Maya cities died from environmental crisis

Categorie(s): Human history and the environment, News

The latest archeological finds in Guatemala seem to support the theory that the Maya civilisation, that once blossomed there, was victim of their own impact on the environment. Especially deforestation made life in the cities unbearable. This is the opinion of the American archeologist Richard Hansen, leader of a scientific research project in the region of El Mirador in Guatemala and scientific advisor of an exhibition about the Maya’s in the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris (2011). The region of El Mirador was a highly developed urban area. The architecture shows that degradation of the environment must have been severe.

The Maya’s covered all floors and walls with a thick layer of plaster, originally about 2 cm thick, but in later periods 20 to 30 cm thick. To make so much plaster, they had to burn a lot of wood. For one pyramid they needed some 6,5 square km of forest.

This habit caused deforestation added to the need to feed hundreds of thousands of people. Erosion and degradation of the soil must have been so bad that the Maya’s had to leave their cities, according to Hansen.

Overconsumption

But why did they use so much plaster? The only reasonable answer is: because it was possible. It is the same mechanism that makes rich people have golden watertaps in their bathrooms, or people driving  fourwheeldrive cars in the city. Because they can. The example of the Maya’s can make clear what  the consequences of excessive consumption can be..

The Maya civilisation developed over a period of 3 000 years – from the founding of some villages to an enormous area, in what is now southeast Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, west Honduras and El Salvador. In fact the Maya civilisation never really disappeared.: more than four million people in Meso-America still speak one of the Maya languages.

Julio Godoy

13-09-2011 | Source IPS

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