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This drought was explicated as a "[s]olar activity -- including varying sunspot numbers and the brightness of the sun -- is recorded in the abundance of cosmic ray -- produced radioactive carbon-14 preserved in tree rings. Solar activity also varies in a "bicentennial oscillation" with a period variously reported to be between 206 and 208 years." This extraordinary occurrence also led to extreme ramifications, such as the sudden scarcity of the basic needs, particular food and water supply, of the people. Without these essential needs, Mayan civilization ceased to thrive and survive, eventually resulting to its end as its people died due to the "megadrought."
Another perspective offered about the sudden disappearance of the Mayan civilization was that instead of a drought, a probable cause to the vanishing of the civilization was due to the occurrence of a great diaspora, an internal collapse of Mayan culture and society due to an ever-expanding population within a limited territory. Thus, Mayans went over other territories, expanded, and later assimilated the Mayan culture with that of other cultures they had integrated with. This event was considered by DeMallie (1996) a "process of divergence," wherein each Mayan member had brought with him/her aspects of their great culture and had integrated with other cultures, perpetuating a hybrid kind of Mayan culture (402). This theory, like the climate change theory,...
However, in the case of Mayan society, a territorial expansion meant assimilating themselves with other cultures as well, losing the uniqueness of the Mayan culture in the process.
Indeed, this theory was considered as plausible with new evidence showing how 'links' to the original Mayan civilization was seen in later Mesoamerican and south American cultures. According to Sabloff (1996), "scholars found that there was a significant demographic shift from south to north around AD 800 ... ecological disasters coupled with political breakdowns ... led to widespread population loss due to increased mortality and emigration" (415). Sabloff's discourse highlighted the role that a socio-cultural diaspora played in explaining the sudden disappearance of the Mayan civilization, and its perpetuation through hybrid forms of later cultures that emerged after the flourishing of the Mayan civilization.
Bibliography
DeMallie, R. (1996). North American Indian anthropology: essays on society and culture. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.
'History in the media." (2003). History Today, 53 (6).
Kerr, R. (2001). "A variable sun and the Maya collapse." Science, 292 (5520).
Sabloff, J. (1996).…
Bibliography
DeMallie, R. (1996). North American Indian anthropology: essays on society and culture. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.
'History in the media." (2003). History Today, 53 (6).
Kerr, R. (2001). "A variable sun and the Maya collapse." Science, 292 (5520).
Sabloff, J. (1996). The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. C. Beck (Ed.). NY: Oxford UP.
Whether this is in fact the case will be explored in the next section. The Case for Mayan Culture Researchers that do not agree with Haug and others argue that the Mayan culture has continued throughout history and has been passed down to individuals that are still alive today within areas of Central America. There is some agreement regarding this between various researchers that have studied Mayan culture, rituals, and architecture.
Mayan People The mystery for the collapse of the Mayan civilization has been a major focus for researchers in the field of archaeology for many years. What happened to Mayan people is one mystery that many people have been questioning about; they wondered how such a strong and a stable civilization which had flourished for about twenty-seven hundred years disappear without rational and clear explanation. However, there are different theories that
Mayan People There are many historical mysteries which have fascinated human and encouraged investigation. Among the most often examined and theorized over are the potential reasons for why the Mayan civilization suddenly disappeared from the face of the Earth. Scholars, conspiracy theorists, and all manner of investigators have looked into the culture, the people, and the environment in the vain effort to finally determine exactly what happened to this large population.
The Mayas sense of beauty was very different from other peoples in Mesoamerica (Hooker pp). They prized a long, backward sloping forehead, which was attained by bounding the skulls of infants with boards (Hooker pp). Moreover, crossed-eyes were also important, and this was achieved by dangling objects in front of the infants' eyes in order to permanently cross the eyes, a practice that is still used today (Hooker pp). The Maya
Mayans' The abrupt and mysterious disappearance of an entire civilization The Mayans civilization was so well developed and had such a large population that it has perplexed researchers for years as to why the civilization disappeared so quickly. They were mathematicians and developed a calendar and had actually developed a calendar system that is fairly similar to the one we still used today except it had13 months and 28 days per
lowland Maya decimation is much more than at any time before, and there are currently several studies that concentrate on the period from roughly A.D. 750 to A.D.1050. Previously, researchers have had a tendency to sum up clarifications of the decimation from individual locales and areas to the marshes in totality. Later methodologies push the extraordinary differences of changes that took place over the swamps amid the Terminal Classic