Maya collapse cycles

Masson, Marilyn A.

doi:10.1073/pnas.1213638109

Cited by 21 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Multiple studies have shown that patterns of political formation, consolidation, and fragmentation of Maya states were cyclical well before Mayapan became a Postclassic Period political center. From the middle of the first millennium BCE until Mayapan's emergence, kingdoms formed, consolidated, or expanded their domains of subjects, then ultimately fragmented at the same time that new centers emerged to dominate the landscape [25][26][27][28] . Large cities first appeared along the western edges of the Maya region by 1000-800 cal.…”

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confidence: 99%

Drought-Induced Civil Conflict Among the Ancient Maya

et al. 2022

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The influence of climate change on civil conflict and societal instability in the premodern world is a subject of much debate, in part because of the limited temporal or disciplinary scope of case studies. We present a transdisciplinary case study that combines archeological, historical, and paleoclimate datasets to explore the dynamic, shifting relationships among climate change, civil conflict, and political collapse at Mayapan, the largest Postclassic Maya capital of the Yucatán Peninsula in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries CE. Multiple data sources indicate that civil conflict increased significantly and generalized linear modeling correlates strife in the city with drought conditions between 1400 and 1450 cal. CE. We argue that prolonged drought escalated rival factional tensions, but subsequent adaptations reveal regional-scale resiliency, ensuring that Maya political and economic structures endured until European contact in the early sixteenth century CE.

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confidence: 99%

Drought-Induced Civil Conflict Among the Ancient Maya

et al. 2022

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“…In Mesoamerica, warfare and militarism were not exclusive to the Postclassic (e.g., Spencer 2003Spencer , 2010Webster 2000). Nevertheless, in a number of Mesoamerican regions, including Oaxaca (Blanton et al 1993;Spores 1967Spores , 1984, the Basin of Mexico (e.g., Carrasco 1971), and the Maya area (e.g., Blanton et al 1993;Demarest 2013;Masson 2012), archaeologists have noted marked shifts in the nature of governance between the Classic and Postclassic periods, although not always in the ways that Wolf (1959) proposed (Figure 1). Roughly a decade after Wolf (1959), another classic work (Sanders and Price 1968) outlined important temporal differences in Mesoamerican polities; however, the distinctions were underpinned solely by variations in scale and complexity rather than time alone.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Governance and Leadership of Prehispanic Mesoamerican Polities: New Perspectives and Comparative Implications

Feinman¹

2018

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The principal conceptual axes for explaining variation in prehispanic Mesoamerican political organization (states and empires) have shifted over time. Current perspectives build on and extend beyond the important dimensions of scale and hierarchical complexity and have begun to probe variation in the nature of leadership and governance, drawing on collective action theory and incorporating recent findings that challenge long-held statist vantages on preindustrial economies. Recent results from and archaeological correlates for the application of this approach are outlined, offering opportunities for more comparative analyses of variation and change in the practice of governance within the prehispanic Mesoamerican world and more globally. Consideration of this variability is critical for understanding change and the sustainability of different governmental formations.

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“…Occupation at Muyil began around 300 BCE 25 during the Late Preclassic Period (300 BCE to ~ 300 CE) and likely functioned as an active trading center with northern polities throughout the Early (300 CE to 600 CE) and Late Classic (600 CE to 900 CE) Periods. The site remained continuously occupied into the late Postclassic (1200 CE to 1500 CE), which possibly indicates increased reliance on coastal supply and trade routes as inland populations decreased 18 , 30 , 31 . Abandonment of Muyil was contemporaneous with European conquest in the early sixteenth century 25 .…”

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confidence: 99%

Northeast Yucatan hurricane activity during the Maya Classic and Postclassic periods

Sullivan

Hengstum

Donnelly

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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The collapse of the Maya civilization in the late 1st/early 2nd millennium CE has been attributed to multiple internal and external causes including overpopulation, increased warfare, and environmental deterioration. Yet the role hurricanes may have played in the fracturing of Maya socio-political networks, site abandonment, and cultural reconfiguration remains unexplored. Here we present a 2200 yearlong hurricane record developed from sediment recovered from a flooded cenote on the northeastern Yucatan peninsula. The sediment archive contains fine grain autogenic carbonate interspersed with anomalous deposits of coarse carbonate material that we interpret as evidence of local hurricane activity. This interpretation is supported by the correlation between the multi-decadal distribution of recent coarse beds and the temporal distribution of modern regional landfalling storms. In total, this record allows us to reconstruct the variable hurricane conditions impacting the northern lowland Maya during the Late Preclassic, Classic, and Postclassic Periods. Strikingly, persistent above-average hurricane frequency between ~ 700 and 1450 CE encompasses the Maya Terminal Classic Phase, the declines of Chichén Itza, Cobá, and subsequent rise and fall of the Mayapán Confederacy. This suggests that hurricanes may have posed an additional environmental stressor necessary of consideration when examining the Postclassic transformation of northern Maya polities.

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Maya collapse cycles

Cited by 21 publications

References 10 publications

Drought-Induced Civil Conflict Among the Ancient Maya

Drought-Induced Civil Conflict Among the Ancient Maya

The Governance and Leadership of Prehispanic Mesoamerican Polities: New Perspectives and Comparative Implications

Northeast Yucatan hurricane activity during the Maya Classic and Postclassic periods

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