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¶ … Mayan civilization mainly built urban centers with the purpose to extend their spirituality. Most of these centers were perceived as means of experiencing a better connection to their gods and as thus being a tool for worship. This makes it difficult for many to understand how the Mayans disappeared, considering that most communities were actually rural and that urban areas were not as populated as villages. However, part of the answer lies with conquerors coming into Mayan cities and disrupting balance there. As a consequence, many communities could not preserve their cultural values as religious concepts had been removed from their lives. These respective groups came to be assimilated while their traditions were forgotten.
The main reason for the disappearance of the Mayan civilization is a cultural clash -- probably one of the most significant in all of history. The European conquerors brought with them a series of concepts that were incompatible with Mayans at the time. Ranging from their materialistic type of thinking to the viruses they had, Europeans introduced elements that decimated local populations.
The Mayan civilization was structured in a way that enabled people to both concentrate on crops and to stay united...
"While its nested and replicative urban settlement system contributed to the political and ideological linkages in Maya society, this dispersed urban settlement was even more critical for the ancient Maya ecological adaptation." (Demarest 117) The fact that Europeans arrived and focused on taking over cities seriously destabilized the Mayans, as they had lost their ability to organize as a community and ended up attempting to preserve their cultural values on their own.
Even with the fact that the Europeans contributed to the fall of the Mayan civilization, there are a series of theories concerning this event. One of the most intriguing involves the Mayans being obsessed with building temples and spending a significant amount of resources in the process. This lead to a series of problems, as deforestation became very common as a result of people needing wood to maintain the numerous ovens built to create bricks. It would be safe to say that the Mayans created a vicious circle as they built more and more temples in order to satisfy the gods and to thus have better living conditions. Temples required cutting trees and cutting trees is likely to have played a role in worsening…
Bibliography:
Demarest, A. "Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization." (Cambridge University Press, 9 Dec 2004)
"The Fall of the Maya: 'They Did it to Themselves'," Retrieved July 23, 2015, from http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/06oct_maya/
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.
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.
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
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
Seafloor Sediments Mayan Mysteries the Mystery What caused the collapse of the Mayan Civilization? In 800 A.D. The Mayan Civilization was thriving in a region from southern Mexico to northern Honduras. These indigenous people (numbering over two million) were competent astronomers, they were successful farmers -- they converted hillsides into fertile fields for crops like maize (corn) and squash -- they built impressive facilities, created an accurate calendar and discussed philosophy. And they