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Discovered: What destroyed the Mayan civilization

By tvgnus   Follow   Thu, 8 Nov 2012, 12:00pm   506 views   6 comments
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http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=22252

It was extreme drought, say UC Davis researchers •  Within about 80 years, it fell completely apart Decades of extreme weather crippled, and ultimately decimated, first the political culture and later the human population of the ancient Maya, according to a new study by an interdisciplinary team of researchers that includes two University of California, Davis, scientists.

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1. Peter P Follow Befriend (4) 117 threads 17,655 comments Premium

   1   12:20pm Thu 8 Nov 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   Big government perhaps? Calendar regulations were so stringent that moving beyond 12/21/12 was impossible. Seeing they would have no future bryond that date, the Mayan society sef-destructed.

2. Ceffer Follow Befriend 6 threads 689 comments Pleasanton, CA

   2   12:37pm Thu 8 Nov 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   All those rotting human sacrifices caused a methane pulse that induced climate change. Gore said so. I need a ten million dollar grant to prove it. What's ten mil when the fate of the world hangs in the balance?

3. Vicente Follow Befriend (8) 208 threads 4,499 comments Davis, CA

   3   8:36am Fri 9 Nov 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (3)   Dislike   Primitive cultures seem likely to reach a city-state cultural peak, then because they have built a big city and used all the nearby firewood and employed no crop rotations, they deplete the nearby farmland. A drought would add a lot to that, but I wouldn't see it as the sole cause.

4. CaptainShuddup Follow Befriend (1) 294 threads 5,232 comments

   4   1:33pm Fri 9 Nov 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   They cut down all of their slow growing trees for timber to fire the kilns for their extensive pottery.

5. zzyzzx Follow Befriend (9) 434 threads 4,244 comments Baltimore, MD

   5   7:07am Mon 12 Nov 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   I thought it was destroyed by one of Howard Stern's farts.

6. thunderlips11 Follow Befriend (13) 61 threads 2,702 comments Premium

   6   9:18am Mon 12 Nov 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   A similar thing happened in Cahokia: http://rewild.info/anthropik/2005/10/the-fall-of-great-cahokia/index.html BTW, Mayan collapse gels well with the Medieval Warm Period.