Stalagmites in Mexican Caves Reveal Duration and Severity of Drought During the Maya Collapse
Researchers identified eight droughts lasting over three years, including a 13-year event, that likely caused agricultural failures and political instability among the Classic Maya, study finds.
- On Wednesday, University of Cambridge researchers published findings in Science Advances showing a stalagmite from the Yucatán Peninsula suggests multiple droughts, including one lasting 13 years, may have contributed to the Maya civilization's decline.
- Historical records show that during the Terminal Classic Period, paleoclimate records suggest recurring droughts lasting 1 to 10 years in the Maya Lowlands.
- Records reveal the northwest Yucatán experienced 1- to 13-year droughts, including eight wet-season droughts lasting more than three years.
- These droughts threatened Maya agriculture and possibly caused famines, as researchers suggest, and led to the abandonment of limestone Maya cities in the south and end of dynasties.
- This milestone establishes that the accurately and precisely dated droughts provide a new framework for fine-grained analysis of human-climate interactions during the Terminal Classic period.
20 Articles
20 Articles
Maya Civilization Endured 44 Years of Extreme Drought in Final Centuries
In the final two centuries of the Maya civilization, the ancient society suffered multiple severe droughts. Pedro Marcano – CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons. The Mayan civilization suffered multiple severe droughts in the final centuries of their society, including one that lasted a devastating 13 years, according to a new high-resolution climate record revealed in the chemical fingerprints of a cave formation. The study, led by the University…
In the Mexican Yucatán ancient stalactite formations grow in caves. Some of them are examined more closely under the scientific examination. The results show the reasons for the Maya's demise.
Long Droughts May Have Played a Significant Role in the Decline of Ancient Mayan Civilization
A 13-year drought may have been more instrumental in the collapse of ancient Maya civilization than previously thought. As part of a new study published in the journal Science Advances, a team of researchers analyzed oxygen isotopes from a stalagmite in the Mexican cave Grutas Tzabnah in Yucatán to collect climate data from the years 871 through 1021. Daniel H. James, a postdoctoral researcher at the University College London, and his collea…
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A drought that lasted 13 years and several others, each of more than three years, could have...
1,000 years ago, Mayan limestone cities in the south of the Empire were abandoned. Longevas dynasties came to an end as one of the great civilizations of the ancient world moved northwards and lost much of its political and economic power.Keep reading...
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