Essay Sample on Influence of Climate Change on the Collapse of Classic Maya Society

Introduction

The collapse of the classic Maya society happened in the 19th century. There were documentations of the decay of ancient Maya cities by created by explorers Catherwood and Stephens. Images exist of temple ruins within the tropical forest representing a vanished Maya world. The reductions in the Maya population was experienced throughout their history. Archaeologists have attempted to study the role of climate change on the depopulation. Even though there is climatic evidence of drought occurring during this period, the evidence provided concerning the collapse is merely coincidental.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

The Mayapan City declined nearly 1450AD, and the collapse of Chichen Itza occurred around 1250AD. Cities to the south of Uxmal towards Copan were flourishing in 1000AD (Douglas, Demarest, Brenner & Canuto, 2016). Others including El Mirador had already collapsed in earlier years. The shreds of evidence provided suggest that cessation occurred across three periods. These are the late Pre-classic period, the Terminal Classic period, and the Early Post-Classic period. Some climatic records show that dry conditions persisted during these periods. However, scholars continue to debate when the collapse specifically took place because millions of people still speak the Mayan language.

The literature on the collapse of the Mayan society mentions factors such as drought, epidemics, hurricanes, warfare, and deforestation. Famine, crop failures, and refugees could have resulted from climate change (Douglas et al., 2016). In effect, these could have resulted in other environmental and social changes leading to the collapse. Therefore, climate change was the main factor leading to the collapse of the Mayan society.

Paleoclimatologists have come up with a comprehensive record of climatic changes for the last few millennia, covering the same period that the literate societies developed in (Makabe, 2017). Until recent times, archaeologists have failed to obtain information on the short-term climatic changes that occurred in the societal evolution period; thus they have been forced to assume that the global climate has not experienced variations in the past six millennia. But records from lacustrine sediments, deep sea, tree rings, and ice cores occurred within the late Holocene. Such events were normally coincidental with twists in human history. Unfortunately, the shortcomings of time-based resolution in paleoclimate records continue being a huge obstacle in the formation of a globally evocative assessment of Holocene changes in climate and their contribution to social change.

Holocene sediments were recovered from Ocean drilling in Cariaco Basin. These sediments which are rich in organic materials are laminated and lack the preservation of benthic faunas, an indication of non-disturbance from burrowing and anoxic deposits. The link between the riverine input and rainfall is evident in the Cariaco Basin's laminated sediments (Torrescano & Islebe, 2015). There is an annual pairing of the sediments as a result of significant variations in wind and rainfall that was experienced in the region responding to seasonal changes in the ITCZ's position. Light-colored laminae mainly comprise of biogenic elements whose deposition occurred in the dry spring-winter upsurge season, whereby the location of the ITCZ is at the most southward position, and the Venezuelan Coast's trade winds are at their strongest.

Instead, the deposition of dark laminae occurs in the summer-fall season when the migration of the ITCZ is towards the furthermost northward position. Laminae that are dark in color are also grained with terrigenous material and exhibit high amounts of lithophilic and Ti elements. We can interpret that the Bulky Ti content as a factor of hydrologic change in the regions, a reflection of the periodic changes in the mean position of the ITCZ, is reinforced by comparing climatic data derived from Titicaca, Yucatan, and Haiti with the record of the Holocene Cariaco.

The concentration of Ti deposited in the last two millennia became very low in 500-200 years B.P (Before Present). This is an indication of a dry climatic condition during that age. Too much Ti and wet conditions were the norms in the interval between the years 1070 and 850 B.P. (Torrescano & Islebe, 2015). This period is usually known as the Medieval warm period. Before the sudden increase in Ti in the year 1070 B.P., the concentration of Ti in sediments took the form of intermediate values.

There are suggestions that the repetitive patterns of drought had a significant impact on the Mayan history. The civilization of the Maya society was formed in a seasonal drought and was contingent on a regular cycle of rain for agricultural support (Wylie, 2016). Mostly, the rain falls in the summer as the ITCZ is at its most northward point over Yucatan. In winter, the location of the ITCZ is in the south, and there is dryness. Therefore, the Maya society was located in the same central position as the Cariaco basin, and both regions close to the ITCZ motion's northward limit.

An extensive southward movement of the ITCZ shown by Cariaco sediment's low Ti leads to the same reduction in rainfall in the Maya lowlands (Braswell, 2014). In a bid to populate the Yucatan lowlands as well as deal with rainfall variations each season, the Maya came up with measures to help with accumulation and storage of water. The Maya created cities with designs that could catch rainwater as well as converting excavations and quarries into water reservoirs. Additionally, they depended on the gradient of the land for the distribution of water into irrigation systems from canals. But, the systems they built depended highly on seasonal rainfall since a majority of the lowland areas had a restriction on their groundwater resources.

Between 750-850 AD, the Mayan society encountered one of the most severe calamities in human history (Braswell, 2014). People abandoned the densely populated areas during the classic collapse, and this marked the end of the Maya civilization. Despite the lack of sufficient explanation in the Cariaco record, there is a view that seasonal variations in rainfall played a major role. Between 550-750 AD, the populations might have been operating at above capacity leaving the population vulnerable to perennial drought.

It is a possibility that during the prolonged periods of abundant rainfall in the pre-classic and classic periods, the population increased significantly (Heckbert, Costanza & Parrott, 2014). To deal with the need for abundant food during this time, deforestation happened to expand agricultural land. This changed the local climate as the amount of rainfall reduced, and there was an increase in soil erosion. The land experienced a downward spiral which with the shifting climate precipitating the situation further. The result of this was political instability including the conflict between cities, civil war, and Kings losing their power. The lack of an authority figure to manage the water sources only led to greater hunger and epidemics. The Mayans had very few options after all the challenges they faced at the time.

At around 1050 AD, the Mayans left the inland regions most likely because of hunger. Upon the entry of the European colonial masters into America in 1500AD, the limestone cities of the Maya society were covered by the jungle, and the Mayans had abandoned the region (Rodriguez-Ramirez et al., 2015). Climate is the most important factor for an agricultural region because a majority of the crops respond highly to the immediate environment. It is no surprise that food security and agriculture have become important subjects of research on climate change in modern times. The average temperature of planet earth has been gradually increasing over the centuries. The Mayan society portrays a historical example of the impact that climate change can have on a complex society.

Conclusion

Overall, most of the evidence on the collapse of the Maya society suggests that climate change was the major factor in the calamity. When there was abundant rainfall in the pre-classic period, there was sufficient food that led to population growth. This population growth necessitated more food hence the Maya people had to clear some of the forest lands to grow food crops. Deforestation led to severe consequences, but reduced rainfall and high winds leading to soil erosion were the major impacts. The resultant drought of the early post-classic period led to warfare and migration of people to other regions as they escaped the drought. Upon the entry of the European colonial masters into America in 1500AD, the limestone cities of the Maya society were covered by the jungle, and the Mayans had abandoned the region. The Mayan cities were covered by the jungle and its people spread out in different locations across the world. Today, there are still people in the world that speak the Mayan language. These people and a few ancient artifacts are the only reminders that the Mayan society existed in the past.

References

Braswell, G. E. (2014). The ancient Maya of Mexico: reinterpreting the past of the northern Maya lowlands. In The Ancient Maya of Mexico (pp. 15-54). Routledge.

Douglas, P. M., Demarest, A. A., Brenner, M., & Canuto, M. A. (2016). Impacts of climate change on the collapse of lowland Maya civilization. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 44, 613-645.

Heckbert, S., Costanza, R., & Parrott, L. (2014). Achieving sustainable societies: lessons from modeling the ancient Maya. Solutions Journal, 5, 55-64.

Makabe, K. (2017). Buying Time: Environmental Collapse and the Future of Energy. University Press of New England.

Rodriguez-Ramirez, A., Caballero, M., Roy, P., Ortega, B., Vazquez-Castro, G., & Lozano-Garcia, S. (2015). Climatic variability and human impact during the last 2000 years in western Mesoamerica: evidence of late Classic (AD 600-900) and Little Ice Age drought events. A climate of the Past, 11(9), 1239-1248.

Torrescano-Valle, N., & Islebe, G. A. (2015). Holocene paleoecology, climate history and human influence in the southwestern Yucatan Peninsula. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 217, 1-8.

Wylie, R. (2016). Severe droughts explain the mysterious fall of the Maya. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160222-severe-droughts-explain-the-mysterious-fall-of-the-maya