Mayan Ecosystem Research Paper

ANTH 151
Extra Credit Paper
It is clear that climate and damage to the environment contributed to the Maya collapse. But what was the likely cycle of events leading to the cultural demise?’’ Support your answer with specific points based on the readings. Discuss the role of the engineered environment (especially the reservoirs) and Mayan agricultural strategies. Finally, do you think other factors may have also contributed to the Maya collapse? If so, explain why.
Based on the Scarborough and Haugh readings, I believe that the likely cycle of events leading to the cultural demise were from bad or uninformed decision-making on agricultural strategies and infrastructure design strategies that positioned themselves to be heavily dependent on reservoirs for water.
The Mayans made the decision to develop a civilization in a seasonal desert that depended on a consistent rainfall cycle to support agricultural production. Then, they engineered a reservoir system that ultimately depended on seasonal rainfall because much of the lowlands had only restricted natural groundwater resources.
For agricultural strategies, the short-fallow slash-and-burn agriculture method, logging, and cattle ranching significantly affected portions of the ecosystem and limited
Although the recharge and filtering of the pure water source was significantly curtailed, many more times the amount of water available to the growing population was now contained in the formal reservoir system. Also, building so all 2750 monuments must have required a lot of trees. They must have sacrificed a lot of trees for the plaster too, which contributed to