Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

by Jared Diamond

  Books summarizing the rises and falls of specific cities include David Webster, AnnCorinne Freter, and Nancy Gonlin, Copán: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Maya Kingdom (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 2000); Peter Harrison, The Lords of Tikal (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1999); Stephen Houston, Hieroglyphs and History at Dos Pilas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993); and M. P. Dunning, Lords of the Hills: Ancient Maya Settlement in the Puuc Region, Yucatán, Mexico (Madison, Wis.: Prehistory Press, 1992). For books about Maya history and society not focusing specifically on the collapse, see especially Michael Coe, The Maya, 6th ed. (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1999); also, Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube, Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2000); Robert Sharer, The Ancient Maya (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994); Linda Schele and David Freidel, A Forest of Kings (New York: William Morrow, 1990); and Linda Schele and Mary Miller, The Blood of Kings (New York: Braziller, 1986).

  The two classic books by John Stephens describing his rediscoveries are Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan (New York: Harper, 1841) and Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (New York: Harper, 1843); both have been reprinted by Dover Publications. Victor Wolfgang von Hagen, Maya Explorer (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1948) combines a biography of John Stephens with an account of his discoveries.

  Numerous papers and books by B. L. Turner II discuss aspects of Maya agricultural intensification and population. They include B. L. Turner II, “Prehistoric intensive agriculture in the Mayan lowlands” (Science 185:118-124 (1974)); B. L. Turner II and Peter Harrison, “Prehistoric raised-field agriculture in the Maya lowlands” (Science 213:399-405 (1981)); B. L. Turner II and Peter Harrison, Pull-trouser Swamp: Ancient Maya Habitat, Agriculture, and Settlement in Northern Belize (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983); Thomas Whitmore and B. L. Turner II, “Landscapes of cultivation in Mesoamerica on the eve of the conquest” (Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82:402-425 (1992)); and B. L. Turner II and K. W. Butzer “The Columbian encounter and land-use change” (Environment 43:16-20 and 37-44 (1992)).

  Recent articles describing in detail the studies of lake cores that provide evidence for links between droughts and Maya collapses include Mark Brenner et al., “Paleolimnology of the Maya lowlands: long-term perspectives on interactions among climate, environment, and humans” (Ancient Mesoamerica 13:141-157 (2002)) (see also other articles on pp. 79-170 and 265-345 of the same volume); David Hodell et al., “Solar forcing of drought frequency in the Maya lowlands” (Science 292:1367-1370 (2001)); Jason Curtis et al., “Climate variability of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico) during the past 3500 years, and implications for Maya cultural evolution” (Quaternary Research 46:37-47 (1996)); and David Hodell et al., “Possible role of climate in the collapse of Classic Maya civilization” (Nature 375: 391-394 (1995)). Two articles by the same group of scientists discussing drought inferences from lake cores specifically for the Petén region are: Michael Rosenmeier, “A 4,000-year lacustrine record of environmental change in the southern Maya lowlands, Petén, Guatemala” (Quaternary Research 57:183-190 (2002)); and Jason Curtis et al., “A multi-proxy study of Holocene environmental change in the Maya lowlands of Peten, Guatemala” (Journal of Paleolimnology 19:139-159 (1998)). Supplementing these studies of lake sediments, Gerald Haug et al., “Climate and the collapse of Maya civilization” (Science 299:1731-1735 (2003)) extract year-to-year rainfall changes by analyzing sediments washed by rivers into the ocean.

  No one interested in the Maya should miss Mary Ellen Miller, The Murals of Bonampak (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), with its beautiful color as well as black-and-white reproductions of the murals and their grisly torture scenes; nor Justin Kerr’s series of volumes reproducing Maya pottery, The Maya Vase Book (New York: Kerr Associates, various dates). The fascinating story of how Maya writing was deciphered is related by Michael Coe, Breaking the Maya Code, 2nd ed. (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1999), and Stephen Houston, Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazareigos, and David Stuart, The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 2001). The reservoirs of Tikal are described by Vernon Scarborough and Gari Gallopin, “A water storage adaptation in the Maya lowlands” (Science 251:658-662 (1991)). Lisa Lucero’s article “The collapse of the Classic Maya: a case for the role of water control” (American Anthropologist 104:814-826 (2002)) explains why differing local water problems might have contributed to the non-uniformity of the Classic collapse, with different cities meeting differing fates at different dates. Arturo Gómez-Pompa, José Salvador Flores, and Victoria Sosa, “The ‘pet kot’: a man-made tropical forest of the Maya” (Interciencia 12:10-15 (1987)) describe Maya cultivation of forest patches with useful trees. Timothy Beach, “Soil catenas, tropical deforestation, and ancient and contemporary soil erosion in the Petén, Guatemala” (Physical Geography 19:378-405 (1998)) shows that the Maya in some areas but not in others were able to reduce soil erosion by terracing. Richard Hansen et al., “Climatic and environmental variability in the rise of Maya civilization: a preliminary perspective from northern Petén” (Ancient Mesoamerica 13:273-295 (2002)) presents a multidisciplinary study of an area densely populated already in pre-Classic times, and yielding evidence for plaster production as a driving force behind deforestation there.

  Chapters 6-8

  Vikings: The North Atlanta Saga, edited by William Fitzhugh and Elisabeth Ward (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000), is a multiauthored volume, beautifully illustrated in color, whose 31 chapters cover in detail the Vikings’ society, their expansion over Europe, and their North Atlantic colonies. Shorter, single-authored overviews of the Vikings include Eric Christiansen, The Norsemen in the Viking Age (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), F. Donald Logan, The Vikings in History, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 1991), and Else Roestahl, The Vikings (New York: Penguin, 1987). Gwyn Jones, Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986) and G. J. Marcus, The Conquest of the North Atlantic (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981) are instead concerned specifically with the Vikings’ three remote North Atlantic colonies of Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland. A useful additional feature of Jones’s book is that among its appendices are translations of the most relevant saga source documents, including the Book of the Icelanders, both of the Vinland sagas, and the Story of Einar Sokkason.

  Two recent books summarizing Iceland’s history are Jesse Byock, Viking Age Iceland (New York: Penguin Putnam, 2001), which takes the story up to the end of the Icelandic Commonwealth in 1262-1264, and which builds on the same author’s earlier Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Present (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); and Gunnar Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 Years: the History of a Marginal Society (London: Hurst, 2000), which covers not only the medieval but also the modern era. Environmental Change in Iceland: Past and Present (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991), edited by Judith Maizels and Chris Caseldine, is a more technical, multiauthored account of Iceland’s environmental history. Kirsten Hastrup, Island of Anthropology: Studies in Past and Present Iceland (Viborg: Odense University Press, 1990) collects the author’s anthropological papers on Iceland. The Sagas of Icelanders: a Selection (New York: Penguin, 1997) offers translations of 17 of the sagas (including the two Vinland sagas), drawn from a five-volume The Complete Sagas of Icelanders (Reykjavík: Leifur Eiriksson, 1997).

  Two related papers on landscape change in Iceland are Andrew Dugmore et al., “Tephrochronology, environmental change and the Norse settlement of Iceland” (Environmental Archaeology 5:21-34 (2000)), and Ian Simpson et al., “Crossing the thresholds: human ecology and historical patterns of landscape degradation” (Catena 42:175-192 (2001)). Because each insect species has specific habitat and climate requirements, Paul Buckland and his colleagues have been able to use insects preserved at archaeological sites as environmental indicators. Their papers include Gudrún Sveinbjarnardóttir et al. “Landscape change in Eyjafjallasveit, Southern Ice
land” (Norsk Geog. Tidsskr 36:75-88 (1982)); Paul Buckland et al., “Late Holocene palaeoecology at Ketilsstadir in Myrdalur, South Iceland” (Jökull 36:41-55 (1986)); Paul Buckland et al., “Holt in Eyjafjallasveit, Iceland: a paleoecological study of the impact of Landnám” (Acta Archaeologica 61:252-271 (1991)); Gudrún Sveinbjarnardóttir et al., “Shielings in Iceland: an archaeological and historical survey” (Acta Archaeologica 61:74-96 (1991)); Paul Buckland et al., “Palaeoecological investigations at Reykholt, Western Iceland,” pp. 149-168 in C. D. Morris and D. J. Rackhan, eds., Norse and Later Settlement and Subsistence in the North Atlantic (Glasgow: Glasgow University Press, 1992); and Paul Buckland et al., “An insect’s eye-view of the Norse farm,” pp. 518-528 in Colleen Batey et al., eds., The Viking Age in Caithness, Orkney and the North Atlantic (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993). The same insect-based approach to understanding environmental change in the Faeroe Islands is used by Kevin Edwards et al., “Landscapes at landnám: palynological and palaeoentomological evidence from Toftanes, Faroe Islands” (Fródskaparrit 46:177-192 (1998)).

  Two books assemble in detail the available information on Norse Greenland: Kirsten Seaver, The Frozen Echo: Greenland and Exploration of North America ca. A.D. 1000-1500 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996), and Finn Gad, The History of Greenland, vol. I: Earliest Times to 1700 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1971). A subsequent book by Finn Gad, The History of Greenland, vol. II: 1700-1782 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1973), continues the story through the period of Greenland’s “rediscovery” and Danish colonization. Niels Lynnerup reported on his analysis of the available Norse skeletons from Greenland in his monograph The Greenland Norse: a Biologic-Anthropological Study (Copenhagen: Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland, 1998). Two multiauthored monographs with many papers on the Inuit and their Native American predecessors in Greenland are Martin Appelt and Hans Christian Gullóv, eds., Late Dorset in High Arctic Greenland (Copenhagen: Danish Polar Center, 1999), and Martin Appelt et al., eds., Identities and Cultural Contacts in the Arctic (Copenhagen: Danish Polar Center, 2000). An intimately personal insight into the lives of Greenland Inuit was gained from the discovery of six women, a child, and an infant who died and were buried around 1475, and whose bodies and clothing remained well preserved because of the cold dry climate. Those mummies are described and illustrated in Jens Peder Hart Hansen et al., eds., The Greenland Mummies (London: British Museum Press, 1991); the book’s cover is a haunting, unforgettable photograph of the face of the six-month-old infant.

  The two most important series of archaeological studies of the Greenland Norse within the last 20 years have been by Thomas McGovern and by Jette Arneborg and their colleagues. Among McGovern’s papers are Thomas McGovern, “The Vinland adventure: a North Atlantic perspective” (North American Archaeologist 2:285-308 (1981)); Thomas McGovern, “Contributions to the paleoeconomy of Norse Greenland” (Acta Archaeologica 54:73-122 (1985)); Thomas McGovern et al., “Northern islands, human era, and environmental degradation: a view of social and ecological change in the medieval North Atlantic” (Human Ecology 16:225-270 (1988)); Thomas McGovern, “Climate, correlation, and causation in Norse Greenland” (Arctic Anthropology 28:77-100 (1991)); Thomas McGovern et al., “A vertebrate zooarchaeology of Sandnes V51: economic change at a chieftain’s farm in West Greenland” (Arctic Anthropology 33:94-121 (1996)); Thomas Amorosi et al., “Raiding the landscape: human impact from the Scandinavian North Atlantic” (Human Ecology 25:491-518 (1997)); and Tom Amorosi et al., “They did not live by grass alone: the politics and paleoecology of animal fodder in the North Atlantic region” (Environmental Archaeology 1:41-54 (1998)). Arneborg’s papers include Jette Arneborg, “The Roman church in Norse Greenland” (Acta Archaeologica 61:142-150 (1990)); Jette Arneborg, “Contact between Eskimos and Norsemen in Greenland: a review of the evidence,” pp. 23-35 in Tvaerfaglige Vikingesymposium (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University, 1993); Jette Arneborg, “Burgundian caps, Basques and dead Norsemen at Herjolfsnaes, Greenland,” pp. 75-83 in Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1996); and Jette Arneborg et al., “Change of diet of the Greenland Vikings determined from stable carbon isotope analysis and 14C dating of their bones” (Radiocarbon 41:157-168 (1999)). Among the Greenland sites that Arneborg and her colleagues excavated was the remarkable “Farm beneath the sand,” a large Norse farm sealed under a thick layer of sand at Western Settlement; that site and several other Greenland sites are described in a monograph edited by Jette Arneborg and Hans Christian Gullóv, Man, Culture and Environment in Ancient Greenland (Copenhagen: Danish Polar Center, 1998). C. L. Vebaek described his excavations from 1945 to 1962 in three monographs: respectively numbers 14, 17, and 18 (1991, 1992, and 1993) in the series Meddelelser om Grónland, Man and Society, Copenhagen: The Church Topography of the Eastern Settlement and the Excavation of the Benedictine Convent at Narsarsuaq in the Uunartoq Fjord; Vatnahverfi: An Inland District of the Eastern Settlement in Greenland; and Narsaq: A Norse Landnáma Farm.

  Among important individual papers on Norse Greenland are Robert McGhee, “Contact between Native North Americans and the medieval Norse: a review of the evidence” (American Antiquity 49:4-26 (1984)); Joel Berglund, “The decline of the Norse settlements in Greenland” (Arctic Anthropology 23:109-135 (1986)); Svend Albrethsen and Christian Keller, “The use of the saeter in medieval Norse farming in Greenland” (Arctic Anthropology 23:91-107 (1986)); Christian Keller, “Vikings in the West Atlantic: a model of Norse Greenlandic medieval society” (Acta Archaeologica 61:126-141 (1990)); Bent Fredskild, “Agriculture in a marginal area: South Greenland from the Norse landnam (1985 A.D.) to the present 1985 A.D.,” pp. 381-393 in Hilary Birks et al., eds., The Cultural Landscape: Past, Present and Future (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Bent Fredskild, “Erosion and vegetational changes in South Greenland caused by agriculture” (Geografisk Tidsskrift 92:14-21 (1992)); and Bjarne Jakobsen “Soil resources and soil erosion in the Norse Settlement area of Østerbygden in southern Greenland” (Acta Borealia 1:56-68 (1991)).

  Chapter 9

  Three books, excellent in different ways, that portray New Guinea highland societies are: a historical account by Gavin Souter, New Guinea: the Last Unknown (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1964); Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson, First Contact (New York: Viking, 1987), a moving account of the first encounters of highland New Guineans with Europeans; and Tim Flannery, Throwim Way Leg (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998), a zoologist’s experiences with highlanders. Two papers by R. Michael Bourke discuss casuarina agroforestry and other agricultural practices maintaining soil fertility in the New Guinea highlands: “Indigenous conservation farming practices,” Report of the Joint ASOCON/Commonwealth Workshop, pp. 67-71 (Jakarta: Asia Soil Conservation Network, 1991), and “Management of fallow species composition with tree planting in Papua New Guinea,” Resource Management in Asia/Pacific Working Paper 1997/5 (Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australia National University, 1997). Three papers by Simon Haberle summarize the paleobotanical evidence for reconstructing the history of casuarina agroforestry: “Paleoenvironmental changes in the eastern highlands of Papua New Guinea” (Archaeology in Oceania 31:1-11 (1996)); “Dating the evidence for agricultural change in the Highlands of New Guinea: the last 2000 years” (Australian Archaeology no. 47:1-19 (1998)); and S. G. Haberle, G. S. Hope, and Y. de Fretes, “Environmental change in the Baliem Valley, montane Irian Jaya, Republic of Indonesia” (Journal of Biogeography 18:25-40 (1991)).

  Patrick Kirch and Douglas Yen described their fieldwork on Tikopia in the monograph Tikopia: The Prehistory and Ecology of a Polynesia Outlier (Honolulu: Bishop Museum Bulletin 238, 1982). Subsequent accounts of Tikopia by Kirch include “Exchange systems and inter-island contact in the transformation of an island society: the Tikopia case,” pp. 33-41 in Patrick Kirch, ed., Island Societies: Archaeological Approaches to Evolution and Transformation (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986); Chapter 12 of his book The Wet and the Dry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994); “Tikopia social space revisited,” pp. 257-274 in J. M. Davidson et al., eds., Oceanic Culture History: Essays in Honour of Roger Green (New Zealand Journal of Archaeology Special Publication, 1996); and “Microcosmic histories: island perspectives on ‘global’ change” (American Anthropologist 99:30-42 (1997)). Raymond Firth’s series of books on Tikopia began with We, the Tikopia (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1936) and Primitive Polynesian Economy (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1939). The extirpations of bird populations during the earliest phase of Tikopian settlement are described by David Steadman, Dominique Pahlavin, and Patrick Kirch, “Extinction, biogeography, and human exploitation of birds on Tikopia and Anuta, Polynesian outliers in the Solomon Islands” (Bishop Museum Occasional Papers 30:118-153 (1990)). For an account of population changes and population regulation on Tikopia, see W. D. Borrie, Raymond Firth, and James Spillius, “The population of Tikopia, 1929 and 1952” (Population Studies 10:229-252 (1957)).