Maya Collapse

When the climate was unpredictable the Mayan systems were founded on those rainfall patterns Kennett said. With it, the study suggests, came Maya crop failure, famine, mass migration, and death and lead to urban centers had being abandoned.

Diamond defines collapse as "A large decrease in human population and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a widespread area, for an prolonged time" (3). He developed a unmarried general components outlining how a few of the world’s extraordinary civilizations fell, a technique he explains as "ecocide". Ecocide, as the call suggests, describes a society that destroys the very surroundings upon which they depend, thus making sure its own demise (6). Diamond’s proposed trajectory starts with populace growth, spurring the want for intensified agriculture. This ends in the enlargement of farmland into marginal areas to accommodate greater people.

There was a spicific part in Diomonds Book which mentions "the Maya revolted against their Mexican overlords and a Maya army seemed to be on the verge of victory, the army had to break off fighting and go home to harvest another crop of corn."(166) showing that they had to abandion their millitary campain and go bame to harvest the corn

He describes the Copán collapse as "To judge from datable pieces of obsidian, Copán’s total population decreased more gradually than did its signs of kings and nobles. The estimated population in the year a.d. 950 was still around 15,000, or 54% of the peak population of 27,000. That population continued to dwindle, until there are no more signs of anyone in the Copán Valley by around a.d. 1250." Their collapes was caused by overpopulation, environmental degradation, warfare, shifting trade routes and extended drought.

I would say that the Mayans started off with drought and warfare with the problems in their collapse and had it spiral down and include more factors such as population and environmental degradation. There were lots of factors at play here and these compare to the other collapses like Easter island because they ran out of wood and the Anasazi collapsed because of the droughts.