Disappearance of Mayan Civilization

The Disappearance of the Mayan Civilization

World Cultures I

From around 1800 B.C. to approximately A.D. 900, a portion of the land we now call Central America was occupied by a group of people we call the Mayans. Despite their advanced skills in mathematics, calendar-making, and agriculture the Mayan civilization came to an end sooner than one would expect for such a sophisticated people.

Many find the disappearance of the Mayans from their homeland to be very mysterious. With the suspicion comes a host of theories of possible causes. A few scholars have suggested that the Mayan civilization dissipated because they depleted the land of the natural resources they needed to sustain life. Some scholars also believe the civilization rapidly declined due to warfare among the people. Severe droughts have also been suggested as a possible cause. Like the scholars mentioned above, some archeologists support those theories but ultimately believe that “the root cause was a chronic food and water shortage, due to some combination of natural drought and deforestation by humans” (NASA, 2011).

In my opinion it is most likely that the Mayans were their own worst enemy when it comes to survival. I believe that the decline in their civilization was caused by their lack of conservation of their environment. I don’t doubt the existence of droughts and war but I think that excessive deforestation played the greatest role in their downfall. According to NASA (2011), “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.” In today’s modern societies, we have found ways to supplement or artificially replace some of our natural resources but the Mayan people did not have that type of technology and were solely dependent on the land.