"Mayan Collapse: Mystery Solved" Topic
13 Posts
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Editor in Chief Bill | 03 Aug 2018 11:41 a.m. PST |
…With samples taken from the sediment deposited underneath Lake Chichancanab, scientists were able to confirm a 41 to 54 percent decrease in annual precipitation over the span of 200 years. During peak drought conditions, there was nearly a 70 percent rainfall decrease, according to the study. Humidity also declined between 2 and 7 percent during that time… link |
SBminisguy | 03 Aug 2018 12:34 p.m. PST |
Yep, pretty well established this was caused by a global cooling event after a massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia that helped cause civilizational breakdown and a Dark Age for many cultures. |
Cacique Caribe | 03 Aug 2018 2:36 p.m. PST |
You mean this wasn't the result of man-made Global Warming (Climate Change)? I thought everything related to weather and climate, including El Niño and La Niña and the current post-Ice Age Warming period, was all our fault. At least that's how documentaries today make it sound, as if we made those things come into the world. What has happened in the past will happen again, so great droughts are going to come up again in our future. We can't prevent them, no matter how much we want things to stay the same. That's what Nature does. She has her cycles and mood swings, and all we can do is adapt to her and prepare ourselves, or die trying to keep climate the same. That's how humans got pushed on to inhabit most of the planet. "Weather/Climate Happens!" would be an awesome bumper sticker. :) We should be planning already for the amazing "terraforming" opportunities that will be open to us as the ice thaws in some areas. This might be what prepares us to spread to Mars and beyond. TMP link Dan PS. Anasazi (Chaco Canyon), Chimu (Peru), etc., all those pre-Columbian civilizations also went through massive upheaval due to droughts that lasted many decades. The Sahara was once green, but weather patterns shifted. |
goragrad | 03 Aug 2018 8:10 p.m. PST |
Sorry CC, it was flock of goats and sheep that ate off all the greenery and turned the Sahara into a desert. Man caused after all… |
SBminisguy | 03 Aug 2018 8:12 p.m. PST |
You mean this wasn't the result of man-made Global Warming (Climate Change)? I thought everything related to weather and climate, including El Niño and La Niña and the current post-Ice Age Warming period, was all our fault. At least that's how documentaries today make it sound, as if we made those things come into the world.What has happened in the past will happen again, so great droughts are going to come up again in our future. Yep…and also turns out that during times of warming, while some areas my suffer because of changing weather patterns, the world is generally warmer and wetter, more rainfall, longer crop growing seasons in more areas -- accompanied by civilizational expansion. And in times of cooling not only is more water bound up in snow and icepack, but the precipitation-evaporation cycle slows down meaning less rainfall, drought, colder shorter growing seasons in more areas and civilizational contraction and collapse. |
Ten Fingered Jack | 04 Aug 2018 9:35 a.m. PST |
goragrad, Cite your sources. |
Mark Plant | 04 Aug 2018 11:36 a.m. PST |
Goragrad, you appear to forget that two causes can work together. Flocks grazed the Sahara for millenia. Then suddenly those flocks destroyed it? Maybe something else had changed that caused the over-grazing to matter more than it used to. Irreversible change suggests an underlying long term issue. Short term changes are recoverable otherwise. The Dust Bowl, which was over-farmed much more spectacularly than anything the Sahara has seen, has more or less recovered, and certainly will do so in a way the Sahara will not. |
Cacique Caribe | 04 Aug 2018 2:51 p.m. PST |
Mark From what I read in an article just a few years ago (Discover Magazine?), it seems like the Dust Bowl was almost like a "perfect storm" scenario that began with a period of very wet weather in the Midwest and the Rockies. This brought about a huge boom in the population of hares and other rodents. Then came the locusts and a very destructive variety of mole cricket, in numbers never seen before. The roots of prairie grasses were eaten away by the mole crickets while the locusts ate the tops. The top soil was left completely exposed. Then the drought started, followed by extremely strong winds that lifted up and carried away all the top soil. Due to low crop yields, the farmers then implemented even more aggressive farming practices, and also the tilling of land that should have been left fallow. And things just went from bad to worse from there. No wonder some people of that time and place came to feel as though the Seven Plagues of Egypt had been set loose upon them. Dan PS. But most media focuses only on man's contribution to the Dust Bowl. |
Bowman | 06 Aug 2018 6:40 p.m. PST |
So 200 years of drought destroyed the Classical Maya? First the Mayan Collapse wasn't a single event. It was a long drawn out process, and much longer than 200 years. Did a drought really destroy Mesoamerica? Then how come this same time period saw the biggest expansion and urbanization of the Toltecs? Also the Mixtecs at Tututepec rose to prominence at this time. The Zapotecs at Monte Albán had this city peak at 700, but they did not collapse either. In fact the Zapotecs and Mixtecs cities were fighting the Aztecs 500 years later as the Aztecs were moving into the Oaxaca Valley. The Toltec Itza had moved into the Yucatan in the 900's and began building the Toltec portion of Chichen Itza in the last part of this drought. The observatory El Caracol was built in 905, El Castillo (the main pyramid we all know) was built between 900 to 1000. The biggest structures were built at the peak of the drought. Mayapan also seemed to thrive during this time period. Carbon dating the charcoal from the temple braziers suggest to temples were in use from 770 to 1170 AD. How come Mayapan didn't collapse during this period? And how come when Mayapan did collapse, it was in 1461? (The date of the last recorded date and the last construction). Look, 200 years of drought will have other evidence to corroborate these findings. However, the Mayan Classical cities all collapsed at different times, some before the supposed drought. From 600 to 800 the Maya world was in almost continuous internecine warfare between the various city states. In fact, many of the main cities were already defeated in "star war" battles prior to this drought: Naranjo, Tikal (3 times), Caracol, Palenque and Seibel. Would that have anything to do with the collapse of these cities? I doubt the mystery is "solved". |
Bowman | 06 Aug 2018 6:52 p.m. PST |
Just reread Dan's note where he mentions the Anasazi of Chaco Canyon. They peaked at about 1250 when they supported about 30,000 people. By 1300 they had all abandoned Chaco Canyon. The timeline doesn't really fit the drought story of the Maya. Of course they are also further away. |
Howler | 08 Aug 2018 11:28 a.m. PST |
I've read tilt of the earth, inner core of earth, man and cow tooters, and goats. Seems the only thing they're sure about is a lush green paradise transformed into a desert. Seems a stretch that goat herding caused the creation of something as immense as the Sahara but what do I know. |
Panfilov | 19 Aug 2018 1:54 p.m. PST |
Also, the Anasazi chopped down all the Trees in convenient reach of their settlements; Like in the "Dust Bowl" this affected the runoff and aquifer replenishment/retention. The "Dust Bowl" definitely was CAUSED by human farming practices, plowing under the prairie cover and leaving the topsoil literally to blow away. I used to know a farmer (since deceased) who was VERY aware of this, he described modern farming practice as mining the topsoil. Modern practice is repeating all the mistakes of the Dust Bowl era, plowing up to the fence line, cutting down all the WPA (planted) windbreaks, etc. They just have more equipment to spread more Fertilizer, etc. But they still are sending half an inch or so of topsoil (and contaminants) into the Mississippi drainage every year. |
goragrad | 21 Aug 2018 4:01 a.m. PST |
Sorry for the delay – this dropped off the front page and I missed the replies. link link It was the goat herders… |
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