What do we know?
1. The Mayan Civilization developed in a region that was not ideal for supporting civilization (Rain forests, lack of cereal grasses, lack of animals that could be domesticated, lack of connection to other advanced civilizations)
2. Mayan Civilization was divided into many city-states and was never a unified empire.
3. Mayan culture was stratified; that is it contained social classes in which the wealthy and powerful had privileges and the lower classes provided labor
4. Mayan Kings and royals showed off their status by building great works of architecture and living lavish lifestyles.
Based on all of this information, and other information that you have learned, what is your theory as to why the Mayan Civilization collapsed after nearly 1000 years of growth and development?
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11 comments:
I think the most reasonable theory of why the Mayan Civilization collapsed is because of drought and maybe starvation. Then again, it was probably something sudden, since stories suddenly stopped and stuff like that.
I think a natural disaster like a hurricane or earthquake would have destroyed the Mayan Civilization.
Disease sounds reasonable, too.
If it was destroyed by a meteor of some sort, it would have left some evidence, right?
And, uh, aliens are out of the question. :P
I think aliens are very possible. But i also agree with the natural disaster..it makes the most sense since according to books and what not everything suddenly stopped like the writings on the stone were in the middle of stories...
Question: for complex institutions on the work sheet what does that mean like schools...?
I would have to disagree with both Shannon and Ben because i do not believe it could have been a natural disaster. If it was a natural disaster wouldn't all of the pyramids, temples, and carvings be destroyed as well?
I would have to agree with ben on the fact that it could have been due to a drought or starvation. Since the mayans lived in the jungle it was nearly impossible to farm and they did not have the right tools either.
Good point, Kelsey, but then again, some temples /did/ look kind of unfinished or possibly damaged from natural disasters. :P
I dunno.
Chuck Norris probably killed them all :o
Oh, and Shannon - complex institutions means like government, religion, economy, etc.
It is on page 18 of the textbook.
an education system like a government or economic system would also be a complex institution
As for natural disasters, the cities were abandoned 1 by 1 over a 200+ year period, so it was probably not sudden, though it was sudden in some of those cities.
As you will see in class tomorrow, when the Spanish first arrived there were in fact hundreds of thousands of Mayan people in Central America, and they fought for their land, but they were living in tribes and small villages, not in the cities and not in large groups. They gave up their "civilization". Why would people do that? What does that say to us about our way of life? Does it say anything?
Ben - maybe the temples looked unfinished because the mayans who were working on them abandoned them when they suddenly left. Also, they might look damaged due to things that happened after the disappearance of the mayans.
you did not put the 2 power points up from fridays B blcok.
They are saved on my computer at school, so I will add them on Monday
I think that the collapse of the Mayan Civilization was due to a huge revolution started by the peasants of the Mayan Civilization.
The Mayans used to build many beautiful monuments all the time. When they had finished with one project they would always start another.
The people who used to build these huge monuments were usually the slaves and peasants of the Mayan Civilization.
So I think that after some time the slaves and workers got so tired of the increased burdon of building all of the time, that they forgot about all of their values and started to revolt against the higher levels of the Mayan Civilization. Thus one by one everything started to crumble.
I also agree that the collapse of the Mayan Civilization could have been due to a natural disaster or a certain disease.
HAPPY NEW YEAR YEAR EVERYONE!!
IT'S 2009!!
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