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Discuss What Different Theories Suggest About the Disappearance of the Mayans.

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Discuss what different theories suggest about the disappearance of the Mayans. The Mayan civilization began during 2000 B.C. and by 200 A.D. they had reached their peak of development, with more people per square kilometer than modern day New York. They were located throughout northern Central America, and present day southern Mexico. They continued to develop with forms of mathematics and astrometry, with observatories being built to follow the stars and planets. But during the 8th and 9th century the Mayans abandoned their cities and slowly disappeared. The southern cities seemed to perish most with the northern cities surviving until the Spanish conquest. Lying buried beneath jungle the temples and ruined palaces of the ancient Mayan …show more content…

A theory that links with both drought and famine is environmental change. As the inland cities experienced the drought, they relied on the few crops that could grow in the dry condition, hunting the few animals that survived and the sea food from the coastal villages. But some researchers found that coastal waters rose during the 9th century, and this could have flooded the villages that were situated on the coast causing the people that lived there to move inland to the bigger cities and villages putting strain on the food sources there and as a result the cities had no fresh seafood coming from the coast and then heavily relied on the few crops and animals to support their growing population. Although some theories have great backing evidence others don’t. This theory was ruled out due to lack of evidence. The theory was Natural disaster, a volcanic eruption, hurricane or earthquake. This theory can explain why some cities and temples had seemed to be destroyed but not why only some villages and cities were affected. This theory, unlike many others was disproven. There could have been a collapse in the Mayan political system where there high priests were taken less seriously due the lack of food, and the assumption that the human sacrifice and torture was having no advantage against the gods ‘anger’. Another theory is one of the peasants revolt, as in Eric Thompson book, The Rise and Fall of Mayan

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