Maya civilization: Encyclopedia II - Maya civilization - Decline of the Maya

Maya civilization - Decline of the Maya

In the 8th and 9th centuries CE, Classic Maya culture went into decline, with most of the cities of the central lowlands abandoned. Warfare, ecological depletion of croplands, and drought or some combination of those factors are usually suggested as reasons for the decline. There is archaeological evidence of warfare, famine, and revolt against the elite at various central lowlands sites. There is also conclusive geological evidence, found in shells recovered from Lake Chichancanab (in modern Quintana Roo state in Mexico) by a team from the University of Florida, showing that the area suffered the worst drought in 7,000 years in the 9th century; this meteorological event is apparently connected to that of northern Europe having suffered extremely low temperatures around the same time (the same connection between drought in the Maya areas and extreme cold in northern Europe was found again at the beginning of the 20th century). This evidence seems to support Dick Gill's theory that an unusually severe drought (leading to a catastrophic decimation of the population in an area lacking rivers, who depended on rainwater collected in cisterns located near the cities) was the driving force behind the collapse of Maya civilization [2]. However, there is no single cause universally accepted for their decline.

The Maya cities of the northern lowlands in Yucatan continued to flourish for centuries more; some of the important sites in this era were Chichen Itza, Uxmal, Edzná, and Coba. After the decline of the ruling dynasties of Chichen and Uxmal, Mayapan ruled all of Yucatan until a revolt in 1450; the area then devolved to city states until the Spanish Conquest.

The Itza Maya, Kowoj and Yalain groups of Central Peten survived the "Classic Period Collapse" in small numbers and by 1250 CE reconstituted themselves to form competing polities. The Itza kingdom had its capital at Noj Peten, an archaeological site thought to underlay modern day Flores, Guatemala. It ruled over a polity extending across the Peten Lakes region, encompassing the community of Eckixil on Lake Quexil. These sites and this region were inhabited continuously by independent Maya until after the final Spanish Conquest of 1697 CE.

Post-Classic Maya states also continued to thrive in the southern highlands. One of the Maya kingdoms in this area, the Quiché, is responsible for the best-known Maya work of historiography and mythology, the Popol Vuh.

The Spanish started their conquest of the Maya lands in the 1520s. Some Maya states offered long fierce resistance; the last Maya state, the Itza kingdom, was not subdued by Spanish authorities until 1697.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Decline of the Maya", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki