COMMENTARY Maya collapse cycles Marilyn A. Masson1 lassic Period Maya society (A.D. ∼250–850) is almost as well C known for its collapse as for its tremendous accomplishments in hieroglyphic writing, monumental art, and architecture and an extensive, populous network of cities and towns that crossed the terrain of parts of four modern nations (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Hon- duras). Indeed, interest in the political and demographic collapse of this civilization around the 9th century A.D. is inextricably linked to its earlier majesty, and ancient Maya culture has evoked romantic interest about lost cities in the jungle since the early 19th century explorations of Stephens and Catherwood (1). Even today, avid public and academic interest remains trained on this quintessential case study and the degree to which the lessons of the Maya apply to apocalyptic currents in our own world as we Fig. 1. Reconstruction drawing of the Temple of Kukulkan, Mayapan, the principal pyramid of the abut against the struggle of political will and largest capital city of the Postclassic Maya world. Postclassic Maya civilization coalesced in northern environmental impacts and constraints. Yucatan, Mexico after the collapse of Classic era Maya society. Illustration is by Luis Góngora (courtesy of Recent popular books written by David Carlos Peraza Lope, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia Mayapan Project). Webster (2), Jared Diamond (3), Patricia McAnany and Norman Yoffee (4), and riod of 50–100 y, generally, from A.D. 800 ditions were the prime factor. The Classic Charles Mann (5) respond to the quest for to A.D. 900. The agrarian landscape of Maya collapse was a variable, complex analogs in Maya history. Scientific research these regions was entirely different from phenomenon that prompted a mosaic of has pushed forward our understanding of the forested, scarcely inhabited vast tracts local responses, transitions, and trans- the complex processes underlying the Clas- that characterize the area today. In its re- formations across the lowlands region sic era Maya collapse, which is now known view of extensive and intensive agrarian (10). Abandonment of various towns and to have been the culmination of a range modifications of the environmentally het- cities occurred anywhere from the late of different factors across a diverse political erogenous landscape of the Maya area, the 700s until the late 900s in the southern andbioticlandscape.Itisnolongerpossible article also contributes to an important and realm, and a few settlements were not to evoke a single, simple causal factor, current global literature on the large scale abandoned at all (11). although clearly, anthropogenic environ- of anthropogenic transformations of the The lack of Postclassic resettlement of mental impacts and untimely climatological environment that enhanced subsistence the southern/central Maya lowlands is not events rank highly among the contingencies sustainability (5, 8). due to the total disappearance of Maya that triggered the downfall of the most Understanding the environmental and civilization. Even in the Petén, smaller fragile, populous areas of the Maya demographic contexts of this precipitous populations lingered at aquatic hubs such area interior. collapse does not fully explain the phe- as the lakes region to the south of Tikal The paper by Turner and Sabloff (6) nomenon. Turner and Sabloff argue that until long after Spanish arrival (12). The provides a valuable historical perspective historical, political decisions and strategies field of Mesoamerican archaeology is still on the long-term investigations of the must also be taken into account, for two processing recent chronological in- Classic Period Maya collapse. It rallies compelling reasons. First, Maya civiliza- formation that reveals that the great diverse data on human impacts to the tion endured for many centuries before northern polity of Chichen Itza arose by environment and addresses issues of sus- the ninth century collapse; powerful states the eighth century A.D. and had its apogee tainability that rendered parts of the Maya and densely inhabited political landscapes during the ninth and tenth centuries A.D., area particularly vulnerable to a set of are known from the fourth century B.C. precisely when the southern metropolises severe and frequent droughts of the ninth Earlier dynamic cycles of prosperity and fell (13). The rise of a northern empire century A.D. (7). The most rapid and demise (9) were followed within a century coincidental with the fall of the southern dramatic collapse is witnessed at political or two by demographic recovery or more Maya heartland attests to the importance capitals and their territories in the south- immediately by the rise of victorious rivals. of political and economic factors. The ern Maya realm of northern Guatemala, Deeper Maya history reveals the capacity inadequacy of a simple environmental western Belize, the southern interior of to overcome earlier challenges of envi- model is driven home by the fact that Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula (and northern ronmental constraints, climatic disasters, Chiapas), and the Copan area of Hon- and warfare. The difference with the ninth duras. The largest cities in these areas century collapse is the fact that whereas Author contributions: M.A.M. wrote the paper. were home to populations of 50,000– soils and biotic communities recovered The author declares no conflict of interest. 120,000, and they were surrounded by within two centuries in the southern Maya See companion article on page 13908 of issue 35 in volume networks of secondary towns and villages core area, the region was not resettled as 109. that were likewise abandoned within a pe- one might expect if environmental con- 1E-mail: [email protected]. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1213638109 PNAS | November 6, 2012 | vol. 109 | no. 45 | 18237–18238 Downloaded by guest on September 30, 2021 Chichen Itza and its peers are located in sizes the shift of commerce toward sea- case on the threshold of European con- northern Yucatan, which has less surface borne trade, the inland location of the tact, it is possible to observe the close water than the southern tropical zone (14). Mayapan and earlier Chichen Itza political interplay of compromised possibilities for Itza aggression and alliance building at capitals, along with their most important agrarian sustainability and political southern sites near the Caribbean coast political peers and subjects, suggests that stability. have long been documented and these overland routes were also important after Despite Mayapan’s problems, it is data make sense in the context of this the fall of Classic era centers. The agrarian noteworthy that the Maya region as political shift (11, 15–17). Chichen Itza’s needs of Mayapan, with a population of a whole was not uniformly affected. command of seaborne trade and long- 15,000–17,000 people, as well as the sus- Spanish eyewitnesses report networks of ranging contacts in the Mesoamerican tenance required by the central towns of its impressively constructed coastal towns and world set the stage for the amplification of confederacy, would have been favored by sophisticated market systems that contin- mercantile institutions (18) that Sabloff interior locations. For example, Mayapan ued to thrive even in the absence of and Rathje (19) initially identified as a key was located near the ring of cenotes, a a dominant Maya political capital (22). component of societal transformation series of underground water sources cre- Literacy continued into the Colonial era from the Classic to the Postclassic Periods. ated by the Chicxulub crater (20). when the vast majority of Maya codices However, Chichen Itza and its Puuc Mayapan fell only decades (∼1448) were confiscated and destroyed by the region peers fell from power by the 11th before Spanish contact (1511) due to Spanish clergy. Testimonies of far-ranging, century A.D., when the full process of a partially parallel set of circumstances prosperous trade networks Contact con- Terminal Classic Maya collapse may have faced by Classic era centers. The collapse tributed in important ways to the founda- ultimately been realized (13). Environ- model advocated by Turner and Sabloff tions of Sabloff and Rathje’s (19) model of mental factors can be identified for this calls for a consideration of political, eco- the amplification of mercantile institutions interval as well (7), and the Maya area nomic, and climatic constraints to stability during the Postclassic era. Thus, even for was without a prominent political capital and prosperity. The utility of this model is the Postclassic Period, the Maya region until the middle of the 12th century when not exhausted for the case of the Classic exhibits a mosaic of local adaptations, Mayapan rose to fill in the void. As the era collapse. Archaeological data and transformations, responses to political authors discuss, during the Postclassic ethnohistorical accounts together suggest collapse, and environmental travesties. Period (A.D. 1100–1500), state formation that Mayapan, like its Classic Period Research focused on answering the cycles were renewed in new localities predecessors, during the latter part of its question of the collapse of Maya society nearer to the coasts of the Caribbean and occupation contended with around 150 y must now be qualified with specific Gulf of Mexico and in the interior north- of episodic droughts of great severity and parameters. Depending on which polities, ern peninsula, where the city of Mayapan resultant cycles of food shortages, chal- which parts of the Maya area, and which was located. Mayapan was the primary lenges to market economies, political centuries are under investigation, the re- political capital of a regional confederacy instability and warfare, and periodic out- spective weight of warfare, demography, of unequalled size and magnitude for the migration (21). Even after the city fell, the agrarian constraints, and climatic disasters Postclassic era. Under its domain, Maya region is said to have been subjected to varies in importance as an explanatory civilization again resurged as is evident in intense cold, an epic hurricane that de- mechanism (10, 21).