The Fall Of The Ancient Maya

​Many of the cultures that we have today have evolved from past events. Such as language it was something that became known throughout the years. Some of the languages that came from that were English, Spanish, German, and Latin to name a few. These languages were derived more past civilizations. One important civilization that is known for having great success is the Mayan civilization. The Mayan civilization is known for many things like they fully developed written language, art, architecture, math and some other factors. Historians have said that they don’t know an exact date of when this civilization rose up but they do mention that it flourished for about 2000 years. Although staring in 250 AD it is said that it was the start of their high point and it continued until the arrival of the Spanish in 1524. The Maya area covers southern Mexico and northwestern Central America. According to Sharer the area is divided into three regions: the Pacific coastal plain to the south, the highlands in the center, and the lowlands to the north. Even though these three regions were under the same civilization they all practiced different religious rituals. Religion plays a big role in every civilization. Some civilizations tend to praise more than one god and they always mention that what they have is thanks to their god. When they see things going wrong they often say that their god is punishing them because they did something that the god/s did not like. This tends to be the same

Today is time to say goodbye! You will be imbued with a typical mystic of who drowned in the depths of an ancient culture and lived a unique experience, surrounded of a beautiful nature. Don’t be scared, it’s normal! The Route of the Maya leaves deep scars and certainly you will miss a lot this journey in the coming months.

The Maya were a people from Middle America, which includes modern Guatemala, Southern Mexico, and Northern Belize (Editors). The Maya civilization was considered to be “one of the most dominant indigenous societies of Mesoamerica,” (Maya). “The Maya excelled at agriculture, pottery, hieroglyph writing, calendar-making, and mathematics, and left behind an astonishing amount of impressive architecture and symbolic artwork,” (Maya). They also gave mankind the modern calendar (Jarus, Maya). The Mayans were a very advanced people, but one of the most important things in the Mayan culture was their religion/god worshipping rituals.

The Maya of Mesoamerica, along with the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru, made up the high civilizations of the American Indians at the time of the Spanish conquest. Both the Aztecs and the Incas were late civilizations, between 1300-1533 AD, but the Maya of the Yucatan and Guatemala exhibited a cultural continuity spanning more than 2,000 years, 1000 BC-AD 1542. Many aspects of this culture continue yet today. The Ancient Maya in their time had actually refined writing.

The mystery concerning the fundamental explanation for the collapse of the Mayan Civilization has been a major focus for researchers in the fields of anthropology and archeology for a considerable period of time. At the very core of this mystery of the Mayan collapse was the question of how could such a strong, stable civilization that had flourished for approximately twenty-seven hundred years disappear without a clear, rational explanation. As a result, researchers have put forth a large number of theories for the explanation of the collapse and subsequent decimation of the Mayan empire.

At the end of the first millennium A.D., the lowland Maya empires disintegrated after 750 years of prominence (Handout 1). Warfare, the growing population, resource depletion, and climatic fluctuations contributed to the downfall of the Classical lowland empires (Schele and Freidel 321). 500 years later, the scattered Maya that remained would again face a crisis as the Spanish conquistadores invaded Yucatan, conquered, and began to rule. Though the Spanish conquest of the Maya brought a new religion and diseases that decimated the population, the collapse of Classical Maya civilization was the greatest crisis in Maya history. It marked the end of the great Classical empires whose knowledge and artistic achievements surpassed all

This was surely one of the most profound social and demographic catastrophes of all human history… Early in the study of the Maya collapse all manner of theories were presented at to what exactly had happened, some more plausible than others. Disease, a social revolution, drought, famine, foreign invasion, over-population, disruption in trade routes, earthquakes, and even hurricanes were held responsible.

The Mayan Civilization at its height was one of the greatest civilization to ever reign on the planet. Their advances in astronomy and mathematics well in advance has helped present civilizations to prosper. But one of the great questions is what happened to the Mayans? Why did they collapse? What caused them to collapse? It is a question that had gone unanswered for decades until some of the worlds great historians and scientist finally concluded to three reasons why the Mayan Civilization collapsed. The Mayans Collapse was fast and occurred due to Deforestation and Climate Change, Overpopulation, and Internal and Exterior Rivalry.

Editors note: Daniel Gonzalez is a journalist Miami, Florida. He has always been interested with the Mayans. Daniel Gonzalez traveled back in time with the time machine that he made in his high school wood shop and was able to go back to the 13th century to write about the fall of the Mayans.

published in Science magazine, between 820 and 870 A.D., the Maya received 40 percent less rainfall than in prior decades. Scientists surmise that the lack of rainfall tore at the social fabric of the Maya civilization. The findings are based on the research of

Some believe that by the ninth century the Maya had exhausted the environment around them to the point that it could no longer sustain an exponentially growing population. Other Maya scholars argue that constant warfare among competing city-states led the complicated military, family (by marriage) and trade alliances between them led to the breakdown, along with the traditional system of divine power. Finally, some catastrophic environmental climate change, like an extremely long, intense period of drought, may have wiped out the Maya civilization. By the time the Spanish explorers arrived, however, most Maya were living in

The Maya were once said to have been a peaceful, appeasing culture. This duplicate has been crushed by the historical record, new discoveries and newly decoded stone crafters plainly show that the Maya fought often and violently among themselves. City-states such as Dos Pilas, Tikal, Copán and Quirigua went to war with one another quite often. Dos Pilas was attacked and destroyed in 760 A.D. It is possible that war brings with it financial disaster as well as security damage that could have caused a major result in the Maya cities.

The Mayans were located all over the world they would move places when they needed to. The Maya Civilization had fair laws back then if you committed a crime you would be punished. In the Maya civilization they would be a king to control the empire. So the mayans would have a only king or a priest. If the king or the priest aren’t there anymore the following child would be

A major factor to the demise of the Maya was Warfare. The Mayan civilisation had always been obsessed with war. We all know that their wars were always very harsh, violent and chronic. There wars seemed to play a major roll in the downfall of the Mayans. Warfare had been a major part of the Mayan culture for thousands of years. It started to increase towards the end of the eighth century when the cities were beginning to collapse. They were always involved in wars where kingdoms were separated and had regular violent attempts of who would take possession of the throne.

Many decades ago, northern Central America and southern Mexico cultures developed complex political and social ranks. Researchers today know this region as Mesoamerica, known for its rich soil, abundant amount of rainfall, and agriculture. (Judge & Langdon, 2012) The Mesoamericans, Aztec and Mayan tribes, developed into complex civilizations for multiple reasons. These societies were advanced and complex for their time in areas, such as architecture, agriculture, militarism, and education. Each had unique religion and political systems as well. The rise and fall of both were due to several factors.