The Classic Maya Collapse

Since the Collapse of the once strong Classic Maya civilization, archeologists have tried to unearth and understand what caused such a big society to perish. There are many theories to why the Classic Maya had their falling, but the one that will be focused on this research will be the collapse due to lack of sufficient rainfall causing prolonged periods of drought.

According to Joseph A. Tainter in the Annual Review of Anthropology, a collapse is defined as “…a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economical/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time.”(Tainter, 2006) With Mr. Tainter’s definition of collapse, I will be focusing on one specific civilization, what led to their falling as a society

(Webster et al. 2007) The dates of the last monuments and stelae found to correlate with the relevance of the drought periods the Mayan experienced in the lowlands. Furthermore, other evidence that showed that there was a collapse in the Mayan civilization was left behind artifacts such as ceramic figures and jadeite ornaments. These artifacts are small objects of value that where easy to transport in the event of a non-returnable abandonment. When Materials are left behind it is a sign of desertion of a site and suggest that the people left rather abruptly with no intention of return.(Simms, 2012) The theory that drought was the main cause of the fall the Mayan was also backed up with testing color and stable isotopes in samples of Macal Chasm stalagmite found in a cave in Belize. The samples showed that there was a prolonged drought around the same time that the Classic Maya civilization was abandoned and collapsed. Drought was probably the initiating factor in the decline of the Maya civilization, but not being able to sustain proper agriculture because of little rainfall to support the populations needs is probably what led to the final push to the societies collapse (Webster et al.

One plausible belief to what could lead to our future collapse is ignoring our very own climate crisis. In the recent years there has been an unsustainable rate of greenhouse emissions that have been raising red flags. The problem is that our society has been having a slow response to the emerging climate crisis and by the time action has been taken, it may be too late and we will have led ourselves into a global collapse (Randers, 2008). In the recent years, climate fluctuation has been becoming more of a concern and the discussion for reducing the harm of greenhouse gasses has been reviewed. One of the main reasons for the cause of climate changes is greenhouse gas emission. “Current emissions are several times higher than the sustainable level, and increasing.”(Randers, 2008) The climate has been having drastic changes due to the amount of burning fossil fuels and deforestation that deteriorates the ozone layer and changes the global temperature. The reduction of greenhouses is possible, but even if we stop man-made emissions tomorrow it would still take about a hundred years until the emissions levels ware able to arrive to the pre-industrial levels because of the inertia in the global system. (Randers,