More than a century of severe drought quickly overcame the technological factor of safety constructed by Maya engineers. The intensity and length of the great drought was more powerful than Maya attempts at technological solutions to overcome the shortage of rainfall. The great drought overwhelmed the short-term efforts for survival created by Maya engineers. The totality of the overpowering effect of the great drought, volcanic eruptions, and environmental abuse by the Maya dashed man’s feeble attempt to deter Mother Nature when her course was set on an environmental catastrophe. Technology created the overpopulation and it failed them; the Maya were left at mercy of Mother Nature’s capricious disposition.
The Failure of Technology and the Collapse of Maya Civilization
Maya technology displayed its proud achievements in the construction of large cities and its triumph over the environment. Technology enabled the Maya to enjoy reliable water supplies and high agriculture yields that resulted in an artificially high population, one that could not be supported by the natural resources of the Yucatán Peninsula using traditional methods of farming. The support of this overpopulation could only be achieved with technological innovation. Maya technology contributed to the disaster by its continuous construction programs with its needs for cement and timber. The demands for fueling the kilns with timber when producing cement for construction, land for expansion of agriculture, and fuel for domestic use resulted in deforestation of the lush rainforest of the city-states. This loss of forest cover resulted in the erosion of agriculture areas. The demands of the dense population and environmental damage due to deforestation were leading Maya society toward disaster even before the great drought began its fatal stranglehold on the culture.
The advantage of technology combined with 600 years of lush rainy seasons had resulted in an over-confident society unaware that it was teetering on the edge of environmental disaster and unaware of the history of severe droughts in the Yucatán. Technology had been able to balance the basic needs of the over-populated Maya domain, as long as there were regular cycles of rainy seasons.
Archaeological research has linked the abandonment of Maya cities with the last dates recorded on stone structures in major cities. The collapse of the civilization can be traced to a distinct time period for each phase of abandonment. The initial phase occurred in the Petén from AD 760 to AD 810. The second phase was in the South Highlands between AD 811 and AD 860, and the cities failed in the third phase, occurring in the Northern lowlands, which had a more dependable water supply and was the last to collapse, between AD 860 and AD 910.
When the great drought increased during the mid-eighth century, the water reserves in the reservoirs quickly depleted, crops failed, and the Maya searched for a solution to aid in their survival. In a land without surface water and the lack of a viable aquifer, there was little that could be done without the return of rainfall. The choices were migration or taking action to alter the political power system that controlled the supply of water.
When Mother Nature finally released her grip on the Maya, the terrible drought had caused the classic collapse and destroyed the Maya civilization. The cities had been abandoned, and 98 percent of the population had died. Richardson Gill reports that he has catalogued more than 100 theories that have been advanced relative to the cause of the collapse. The root cause of the collapse of the Maya civilization was the drought and the failure of technology. However, each of the 100 theories probably had a hand in the death toll and collapse. The four horsemen of the apocalypse rode across the Yucatán: pestilence, famine, civil strife, and death.
The Maya were unaware when it actually started—just another year with less rain than usual. Next year it will be different, but it was not, and the worst was yet to come. It is probable that the massive death toll came first to the common Maya then worked upward in the class society. The elite prayed to Choc, the rain god, for intervention; the rains did not come. The people of the city-state became desperate and implored the elite to double their sacrifices and increase their pleas to the gods; still, the rains did not come. The people were weakened by thirst, they became desperate in their quest for water, they invaded the palace in search of water, and they massacred the elite. The people then controlled the city and its water resources. They emptied the reservoirs. Still the rains did not come. Desperation ruled, and people decided to migrate to other domains, to go to the adjacent city-state to seek water and food. As they slowly traveled toward the next city-state with their family and possessions, no rain came. Midway in their journey they met other migrants traveling toward them from the adjacent city-state. These migrants were also traveling in search of water. The two groups of migrants were in complete confusion. How could it be? No water anywhere? They sat down on the white pavement and asked, Which way do we travel to our salvation? Some migrants lay on the pavement totally confused and depleted; others joined ranks and slowly continued on their futile journey in search of water. Still no rains came. The tropical sun arced across the cloudless azure sky, scorching the pitiful scene of the dead and dying. One by one, the travelers fell to the sacbe. Soon all had died a painful death, and rains never came for them.
Epilogue
The cataclysm that engulfed the Yucatán during the Maya Classic Period resulted in the collapse of the Maya civilization, but not the end of the Maya people and their ancient culture. The massive drought and the failure of Maya technology to resist nature’s forces caused the demise of 98 percent of the population. The 15,000,000 Maya living during the Classic Period were decimated, but approximately 300,000 Maya survived the environmental catastrophe. The surviving Maya were scattered over the 125,000-square-mile domain, with the majority living in the northern Yucatán. When the rains returned, the survivors rebounded and started their lives again, living in small groups and villages, as returning to the abandoned cities was not an option.
Maya belief systems, culture, and traditions lived on within the surviving population. Their scientific books survived, protected and updated by Maya priests and passed down to their successors. As the population stabilized, a political model developed. The Maya political system evolved into independent states ruled by a chief or cacique. These political subdivisions arose in the Yucatán and the Guatemalan highlands. The Maya domain was divided into 20 independent states based on the languages, mores, and traditions of their subculture.
After its collapse in AD 900, Chichen Itza was repopulated in AD 1000; its resurgence was stimulated by the cultural contribution of the Toltec. This fusion caused a renaissance of the Maya civilization, along with its sciences and religion. Chichen Itza once again became the focal point of the Yucatán. The city was the political and religious center of the area until it was sacked in 1212 by the forces of Mayapán.
In 1325, in a place 1,200 kilometers to the northwest of the Yucatán and 425 years after the Maya collapse, a wandering tribe of Chichimec founded their capital on an island in Lake Texcoco. They called themselves the Mexica, and would be known to the world as the Aztec Empire. They named their capital Tenochtitlan. In 1428, they grew into the Aztec triple alliance and led the Aztec Empire to dominate the Valley of Mexico, Oaxaca, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Maya states.
After the fall of Chichen Itza, Mayapán was founded in 1263 and became a major city. Mayapán grew into the political and cultural capital of the Yucatán. When the Aztecs came to power, Mayapán negotiated a tribute system with the Aztec. In 1441, Mayapán was sacked by revolt and collapsed. When it fell, the elite and priests fled with the scientific books and settled in separate polities.
Prior to the Spanish conquest, the Maya were living in independent city-states, warring constantly and paying tributes to the Aztec. This tribute ended with the defeat of the Aztecs by the Spanish conquistadors in 1519.
When the Spanish landed on the Yucatán coast in 1527, the population of the Maya was approximately 2,000,000 people. The first Spanish attempts at conquest were thwarted by the Maya, and in 1535, the Spanish were ex
pelled from the Yucatán. The Spanish under Francisco de Montejo re-invaded in 1540, and the Yucatán finally succumbed in 1546. The northern area of the Yucatán was now in the control of the Spanish, but the Maya did not go easily: the remainder of the Maya population in the southern Yucatán and the Petén of Guatemala would not be defeated until 1697, a period of 150 years after the conquest of the Yucatán.
The Spanish conquerors attempted to change the culture of the Maya. They burned Maya books, banned the practice of their religion, and required that all Maya convert to Christianity. The Inquisition decimated the intellectual and literate Maya priests through torture and death. To better control the population, the conquistadors combined scattered Maya villages and transferred the population into European-style towns. In 1543 alone, 700 towns were founded, each based around a Catholic church. The new towns served the purpose of pooling the population and enabling the exploitation of Maya labor much more easily. The Spanish made all-out efforts to erase all things related to the Maya culture. The conquistadors and priests felt divinely inspired to civilize and evangelize the Maya. Attempts to Europeanize and Christianize the Maya led to the devolution of much of the Maya culture for the next 400 years. The Maya population was reduced to a relatively undifferentiated mass of peasants.
Spanish Bourbon reform allowed the Spanish to take ownership of Maya land and force the Maya into impressed labor by right of decree from the Crown. This was termed the encomienda system, and was developed as a means of securing land and an adequate supply of cheap labor. This system resulted in Maya land being expropriated by the colonial Spanish and, combined with the labor of the Maya peasants, created a wealthy system of trade between the Yucatán and Europe. The Maya were subjugated and enslaved, regarded as second-class citizens, and forced to endure barbaric practices. The Spanish hacienda owners made massive fortunes while the Maya were treated as slave labor.
In the late 18th century, worldwide demand for henequen rope, cordage, and fiber for burlap created enormous plantations in the Yucatán The demand for Maya lands by Spanish hacienda owners increased as the plantations grew in size and the number of labor drafts became more onerous.
The independence of Mexico from Spain in 1821 did not change this system. When Mexico threw off the yoke of colonial rule, conditions did not improve for the Maya. The hacienda system grew with the henequen markets, and the Maya were treated as slave labor even in the newly independent country of Mexico.
In 1840, the Yucatán seceded from Mexico and became the Republic of the Yucatán. The Republic of Texas Navy was retained to patrol their coast. The Yucatán rejoined Mexico in 1843, but conditions did not change.
In the early 19th century, the Maya rebelled against their treatment by the hacienda owners. A widespread rebellion known as the Caste War (1847–1901) had a mission of driving all of the European population out of the Yucatán. The Maya rebellion came close to realization, but it failed.
After the Caste War, the hacienda system greatly expanded in the Yucatán. The expansion was driven by foreign demand for henequen cordage products, once again trapping the Maya. The haciendas could not keep up with world market demand; prices rose and greatly enriched the hacienda owners. They called henequen “green gold.”
Economic conditions changed in the mid-20th century, but they changed for the worse. With competition of exported henequen from other countries and the production of synthetic fibers, the henequen industry went into a short and terminal decline. The majority of hacienda plantations closed and were abandoned. The loss of revenue resulted in the Yucatán sliding into a poor and insignificant backwater. It was far distant from the nation’s power base in Mexico City. However, reform in the form of a land-distribution program preventing the expropriation of village land was applied to rural populations. The Maya reclaimed their land.
Economic conditions in the Yucatán changed in 1974, when the Mexican government created the resort area of Cancun. The tourist business has boomed and turned the economy of the Yucatán around, and the yearly influx of millions of tourists have created a ripple effect and brought economic recovery to the Yucatán.
The Classic Maya civilization has faded into the dust of history, but the Maya people have not disappeared. The Maya people and their spirit live on today in Mexico and Central America. They are a homogeneous group of people who have occupied the same territory for thousands of years. They speak some 30 languages that are so similar that linguists believe that they all have the same origin, a proto-Mayan language that could be 7,000 years old. The in situ evolution of their language implies they were the original permanent inhabitants of the Maya area and suggests that today’s 5,000,000 Maya probably share a very ancient, common, genetic origin.
The Maya cherish their heritage and are continually reminded of its past grandeur as archaeologists uncover the ruins of ancient cities constructed by their ancestors. Archaeological and archaeo-engineering studies are expanding the corpus of knowledge surrounding the Maya culture. Interpretation of the carved inscriptions has lifted the veil of mystery relating to the history of each city, and their towering structures reflect the unique feats of Maya engineering hidden by the rainforest.
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