"Maya more warlike than previously thought" Topic

"Only later, archeologists thought, did increasing drought and climate change lead to total warfare -- cities and dynasties were wiped off the map in so-called termination events -- and the collapse of the lowland Maya civilization around 1,000 A.D. (or C.E., current era).

New evidence unearthed by a researcher from the University of California, Berkeley, and the U.S. Geological Survey calls all this into question, suggesting that the Maya engaged in scorched-earth military campaigns -- a strategy that aims to destroy anything of use, including cropland -- even at the height of their civilization, a time of prosperity and artistic sophistication.

The finding also indicates that this increase in warfare, possibly associated with climate change and resource scarcity, was not the cause of the disintegration of the lowland Maya civilization…."
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

For some reason (probably related to contemporary politics) many anthropologists in the 1960-2000 era decided that the Maya were pre-contact flower children. Any researchers presenting evidence to the contrary were shouted down (and often found themselves out of work), and any evidence they advanced was discounted.

The inevitable reaction has finally set in.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand