How the Maya met their end is one of the strangest mysteries in history. However, for some experts, climate change played a fundamental role in its fall.
Climate Change and the disappearance of the Mayas
A study published in December in Science Direct tries to shed light on the disappearance of this civilization.
In this document, several archaeologists from the United States and the United Kingdom have brought together for the first time all the urban centers of the Maya lands, which comprise around 200 different dates and extend through the Yucatán peninsula.
This collection will allow researchers to build a broad picture of when the northern Mayan cities were active and when they might have fallen.
When the Mayan culture flourished
Climatic records show that relatively high rainfall occurred in the region, but from the year 820 AD. C., the area suffered 95 years of drought, some of which lasted for decades.
Most of the Mayan cities fell between the years 850 AD. C. and 925 d. C. —largely coinciding with this century of drought— and were found mainly in the southern part of their territory, in present-day Guatemala and Belize.
However, in the north of the Yucatan peninsula, this civilization not only survived, but began to flourish. If the South has been paralyzed forever by climate change, critics wonder why the North hasn’t.
Until now
Researchers had proposed several explanations, but the investigations by this team of archaeologists significantly change our understanding of when and how the Mayan civilization came to an end. Sure, the 9th century droughts were severe, but the 11th century brought a ‘megadrought’
In this way, the records show that rainfall decreased drastically during most of the century, between the years 1,020 and 1,100 AD. C. This comprehensive analysis confirms that climate change was contemporaneous with not one, but two devastating periods of Maya decline.
If the first wave of drought had wiped out the Maya in the south, the second wave may have caused their demise in the north. After this period, the Mayans would not fully recover again.
With these data, it is more than likely that climate change played a decisive role in the fall of the Mayans, since they were highly dependent on crops.
Thus, years of poor harvests would have gradually diminished their political influence and led to the disintegration of their society, although the exodus of the Maya people could also have been motivated by hunger and the search for water.
The Andean prophecies, mainly the Incas, are centered on the concept of transformation, known as Pachacutec or Pachacuti.