serge Cosseron; Jacques Legrand (c. 1989). Chronicle of the French Revolution, 1788-1799. Clifton Daniel (series general ed.) (English translation of Chronique de la Révolution, 1788–1799 (1988), Paris:Larousse. ed.). London/New York: Chronicle Publications, distributed in USA by Prentice Hall. OCLC 19729759.
- Gill, Richardson B. (2000). The Great Maya Droughts: Water, Life, and Death. Albuquerque: OCLC 43567384.
- S2CID 128596188. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-03-12.
- S2CID 4270939.
- S2CID 29875609. Archived from the original(PDF) on 13 August 2007.
- Kerr, Richard A. (18 May 2001). "Paleoclimate: A Variable Sun and the Maya Collapse" (PDF). ]
- Longhena, Maria (2006). Ancient Mexico: The History and Culture of the Maya, Aztecs, and Other Pre-Columbian Peoples. Neil Davenport (trans.). New York: Barnes & Noble. OCLC 76818561.
- Lucero, Lisa J. (2006). Water and Ritual: The Rise and Fall of Classic Maya Rulers. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-70999-7.
- OCLC 72680543.
- Archaeology. 48 (46). New York: 41–46.
- OCLC 70170414.
- Montgomery, John (2002). How to Read Maya Hieroglyphs. New York: Hippocrene Books. OCLC 47764291.
- OCLC 484868.
- Olson, Mancur (1982). The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities. New Haven, CT: OCLC 8451838.
- OCLC 2458166.
- OCLC 60170399.
- Stuart, Gene S.; George E. Stuart (1993). Lost Kingdoms of the Maya. Washington, DC: OCLC 27012239.
- ISBN 978-0-521-38673-9. Retrieved 11 October 2011.
- ISBN 978-0-8061-2247-2.
- OCLC 1151071.
- Webster, David L. (2002). The Fall of the Ancient Maya: Solving the Mystery of the Maya Collapse. London: Thames and Hudson. OCLC 48753878.
- Weiss, Harvey (1997). "Late Third Millennium Abrupt Climate Change and Social Collapse in West Asia and Egypt". In H. Nüzhet Dalfes; G. Kukla; Harvey Weiss (eds.). Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse. Heidelberg/Berlin: Springer Verlag. pp. 718–720. OCLC 35741821.
- Weiss, Harvey; Raymond S. Bradley (2001-01-26). "What Drives Societal Collapse?" (PDF). S2CID 152574053.
- Wilk, Richard R. (1985). "The Ancient Maya and the Political Present". Journal of Anthropological Research. 41 (3): 307–326. S2CID 146869403.