What Happened to the Mayan Civilization

calendar week 2 Assignment 1 Michael McCue HUM111 World Cultures I Dr. Andrew N Allphin 16 October 2012 No one evict say for certain what happened to the Mayan people, but theories abound and include varied possible alternatives to explain the abrupt and deep disappearance of the Mayan civilization. Many historians have questioned how or why the Mayan civilization disappeared after the 10th century yet there is no definitive answer to this question.One possible guess is the Mayans civilization grew to such an purpose that they deforested so much of the region that it had significant climate changes, thereby forcing the Mayan people to immigrate to other regions (Server, 2004), this theory has some scientific background, and scientists have used satellites to study the topsoil of interchange America. They found that right in the lead the civilization collapse, the sediment had changed from tree pollen to weed pollen, suggesting there were no more trees in the area.The result of a treeless environment is the erosion of fertile topsoil, warmer climate, and a possible reduction of precipitation. Since the Mayans depended on water reservoirs from precipitation, this would have had a detrimental effect. Another theory surrounding the disappearance of the Mayan people is consistent droughts that took bit preceding the tenth century and the reduction of civilization through various wars caused the Mayan civilization to dwindle take to virtual extinction.While both theories sound relevant, scientific data is also consistent to what is happening the region of Central and South American and the deforestation of the rain forest. Perhaps history is only repeating itself. References Medina-Elizalde, M. & Rohling, E. J. (2012). Collapse of unadulterated Maya Civilization Related to Modest Reduction in Precipitation. Science 24 February 2012, Vol. 335 no. 6071 pp. 956-959. DOI10. 1126/science. 1216629 Sever, T. (2004). The get up and Fall of the Mayan Empire. email protected Headline News. Retrieved from http//science. nasa. gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/15nov_maya/picpic