What Caused the Disappearance of the Mayan Civilization?
It is still a great mystery how the Mayan civilization disappeared. This complex society reached its zenith around approximately 750 AD. However, within the next two hundred years, this civilization which was epic in its time collapsed and disappeared leaving minimal traces and even more scanty detail about what could have caused this disappearance. This knowledge gap has led to a lot of debate among scholars over the various possible reasons behind what seems to us to be the abandonment and desertion of these sites. Some of these explanations are suppositions made without convincing proof. It has been understood widely that the collapse of Late Classic Maya civilization involved more than the disintegration of political structure and that it could have involved a total systemic failure in which both centres and dependent villages were abandoned by elites and commoners alike. The lowland rainforest habitat where Maya civilization developed was not significantly reoccupied until comparatively recent time. Theories for this “Mayan Collapse” are wide-ranging and varied, and recent scholarship has postulated over seventy different theories including, but not limited to climate change, deforestation, drought, warfare and invasion, social upheaval or revolution. Some theories even go to the extent to postulate a lack of affirmative action by Mayan kings which could have saved the civilization. Archaeologists have made several attempts to come up with explanations for this collapse; however no specific theory has greater empirical sway than others. Why did such a mighty civilization collapse? Are there any Mayan descendants who can tell us anything? Where do we turn for informant given the dearth of evidence? This essay will critically examine the theories of demographic constraints, climatic changes including drought and warfare and invasion as they attempt to explain the disappearance of the Mayan civilization. Each theory’s overview and merits will be discussed and