Preview

How Did The Mayans Contribute To The Decline Of Mayan Society

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
662 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How Did The Mayans Contribute To The Decline Of Mayan Society
There is much speculation regarding the collapse of Mayan society. Many reasons seem to contribute to this and many fall into the category of agriculturally unsustainable geography and climate. The Mayans were able to adapt to their land for many centuries but were unable to continue this path forever. It proved difficult for them to carry out their slash and burn process.
The droughts were also another setback for Mayan agricultural growth. The need to modify the land in order to provide basic things caused a lack of leisure time which is necessary to the advancement of a society to a great civilization. Ultimately, the depletion of natural resources in
…show more content…
The slash and burn process is a farming technique in which vegetation is cut away and burned in order to clear land for new crops. Because the terrain of Mexico at this time was so inconvenient, the process was not ideal for long term use. The first negative aspect of this process was deforestation. Deforestation is when fields are not given sufficient time for vegetation to grow back, there is a temporary or permanent loss of forest cover.1 Some other key reasons were erosion, nutrient loss, and biodiversity loss. The negative aspects above are all connected in one way or another, and when one happens, another often follows behind it.

There is also sufficient evidence of drought being the cause of the Mayan collapse. There have been many studies conducted to measure the amount of drought that took place in what is

1

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Mayans used carvings and scripts to portray themselves as an Agricultural society that relied heavily on farming. The Mayans would have had to clear more and more land to make space (Stromberg). With a such high population, if something had happened to the food supply, the Mayan population would have fallen, and later, the culture, which is another theory (Perl 14). It was argued that the Code didn’t actually portray anything about the downfall of Mayan Civilization and didn’t accurately portray Maya. As most of Mayan Agriculture did not need terracing, something that is usually used in a purely agricultural society, and that since only a small amount were found in Mayan ruins, Mayan societies could not have structured intensive agriculture and the scripts that portrayed that were untrue, and merely emphasizing a particular aspect of Mayan culture (Culbert…

    • 1319 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Apush Notes Chapter 16

    • 2566 Words
    • 11 Pages

    The land was usually worn out then discarded ("land butchery"). The result was a Southern thirst for still more land.…

    • 2566 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    d. Elaborate irrigation system 9. Inca a. Andes region b. Produce and distribute a wide range of surplus crops c. Storehouses d. freeze-drying e. irrigation B. The Southwest 1. Variety of landscape a. securing water a challenge 2. 2 cultures rose from migration a. Hohokam i. irrigation (2 crops per year) ii. Large, organized…

    • 601 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The citations relate to the hypothesis due to the fact that the Maya thrived for thousands of years and positively influenced us in the present time. The Mayans had an immensely strong and powerful civilization which helped them thrive. Based off of their years on Earth, the Mayans abundantly won over some enemies. The Mayans accomplished some change of technological advances by strengthening the…

    • 962 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Mayans and Easter Islanders had common collapses in their societies. One of their downfalls was that they both erected large statues and other unnecessary monuments to show dominance over other kings in the surrounding area. This hurt the civilizations because they occupied land that could have otherwise been used for farming. Also, since everything was done on human power alone, they used more energy and later consumed more food than usual. Another one of their problems were that neither had a large variety of foods and only small animals were available. This led to being malnourished, such as the Mayans not having enough protein in their diets.…

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Farmers were probably among those who were most affected. Obviously, one needs water to farm, and “drought led to reduced harvests.” (“The History of The Anasazi”) As the article acutely points out, the farmers were affected by the lessened return of their crops. The drought made it so that the farmers could barely even farm.…

    • 585 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Dust Bowl Research Paper

    • 1696 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The cold Pacific water increases drought occurrence in the United States and southern South America. The cold Atlantic irregular temperatures increases drought occurrence in southern Central America, northern South America, and central Africa. The warm Pacific and Atlantic water generally lead to reversals of the drought and a rainy period increases described with the corresponding cold water. Therefore another main cause of the dust bowl was abnormally cool surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean because this caused a drought which was a major cause of the catastrophic event. (American Meteorological…

    • 1696 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Life In The Aztec Empire

    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Here is the daily life of the Mayan the rich lived in sun dried brick and sometime stone. Also the homes also had white wash to make thwaterm sarpkle in the sun, and the huses had a sepaerate room steam baths.How they made the steam was in the text it says , “ Water was poured over hot stones to generate steam.” Finally the rich wore colorfully embroidered with decorated features. Next the poor were mostly farmers they lived in huts which had thatched roofs. Now they had little to no furniture with baskets they had to make themselves so they could carry there own belongings in the baskets. What the poor did have was pots, with…

    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The climate in the lowlands that the Mayas resided in were known to be unstable. Rainfall quantities could have varied, allowing droughts to be common, and making rains violent when occurring. In pollen records from Yucatán, there was an indication of a dryness between 750 and 850 B.C.E. It is also possible that many of these environmental problems were the effects of deforestation and environmental changes. A drought such as indicated, would have been catastrophically to the Mayas, who had never faced such a problem…

    • 830 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mayan Farming Methods

    • 269 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Farming was difficult to practice in Maya territory given the fact that they have dense forests with a small surface of water, or a poor soil. Hence, they developed three different methods of farming for the different soils. The first method developed was the step farming, which consisted in flattening the steps in order to make the irrigation process to be possible, this method was used in the Mountain territory. The second method employed was the rise of platforms around water canals in order to make possible the growth of crops; this technique was applied for the swampy lowlands and followed by the Aztecs, which later they improved this system until they developed the chinampas, which were floating gardens. The last method developed by the Mayas were the slash and burn technique, it was used for the dense forests; this technique consisted in the creation of a flat surface in order to plant the crops and the dig of water canals in order to make possible the irrigation of the fields.…

    • 269 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Mayan civilization is all but a dull one. Mathematical geniuses, engineering wizards, an abundance of food, water, resources, and the nicest weather of the earth shines down on their native land in an almost perfect utopia. Yet, the majority of their population at the time seems to have mysteriously disappeared out of nowhere. However, the Mayan people are anything but extinct with their overall headcount around ten million (Coe). That’s right. Ten million of the once almost extinct Maya people roam the earth today. However, at one point in time (approximately 1000 A.D.) the population had dropped to about 30,000 (Coe). How could this have happened?…

    • 1650 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Droughts happen naturally at times but with the climate changing the frequency and severity of these droughts are on the rise. Droughts are destroying all the crops in the area. This is having a drastic effect on the food supply in Central America. Resources are scarce and it becomes a struggle for people find an adequate amount of food. Also, a great percentage of Central Americans are farmers and many of their livelihoods are destroyed since their crops failed (Hares, 2017). This causes poverty and starvation. As a result many Central Americans migrate to North America for a better…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Annotated Bibilography

    • 1938 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The authors Justin T. Maxwell and Pater T. Soulé compared the “impacts of drought has on population”, they choose six counties; Douglass Country in South Dakota, Pottawatomie in Kansas, Tillman in Oklahoma, Sampson in North Carolina, Bedford in Tennessee, Adams in Indiana. In the study conducted, they selected “counties…

    • 1938 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mayan Civilization

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages

    which had not occurred in earlier societies of the Maya. The fact that similar patterns of…

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Afghanistan Economy

    • 1879 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The devastating drought which carried on from 1999 till 2001, resulted in almost 50 percent decline of agricultural production and more than 60 percent depletion of live stock due to a change in consumption pattern and distress sale.…

    • 1879 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays