Knowledge of history is key to the survival of civilization. It is important to understand how people lived before and what mistakes they made that led to entire nations fading from existence. The Mayan civilization is an excellent example of a nation collapsing, and the mystery of its failure continues to intrigue people around the world. This essay will consider how the collapse of the Maya and how the relationship of the Mayans with nature led to their downfall.
The Mayan civilization was a nation in Mesoamerica developed by the Maya people. Several theories have been proposed to explain the collapse of the Mayan empire. Five major theories concern a sudden catastrophic collapse such as a peasant revolt, foreign invasion, famine, a major epidemic, or an earthquake that led to a rapid decrease in population (“Out of the Past – Collapse”). An additional ecological theory suggests that the biological environment changed substantially, forcing the Mayan people to move and eventually leading to their disappearance.
It should be noted that traditionally the researchers focused their attention on the study of royal dynasties of the Mayan civilizations and the noble classes. The commoners, peasants, and enslaved people were under-researched due to this. Nevertheless, the common people, such as farmers and other workers, played a crucial role in the rise of ancient city-states, such as the Mayan city of Copan. They ensured the city could operate and grow by providing it with produce and other necessary items and services for the functioning of society. This is supported by the evidence discovered near the city-state of Copan, where dwellings of common people were located near vast artificially created farmlands (“Out of the Past – Collapse”). The large number of homes near the royal center suggests the fast growth of the city-state.
The fall of a city-state such as Copan affected both the ruling elite and the working-class people. However, it can be argued that the elite of the city-states was impacted more than the commoners. The gradual decline of the population of Copan is indicative of this fact. It should be taken into account that the last ruler, the sixteenth king in the royal dynasty of the city-state, was recorded to have lived in the 8th century (“Out of the Past – Collapse”). Meanwhile, the common people of Copan lived and worked in the vicinity of the royal center of Copan for approximately three more centuries (“Out of the Past – Collapse”). Therefore, both the elite and the commoners were affected, albeit at different rates.
Copan was one of the largest city-states of the Mayan civilizations. A crucial aspect of Mayan cities was a presence of a royal ruling line. In Copan, dynastic altars, royal burials, and palace ruins that indicate the presence of such a line were discovered (“Out of the Past – Collapse”). For example, altar Q, the great dynastic altar, shows the lineage of the royal dynasty of Copan. It illustrates that the last ruler of the city-state derives his right to rule from his ancestors (“Out of the Past – Collapse”). Altar Q shows the founder of the city passing the baton of office to the next ruler until the last king of Copan. Meanwhile, Altar L is the last constructed altar in the city-state of Copan. The single carved side of the altar shows the would-be seventeenth ruler of Copan (“Out of the Past – Collapse”). However, the top and three sides of the altar remained unfinished (“Out of the Past – Collapse”). Altar Q and Altar L are of great significance as they show the dynasty of the Copan city-state at its peak and the moment of decline.
The sudden collapse of the Mayan city-states intrigued researchers for centuries. However, novel dating techniques indicate that the fall of Copan and other Mayan city-states was more gradual than initially thought. Specifically, data suggests that people lived in Copan until at least 1150 AD instead of the originally proposed 850 AD (“Out of the Past – Collapse”). Thus, the population of Copan decreased gradually between 850 AD and 1150 AD. It is assumed that the people of the city-state overexploited the earth, which could no longer fulfill the crop needs of the growing population (“Out of the Past – Collapse”). Excavation of archeological sites in the vicinity of Copan indicates that the Mayans used all available to them, including steep hillside slopes (“Out of the Past – Collapse”). The archeological site shows that the soil on the Copan farmlands eroded because it was overworked and was not capable of bearing a requisite amount of crops. Therefore, the Mayan civilization gradually collapsed because of food shortages caused by failures in agriculture.
In order to get the revolutionary data on the Mayan collapse, three types of dating techniques were used. Specifically, obsidian hydration dating, pollen samples analysis, and skeletal remains analysis were utilized. As natural glass, the obsidian surface absorbs water and humidity, forming a hydration layer (“Out of the Past – Collapse”). The obsidian hydration dating allows to determine the rate of water diffusion into the glass surface and calculate the period for this diffusion through hydration layer measurement (Liritzis and Laskaris 52). Meanwhile, an analysis of pollen samples helps clarify the changes in the ancient landscape. In order to establish whether people used the land, individual pollens in the collected dated samples are counted to show the prevalence of specific plants (“Out of the Past – Collapse”). For example, a large count of corn pollen indicates that land was being farmed, while a significant number of pine pollen shows it was no longer being cultivated. In addition, the skeletal analysis was utilized to show substantial iron deficiency both among the elites and the commoners, indicative of malnutrition.
The example of the Mayan civilization and its collapse shows that population growth does test the limits of resource production. Specifically, this tendency is reflected in the relationship between communities and the land they occupy. The faster the population grows, the more food is required to sustain it. Therefore, the farmers are forced to overwork and overexploit the limited land they have access to. However, this inevitably leads to them being unable to grow the necessary amount of produce, resulting in limited resources being available to the population and its consequent decline.
In summary, it can be argued that human responses to the environment and climate barely changed over the centuries. According to the video, modern nations show the same inclination to fulfill their needs by exploiting the natural resources available to them as the ancient civilizations before them (“Out of the Past – Collapse”). Overpopulation and the fast population growth rates lead to the farmlands being overworked and people being relocated to new territories in order to be able to sustain themselves. However, such relocations can lead to an environmental disaster as many vital natural resources disappear. In particular, non-western societies are largely agrarian nations characterized by fast population growth rates and low mortality (“Out of the Past – Collapse”). Due to the high demand for produce, these societies tend to overutilize the farmlands available to them to keep up with the demands of society. It is projected that improvements in agricultural production cannot keep pace with the growing population of non-Western countries. Therefore, urgent measures are required to address the impending crisis.
Works Cited
Liritzis, Ιoannis, and Nikolaos Laskaris. “Archaeological Obsidian Hydration Dating with Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry: Current Status.” Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, vol. 21, no. 3, 2021, pp. 51-67.
“Out of the Past – Collapse.” YouTube, 2019, Web.