From 200 BC onwards, the semi-tropical rainforest in the Petén region of Guatemala and the border areas of Mexico, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador were the original natural home of the Mayans. Their fabulous stone temples, gigantic pyramids, decorative palaces and books fashioned from tree bark were discovered long after the Spanish conquest, during the 20th century, hidden amongst the undergrowth as if time had not passed, like museum exhibits of an original American culture (200 BC until 900 AD). In recent times linguists have begun to decipher their alphabet of written symbols, making the exceptional discovery that they were, even before other civilizations, the first people to use the number “0”. With this catalogue of magnificent qualities in their favor, the question arises: Why did they abandon their regal constructions? Over the last few months and thanks to a dozen different scientific meetings and numerous discussions on the topic, a new theory has opened up another chapter of this mystery: intense droughts during the 9th century caused the decline of this population of 15 million.

German scholar Gerald Haug and Jeremy Sabloff, director of the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania are convinced of this and their idea has been taken up by the British magazine New Scientist. Disagreeing with them are researcher Alfredo Barrera Rubio and archeologist Beatriz Quintal from the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History (NIAH), with media support from the Inter-Press Service (IPS).

View: Full Article | Source: Granma International

Its weird how so many civilisations such as the mayans, incas, romans etc have just come to an end.

I know, You would have thought that all of these ancient civilizations would have been better able to protect against this type of thing, the frightening ease with which they collapsed makes you wonder how long our one has left.

I was thinking that also. It seems no matter how advanced we become, we are still quite fragile in that sense.
Thanks for the article SaRuMaN

Yes, interesting article. I wonder if it was the insularity of the Mayans that caused their downfall, and it also makes yoy wonder how many sizeable civilizations have vanished in the past with little or no record of their existence.

Aslan - yeah, thats what precisely facinates me

Good article - i remember seeing documentaries about the same theory, lack of water leading to internal strife which allowed other cultures to take prominance

So what's gonna happen to us? I mean, our society is more or less global, so it'd be a bit harder for our system to collapse. But it's possible, makes you think.