The Collapse of the Mayan Empire: The Unraveling of the Truth - Essay Example

The Collapse of the Mayan Empire: The Unraveling of the Truth I. Introduction The collapse of the Roman and Egyptian civilizations and many other powerful historical cultures have been gradual, chronologically documented, yet the sudden fall of the Mayan civilization has never been discovered, until now. The fall of the ancient Maya has long been one of the remarkable mysteries of ancient civilizations. However, it is more than just a historical interest. Within the Mayan ruins, in the Peten region of Guatemala close to the border with Mexico, the descendants of the Mayans are increasing in numbers again, and rain forests are being cut down to create fertile farmlands (Science@NASA 2008). In 1521, when the Spanish conquerors started the invasion of Mexico and Central America, they pacified the collapsing vestiges of the Mayan civilization that can be traced back as far as 2000 B.C. The Mayan civilization designed chains of independent cities; some were peopled by 50,000 inhabitants, but obviously related merely through insignificant discrepancies of a generally understood language, trade and commerce. Their deities were identical; their edifices were comparable; their writing system the same. The Mayan civilization was an empire in all its aspects; it was a civilization with sovereigns and priests who had grasped on mathematics, engineering and astronomy, sustained by an agricultural structure that is peasant-based (Adams 1956). Nevertheless, the Mayas are popular because of the mystery regarding the fall of their civilization. There were numbers of assumptions or theories that were formulated. One of the theories is warfare; the impression that the Mayas were tranquil and peaceful inhabitants disappeared prematurely in the explorations. Paintings illustrate warriors, and narrations carved on walls which recount ancient conflicts and battles. Determined archaeologists discovered ruins of fortified and equipped cities. Tulum was enclosed by towering walls on the side facing the land, and by steep cliffs on the coastal zone (Cowgil 1956). Other excavations have unveiled cities that had been fortified swiftly after preliminary construction; temples were battered down to obtain building materials. However, specialists and scholars are troubled whether warfare was as far-reaching and catastrophic as to have been able to wipe out an entire civilization. Even though cities were subjugated, there was no massive destruction of edifices as has in olden times taken place in major defeats (Toner 2003). Evidently, the Mayas simply abandoned their territory and the jungle took advantage. There is no suggestion that disease was the origin of the fall of the ancient Maya. The collapse began prior to the arrival of the Europeans to carry over new diseases from the Old World. Perhaps, the population increased drastically that the agricultural foundation could not provide adequate food supply. In numerous instances, unfinished buildings such as temples appear as if the masons just impulsively decided to put their tools and just walk away. In general, the most sensible and logical assumption is that the peasants staged an uprising in opposition to the nobility and clergy, deserting the cities (Morley 1946). Somewhere in the Mayan civilization were the germs of its foreseeable destruction; what they are once is still a continuing mystery to the world. However, this paper will only focus on one of the most documented and well-supported theory of the fall of the Mayan civilization, which is drought that led to starvation. II. The Fall of the Ancient Maya David Webster, an anthropologist from Pennsylvania, has come up with a compelling theory, supported by recent archaeological discoveries, as to the underlying cause of the collapse of the Mayan civilization in a matter of two centuries after its cultural and political prosperity around 800 A.D. (Winship 2002). Particularly, Webster claims that abandonment of much of the moderately expansive Mayan region encompassing sections of “modern Guatamela, Honduras, Belize and Mexico” (ibid: para 3) was because of the overuse of fertile soil due to excessive farming for the production of sufficient food for the enlarging population. Also, there is a probability that the Mayans experiences severe erosion problem which led to massive deforestation. This then, couples with friction between archenemy territories for arable land, resulted in widespread warfare and political collapse. However, not all Mayans vanished from the region, yet the remaining population was obliterated by extreme starvation. A large number of the Mayan inhabitants fled to the Yucatan peninsula located in the north and the Guatemalan uplands to the south. There were flourishing Mayan city-states in Yucatan the time the Spanish conquerors arrived in the 16th century, and the Mayans who managed to live to tell the tale in the “southeastern highlands of Mexico and adjacent highlands of Guatemala” (Winship 2002: para 5) preserved their language, still spoken by approximately 5 million people (ibid). The Empire in Mesoamerica that collapsed was also known as the Classic Maya. It existed in the jungle situated at the lowlands of southeastern Mexico and the territories afar about 250 A.D. with the emergence of the earliest dynasties of Maya kings. They reinforced an aristocratic culture on an establishment of traditions stretching far back to the evolution from hunting and gathering to sedentary agriculture some centuries earlier (Sabloff 1974). Webster could not have formulated a logical explanation to the mystery of the Maya if it had not been for advancement in decoding the bountifulness of Maya hieroglyphs discovered in manuscripts called codices and also engraved and painted on stone headstones, ceramic containers and other cultural items. By the 1960s a good number of these codices were reasonably legible and because they were dated, information could be determinedly fastened in time. As Webster (2002) testifies, “Inscriptions provide us almost with an embarrassment of riches, and have begun to drive the archaeological enterprise in a manner scarcely imaginable 20 years ago” (48). Historians have adequate information now to dispose of such premature assumptions about the Mayas that had them annihilated through a protracted drought or by disease outbreak, even though Webster does not entirely discount these as probable causal factors to the fall of the Maya. Nevertheless, his theory is strongly anchored in archaeological studies of crop-growing practices, specifically at Copan in Honduras, which is one of the locations where the Webster has personally worked. In the provocative chapters of his book on the collapse of the Mayan civilization, Webster uttered these intriguing and frightening realities of the approaching future, “In the end, neither society nor the sacred order held against the demands of a growing population, environmental deterioration, inept management, elite status rivalries, and the politics of maize (the basis of the Maya diet). One overarching cause seems clearly implicated in the Copan collapse—too many people on a landscape deteriorating through overuse of humans… consistent with the evidence for erosion and deforestation, but also with reduced biological well-being, diminished (human) fertility, internal conflict, ideological fatigues, and the dynamics of growth and decline… We now know that Copan declined not with a bang, but with a whimper” (Webster 2002: 53). Isn’t it that the Mayan experience was just a foretaste of what perhaps may take place to an overcrowded world enduring environmental disintegration, power conflicts and cultural rivalries? Webster uses the ancient Maya as a sample of what the future holds. III. Manipulating the Environment: A Mayan Mistake? New technologies have speed up the discoveries of ancient ruins that were buried in the deep recesses of the earth’s surface thus providing valuable assistance in unveiling the mysteries of the ancient civilizations, particularly the fall of the Mayan civilization. Pictures from space are helping scientist uncover fresh clues about the mysterious decline of one of the most thriving empires in ancient Mesoamerica, the Mayan. Moreover, through these images from space, are provided with hints about the destinies of other ancient civilizations that attempted and fell short in manipulating their environments with impressive public work constructions (Winship 2002). Based on the investigation of the NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on the satellite images, the Maya had made a decisive ecological error at least in the Peten region of Northern Guatemala. Consequently, this ecological mistake resulted in the collapse of one of the most populated territories of ancient America around 800 A.D (Toner 2003). Tom Sever, NASA archaeologist, informed the World Archeological Congress in Washington that, “By about 900 A.D., these people had all but disappeared, and we think we’re beginning to understand why” (ibid: para 3). From several recently unearthed cities and towns, farmlands, roadways, irrigation canals and man-made basins, archaeologists are starting to glimpse the rise and fall of the Mayan Empire in a new perspective, which is one that hits a common thread in the contemporary world that frets about water conflicts, drought and overpopulation (ibid). The Maya at the outset flourished due to the region’s richness in small lakes and ponds. However, as the population increased, the Maya immediately cleared of trees steep slopes to carve a plot for the crops. The consequential erosion blocked natural water channels such as streams and rivers with silt and transformed the lakes into cyclic marshes. To replenish the water than once had been accumulated naturally, the Maya constructed numerous man-made reservoirs. For a moment, engineering appeared to be the key (Haviland 1966). However, with a population density comparable to that of China and every fertile and arable land under nurturing, there were no mechanisms to alleviate difficulties during unproductive periods. Sever stated that, “We calculated that even if all the reservoirs were full, they could only hold enough water to sustain that many people for 18 months” (Toner 2003: para 14). Perhaps between 800 and 900 A.D., a sequence of severe droughts ravaged the region. The reservoirs or basins were consumed up to the last drop and the harvest failed. Sever proclaimed that, “Within 100 years, 95 percent of the population was gone” (ibid: para 15). IV. The Collapse of Classic Maya Civilization in the Southern Lowlands The decline of the Maya Classic civilization of the southern lowlands can be dated back to 9th century A.D., which marked the period in a spectacular manner because of the disappearance of life here forever. Archaeological discoveries show that this civilization had attained its pinnacle, both in population and complexity of its society, prior to the collapse (Puleston 1968). It is probable that the development and intensification of agriculture, which essentially sustained the populations swelling of the Late Classic Period, made the Maya weaker to temporary agricultural calamities. If agricultural terracing, the misuse of insignificant agricultural lands such as grasslands, the growing of crops (Bronson 1966), and a partial reliance upon breadnut produce (Puleston 1968) were all being practiced to sustain the increasing population levels, and if these different features of agriculture were vigilantly planned to permit for maximum labor power to be sidetracked to other, non-agricultural activities, then failures in farming or in food production, if merely of a short-range calamity, could have resulted in unevenness and catastrophes and hence effortlessly stimulated long-term predicament (ibid). Furthermore, intensive slash-and-burn and the more exhaustive use of lands and marshlands would have lessened animal, seafood and mollusk supply and, thus, the availability of animal protein. In the regions of thickest population, such as Tikal, even fuel for cooking for an average Mayan might have turned out to be in short supply (Sabloff and Willey 1967). Pressures on the rainforests and marshlands, and increased and more established human populations would have amplified the risks of disease through insect vectors transferring from host to another host. Furthermore, new land consent and other efforts to expand insignificant food-generating resources would have trimmed down overall labor efficiency hence productivity in agriculture at a period of prolonged and perhaps increasing demand for labor power for ceremonial building, transportation and social regulation (Bronson 1966). V. Dry Spell and Drought Could Have Brought Down the Ancient Maya Scientific researches have reported recently that a 200-year dry spell could have been the decisive cause of the fall of the Mayan civilization. This 200-year dry spell is punctuated by consecutive phases of severe droughts. According to paleo-oceanographer Gerald Haug, “There’s competition for food, there are wars, there’s deforestation, and the climate is drier. These were problems you could cope with to a certain degree—but then you had the extremes. It’s a subtle catalyst” (Gugliotta 2003: para 3-4). Through measuring the intact sediments of Cariaco Basin in Venezuela, Haug’s research team was able to recognize an important decline in regional rainfall initially around A.D. 750, with extensive drought beginning at 810, 869 and 910 (ibid: para 5). On the one hand, there are other scientists, archaeologists and historians that support this assumption. Dr. Fred Valdez, an archaeologist from the University of Texas, labored hard in the wilderness of Belize. He counted Maya farmhouses so as to approximate the probable total population. Remains of earthenware informed him when the region was occupied and his determination guided him to a remarkable conclusion on the mystery of the Mayan civilization made up of a very large population which had been wiped out suddenly. Valdez acknowledges the fact that few factors could be attributed to this, but one of them, the most feasible, was drought (Cecil 2008). National records maintained in Mexico City revealed that, at the onset of the 20th century, the Mayan had endured a drought that lasted for three years; older, colonial documents from the Spanish officials in the province of Yucatan, Mexico, recounting of recurring drought. The accounts of the drought from these historical records depict the cry for help of the Mayan inhabitants and the Spanish authorities as they have endured massive crop failures in 1795 (ibid). The grain ran out of supply which resulted in terrible deaths. Dick Gill, a travelling banker, stumbled in Mexico City. He got caught up with the fascinating mystery of the sudden collapse of the Mayan Empire while he was staying in the region. In his search for the truth behind this historical mystery, he had discovered overwhelming proofs of droughts in the past. He examined numerous documents on meteorology prior to his unearthing of a record labeled “Dendrochoronology, mass balance and glacier fluctuations in Northern Sweden” (Cecil 2008: para 9). It shows that Northern Europe experienced extreme coldness at the time of the Mayan civilizations collapsed. Gill, consulted the meteorological records, and discovered that one of the “high pressure systems in the north Atlantic had moved towards Central America at the start of the 20th century” (ibid: para 10). This finding simply proves one thing, which is that the beginning of the 20th century was both a time of drought in the Mayan regions and extreme cold in northern Europe (ibid). Even though Gill has obtained circumstantial proof regarding the drought theory, Gill still doesn’t possess direct evidence that a destructive drought occurred in the Mayan regions in the ninth century. He at last acquired that substantiation when a research team from the University of Florida examined Lake Chichancanab in Yucatan lands in Mexico. The team was fascinated in historical climates and calculated them by getting interiors of mud from the bed of the lake. The mud had piled up more than thousands of years; the deeper the location of the mud, the more ancient the shells and seeds that are buried in it (ibid). In Gainesville, the team examined tiny shells from every section of the core, and specifically the two kinds of oxygen sheltered in them, which are dense and light. The exteriors of shells during periods of excessive rainfall are prevalently composed of light oxygen. Extra heavy oxygen implies the water in the lake was vanishing at that period. A core belonging to the ninth century showed an extraordinary flow of heavy oxygen, signifying that it was the most parch and arid period in the region for 7,000 years (ibid). VI. Mayan Ruins in Guatemala Indicate Future Droughts The collapse of the Mayan Empire has long been one of the grand mysteries of the ancient civilizations. NASA’s sole archaeologist, Tom Sever, has been taking advantage of satellites to inspect Mayan remains. Coalescing those information with traditional excavated archaeological discoveries, Sever and others have dealt with the piecing together a large portion of what had occurred (NASA 2008). “From pollen trapped in ancient layers of lake sediment, scientists have learned that around 1,200 years ago, just before the civilization’s collapse, tree pollen disappeared almost completely and was replaced by the pollen of weeds. In other words, the region became almost completely deforested” (ibid: para 6). Erosion could have exacerbated because of the excessive cutting down of trees, which also could have washed away fertile topsoil. The region’s temperature must have dramatically increased by as much as 6 degrees, according to mainframe simulations by Bob Oglesby, a NASA climate scientist (ibid). Those increased temperatures would have dehydrated out the ground, making it even less appropriate for growing crops. According to Oglesby, accelerating temperatures would have disturbed rainfall patterns. At the time of the dry spell in the Peten, water is inadequate, and the groundwater is extremely deep to connect with wells. The scarcity of water became a genuine risk, particularly to human life. The Maya could have depended so much on rainwater stocked in reservoirs to subsist; hence an interruption in rainfall could have had dreadful outcomes (ibid). VII. Conclusion The collapse of one of the most fascinating civilizations in Mesoamerica, the Mayan civilization had baffled the minds of scientists, archaeologists and historians alike. This historical curiosity led to the mushrooming of assumptions about the possible cause of the decline of the Mayan empire. Theories ranged from volcanic eruption, earthquakes, other natural calamities, to warfare and conflicts, to political disorders. However, because of much improvement in technology, scientists and archaeologists were able to substantially prove that a persistent natural calamity, induced by man-made activities, wiped out the entire population of the Mayan society; drought or prolonged dry spell has received the most attention among intellectuals. Whatever the underlying cause of the sudden collapse of the Mayan civilization, one thing is clear. History hid some of the important occurrences of the past for future generations to uncover. The excitement and the amazing search for the truth about these ancient mysteries becomes an even more interesting lot because of the clues it shelter about the future. Works Cited Adams, R.M. "Some Hypotheses on the Development of Early Civilizations." American Antiquity (1956): 227-232. Bronson, Bennet. "Roots and the Subsistence of the Ancient Maya." Southwestern Journal of Anthropology (1966): 251-280. Cecil, Jessica. "The Fall of the Mayan Civilization." BBC History (2008): 2-3. Cowgill, G.L. "The End of Classic Maya Culture: A Review of Recent Evidence." Southwestern Journal of Anthropology (1964): 145-159. Gugliotta, Guy. "No Cataclysm Brought Down Maya; New Research Suggests 200-Year Dry Spell and Drought had Big Role in Collapse." The Washington Post (2003). Haviland, W.A. "Social Integration and the Classic Maya." American Antiquity (1966): 625-632. Morley, S.G. The Ancient Maya. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1946. Puleston, D. "New Data from Tikal on Classic Maya Subsistence." Society for American Archaeology (1968). Sabloff, J.A. & Willey, G.R. "The Collapse of Maya Civilization in the Southern Lowland: A Consideration of History and Process." Southwestern Journal of Anthropology (1967): 311-336. Sabloff, Jeremy A. The Rise and Fall of Civilizations: Modern Archaelogical Approaches to Ancient Cultures. Menlo Park, CA: Cummings Publishing, 1974. Science@NASA. "The Rise & Fall of the Mayan Empire." NASA (2008). Toner, Mike. "Mayan Mystery Solution Maybe Ecological Warning." Knight Ridder/ Tribune Business News (2003). Webster, David. The Fall of the Ancient Maya. Thames & Hudson , 2002. Winship, Frederick. "Book Traces the Fall of Mayan Civilization." United Press International (2002). Read More