Essay Example on the Maya Collapse: A Dark Chapter in History

Introduction

The ultimate classic historical phase in Mesoamerica experienced one of the most intense civilization collapses in history. Within a century, once with great cities, the traditional Maya civilization fell into enduring decline and was abandoned and left to ruin to be reclaimed by the jungle and disappear from human memory for centuries. Some northern Maya cities prospered immensely in that period, and so did the Maya along the Gulf Coast and central highlands of Mexico. However, a wide area of the Maya in southern lowlands, the period was nothing short of a disaster as it was one of the most profound social and demographic calamities of all human history as described by historians. This paper presents a combination of factors that caused the collapse of Classical Maya.

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History of Maya

The Maya Empire is centered in the tropical lowlands of what is now known as Guatemala, reached the high point of its power in the sixth A.D. The Maya did well in agriculture, pottery, writing, calendar-making, and mathematics. They left an incredible and impressive amount of architecture and symbolic work. Most of the great stone cities of the Maya were abandoned by A.D. 900, and since the 19th-century, scholars have argued what might have caused its abrupt decline. The Maya civilization was one of the most dominant societies of Mesoamerica, and the Maya were centered in one geographical region covering all of the Yucatan Peninsula and modern-day Guatemala. This concentration showed that Maya kept on being secure from invasion by other Mesoamerican communities. The Maya lived in three separate areas with diverse cultural and environmental differences. These areas consisted of the northern Maya, lowlands on the Yucatan Peninsula, and the southern lowlands in the Paten district from north Guatemala. The Maya of the southern lowland region reached their peak during the Classic period of Maya civilization (A.D. 250 to 900) and built the great stone cities and structures that have excited archeologists and scholars to date.

Three Main Factors

Maya historians have generally come up with a combination of three main factors that could have caused the Maya collapse: Ware between cities, overpopulation, and environmental factors.

Warfare

Warfare had been part of Maya culture for a long time, but it became intense with time before the collapse so that cities began fortifying themselves against attacks. Warfare had been a token in that defeat resulted in only a small number of essential individuals being taken as captives. The Mayans were violent people. They believed the war was crucial because it gave them prestige when they took over neighboring city-states and captured prisoners either enslave or make them sacrifice. By the late classic period, the war became more destructive to those involved with the downfall of territories and taking victims as captives became a priority. The reason for capturing many people was to increase agricultural production and attain resources and the latter to impress the gods and get back to the more stable times of earlier centuries.

Overpopulation

Another main factor that led to the collapse of Mayan civilization was overpopulation in that strained food production increased to unsustainable capacities. Maya cities and outlying settlements were densely populated than previously anticipated. Moreover, Maya's lowlands suffered a steady series of droughts. However, not all towns suffered from drought as some rivers and lakes never dried up. Areas facing water shortages, insufficient rain, and regular crop failures affected the more substantial part of the population since they were farmers. Due to drought and crop failure, the broader community attacked the elite ruling class since they proved to no longer be the protectors of the society or have links to gods such as the god of rain. With the subsequent collapse of structures and city infrastructure, those who lived in Maya lowlands migrated to the north and south since the swamps were isolated after the collapse.

Environmental Factors

In the centuries before the Maya collapse, so presumed "Classical Age" enjoyed civilization as cities flourished and harvests were good. Climate records, which mostly came from cave formations, showed during that time Maya had experienced relatively good rainfall. However, droughts became a significant factor in the fall of the Mayan civilization. The constant drying led to increased warfare and the division of political states. Long durations of drought happened amid population collapse, which marked the end of the Classic Maya civilization. Before the drought, researchers had suggested soil erosion as the cause of civilizations' downfall. The Mayans cut down trees to create more space for farming land resulting in soil erosion that would have made farming challenging.

Widespread deforestation reduced the flow of moisture from the ground to the atmosphere, interrupting the natural rain cycle and in turn, reduced crop productivity. However, drought remained the main factor, and the Maya religious and political systems were based on the belief that rulers were in direct communication with the gods. Whenever there was no rain, they were to be blamed as tensions rose. This, in turn, caused massive political disintegration, and the power of the rulers deteriorated. There was no longer an authority for resources management, leading to more hunger and anger, followed by epidemics. Considering the climatic change and political division, the Maya ran out of options. She abandoned some of the regions, and their exit might have been caused by hunger and other calamities that came with harsh climatic conditions - additionally, the factor of corrupt farming practices such as slash and burn mechanism. Maya agriculture was reliant on the farming method, which resulted in soil exhaustion. Other severe farming mechanisms such as canals, seasonal swamping, dikes, and dams were used by the entire Mesoamerican civilization to support food supply and favor them compared to other societies. All these mechanisms required a lot of water leading to the decline of Maya, which was a result of reduced productivity due to climatic changes

However, some archeologists still argue that the environmental theory doesn't fit their findings, mainly due to the complicated process that involves inconsistencies between the water supplies and the timing of their collapse. They still believe that the destruction of the Maya civilization is not entirely solved, and the theory does not represent the pattern of the entire region.

Apart from the three main factors, there was another factor that led to the collapse of Maya, such as external military attacks: This theory is backed by particular archeological discoveries that show a demonstration of a figure in a mask of Ehecatl. They found iconographic elements and works of pottery and tools that were not consistent with the Classic Mayan model, suggesting that foreign invaders drove the Mayan from the region. There was also the existence of an Orange pottery that was made in the Gulf Coast. Despite the descriptions, the evidence on external threats does not significantly add up as little proof is available on the deliberate destruction of cities. Furthermore, scientists believe that it was unlikely that a singular military force could wipe out the entire region and perceive that it was not solely foreign controversy. Internal conflict, coupled with outside invaders, could have ultimately led to the fall of Maya civilization.

Another factor that could have led to the fall of Maya society was due to the collapse of trade routes. Maya civilization collapse could be connected to the fall of different trade exchanges, especially with Teotihuacan, a central Mexican city. Due to advanced knowledge in the accounting of Mesoamerica, there were forced rearrangement of economic relations across the Gulf Coast and Highland Mesoamerica civilizations, which led to the collapse of Teotihuacan during 700-750. The reformation of commercial associations between regions was viewed to have guaranteed the fall of Maya civilization with time. Additionally, the Teotihuacan civilization began losing its influence and thus creating chances that they began to leave the city. The shift of trade-in Maya islands occurred during the lowland depopulation and coastal emergence. Moreover, the goods brought in lowlands were necessary for the ruling elite to demonstrate and maintain their high positions of the social class, so the declining of these goods added pressure to their legitimacy as the ruling class, so the decreased access to products brought about the chaos and isolation of the lowlands.

Conclusion

The most rational explanation, then, for the Classic Maya is a combination of inter-connected factors. Warfare, social disorder, overpopulation, and unfavorable climatic conditions combined. Various changes facilitated various forces that resulted in the fall of Maya. The fall of Maya is one of history's greatest mysteries. It was one of the most advanced and developed civilizations of its time, reigning during the pre-classic period and into the Classic and Post-Classic periods. At the very center of this mystery is the question of how could such a robust and stable civilization that had flourished for a long time, disappear without a clear and rational explanation. As a result, researchers have come up with a couple of theories for the description of the collapse of and subsequent annihilation of the Mayan Empire.

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