Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-27gpq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T22:05:18.344Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

CLIMATE CHANGE AND DEFORESTATION: Implications for the Maya collapse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2003

Justine M. Shaw
Affiliation:
Arts and Humanities Division, College of the Redwoods, 7351 Tompkins Hill Road, Eureka, CA 95501, USA

Abstract

During the ninth century, many sites in the Southern Maya Lowlands were abandoned as elite and commoners felt the effects of the Classic-period Maya collapse. At the same time, sites to the north and east continued to flourish. Recent climatic data indicate that, at this time, much of the Maya area experienced a significant drought. However, this drought does not appear to have uniformly affected the entire region; instead, climate appears to have acted as a mosaic, shifting through time and space. It is hypothesized that one of the key factors responsible for these variable cultural trajectories is localized and regional climate change brought about through irregular anthropogenic deforestation. These changes, when coupled with an out-of-balance cultural system, may have served as a catalyst that sent some parts of the Maya world down the path to systems failure, while other zones were able—at least, temporarily—to adjust and continue.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adams, Richard E.W. 1973 The Collapse of Maya Civilization: A Review of Preview Theories. In The Classic Maya Collapse, edited by T. Patrick Culbert, pp. 2134. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Andrews, Anthony P. 1990 The Fall of Chichén Itzá: A Preliminary Hypothesis. Latin American Antiquity 1(3):258267.Google Scholar
Andrews, Anthony P., and Fernando Robles C. 1985 Chichén Itzá and Cobá: An Itza–Maya Standoff in Early Postclassic Yucatán. In The Lowland Maya Postclassic, edited by Arlen F. Chase and Prudence M. Rice, pp. 6272.
Bastable, H.G., W.J. Shuttleworth, R.L.G. Dallarosa, G. Fisch, and C.A. Noble 1993 Observations of Climate, Albedo, and Surface Radiation over Cleared and Undisturbed Amazonian Forest. International Journal of Climatology 13:783796.Google Scholar
Beach, Timothy 1998 Soil Constraints on Northwest Yucatan, Mexico: Pedoarchaeology and Maya Subsistence at Chunchucmil. Geoarchaeology 13(8):759791.Google Scholar
Becquelin, Pierre, Dominique Michelet, Marie-Charlotte Arnauld, and Eric Taladoire 1994 Proyecto Arqueológico Xcalumkín, en su trayectoria cronológica: Segunda temporada (Enero–Marzo de 1993). Mexicon 16(5):9399.Google Scholar
Binford, Michael, Mark Brenner, Thomas Whitmore, Antonia Higuera-Gundy, and E.S. Deevey 1987 Ecosystems, Paleoecology, and Human Disturbance in Subtropical and Tropical America. Quaternary Science Reviews 6:115128.Google Scholar
Bradbury, J. Platt, R.M. Forester, W. Anthony Bryant, and A.P. Covich 1990 Paleolimnology of Laguna de Cocos, Albion Island, Rio Hondo, Belize. In Ancient Maya Wetland Agriculture: Excavations on Albion Island, Northern Belize, edited by Mary DeLand Pohl, pp. 119154. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
Brenner, Mark, David Hodell, Jason Curtis, Michael Rosenmeier, Michael Binford, and Mark Abbott 2001 Abrupt Climate Change and Pre-Columbian Cultural Collapse. In Interhemispheric Climate Linkages, edited by Vera Markgraf, pp. 87103. Academic Press, New York.
Burgos V., Rafael, and Antonio Benavides C. 1983 El material ceramico de Chacmultun, Yucatán. Boletin E.C.A.U.D.Y. 10(59):3040.Google Scholar
Caldwell, John C. 1982 Theory of Fertility Decline. Academic Press, London.
Carlson, T.N., and G.A. Sanchez-Azofeifa 1999 Satellite Remote Sensing of Land Use Changes in and around San José, Costa Rica. Remote Sensing and Environment 70:247256.Google Scholar
Chase, Arlen F. 1990 Maya Archaeology and Population Estimates in the Tayasal-Paxcaman Zone, Peten, Guatemala. In Precolumbian Population History in the Maya Lowlands, edited by T. Patrick Culbert and Don S. Rice, pp. 149165. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Chase, Arlen F., and Diane Z. Chase 1987 Investigations at the Classic Maya City of Caracol, Belize: 1985–1987. Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute Monograph 3. San Francisco.
Chepstow-Lusty, A.J., K.D. Bennett, V.R. Switsur, and A. Kendall 1996 4,000 Years of Human Impact and Vegetation Change in the Central Peruvian Andes—with Events Paralleling the Maya Record? Antiquity 70:824833.Google Scholar
Covich, Alan P. 1970 Stability of Molluscan Communities: A Paleolimnologic Study of Environmental Disturbance in the Yucatan Peninsula. Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, New Haven, CT. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, MI.
Covich, Alan, and M. Stuiver 1974 Changes in Oxygen 18 as a Measure of Long-Term Fluctuations in Tropical Lake Levels and Molluscan Populations. Limnology and Oceanography 19:682691.Google Scholar
Cowgill, George 1964 The End of Classic Maya Culture: A Review of Recent Evidence. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 20(2):145159.Google Scholar
Cowgill, Ursula, and George Hutchinson 1963 Sex-ratio in Childhood and the Depopulation of the Peten, Guatemala. Human Biology 35(1):90103.Google Scholar
Culbert, T. Patrick 1973 The Maya Downfall at Tikal. In The Classic Maya Collapse, edited by T. Patrick Culbert, pp. 6392. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Culbert, T. Patrick 1988 The Collapse of Classic Maya Civilization. In The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations, edited by Norman Yoffee and George L. Cowgill, pp. 69101. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Culbert, T. Patrick 1991 Maya Political History and Elite Interaction: A Summary View. In Classic Maya Political History: Hieroglyphic and Archaeological Evidence, edited by T. Patrick Culbert, pp. 311345. School of American Research, Advanced Seminar Series. Cambridge University Press, New York.
Culbert, T. Patrick, Laura J. Levi, and Luis Cruz 1990 Lowland Maya Wetland Agriculture: The Rio Azul Agronomy Program. In Vision and Revision in Maya Studies, edited by Flora S. Clancy and Peter D. Harrison, pp. 114124. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Culbert, T. Patrick, Laura J. Kosakowsky, Robert E. Fry, and William Haviland 1990 The Population of Tikal, Guatemala. In Precolumbian Population History in the Maya Lowlands, edited by T. Patrick Culbert and Don S. Rice, pp. 103121. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Curtis, Jason, David A. Hodell, and Mark Brenner 1996 Climate Variability on the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico) during the Past 3,500 Years, and Implications for Maya Cultural Evolution. Quaternary Research 46:3747.Google Scholar
Curtis, Jason H., Mark Brenner, David A. Hodell, Richard A. Balser, Gerald A. Islebe, and Henry Hooghiemstra 1998 A Multi-Proxy Study of Holocene Environmental Change in the Maya Lowlands of Peten, Guatemala. Journal of Paleolimnology 19:139159.Google Scholar
Dahlin, Bruce 1983 Climate and Prehistory on the Yucatán Peninsula. Climate Change 5:245263.Google Scholar
Deevey, E.S., Don Rice, Prudence Rice, H.H. Vaughan, Mark Brenner, and M.S. Flannery 1979 Mayan Urbanism: Impact on a Tropical Karst Environment. Science 206:298306.Google Scholar
Denton, George H., and Wibjörn Karlén 1973 Holocene Climatic Variations—Their Pattern and Possible Cause. Quaternary Research 3:155205.Google Scholar
de Souza, J.R.S., F.M.A. Pinheiro, R.L.C. de Araujo, H.S. Pinheiro_Jr., and M.G. Hodnett 1996 Temperature and Moisture Profiles in Soil Beneath Forest and Pasture Areas in Eastern Amazonia, In Amazonian Deforestation and Climate, edited by J.H.C. Gash, C.A. Nobre, J.M. Roberts, and R.L. Victoria, pp. 125137. John Wiley and Sons, New York.
Dunning, Nicholas 1996 A Reexamination of Regional Variability in the Pre-Hispanic Agricultural Landscape, In The Managed Mosaic: Ancient Maya Agriculture and Resource Use, edited by Scott L. Fedick, pp. 5368. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Dunning, Nicholas, Vernon Scarborough, Fred Valdez_Jr., Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach, Timothy Beach, and John G. Jones 1999 Temple Mountains, Sacred Lakes, and Fertile Fields: Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize. Antiquity 73(281):650660.Google Scholar
Eltahir, Elfatih, and Jeremy S. Pal 1996 Relationship between Surface Conditions and Subsequent Rainfall in Convective Storms. Journal of Geophysical Research 101(D21):2623726245.Google Scholar
Fedick, Scott 1998 Ancient Maya Use of Wetlands in Northern Quintana Roo, Mexico. In Hidden Dimensions: The Cultural Significance of Wetland Archaeology, edited by K. Bernick, pp. 107129. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver.
Feldman, Lawrence 1978 Invertebrados arqueologicos. Boletín E.C.A.U.D.Y. 6(33):223.Google Scholar
Folan, William, Joel Gunn, Jack D. Eaton, and Robert W. Patch 1983 Paleoclimatological Patterning in Southern Mesoamerica. Journal of Field Archaeology 10:453467.Google Scholar
Ghuman, B.S., and Rattan Lal 1987a Effects of Deforestation on Soil Properties and Microclimate of a High Rain Forest in Southern Nigeria. In The Geophysiology of Amazonia: Vegetation and Climate Interactions, edited by Robert E. Dickinson, pp. 225244. John Wiley and Sons, New York.
Ghuman, B.S., and Rattan Lal 1987b Effects of Partial Forest Clearing on Microclimate in a Humid Tropical Forest. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 40:1729.Google Scholar
Gill, Richardson B. 2000 The Great Maya Droughts. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Gunn, Joel, and Richard E.W. Adams 1981 Climatic Change, Culture, and Civilization in North America. World Archaeology 13(1):87100.Google Scholar
Gunn, Joel, and William J. Folan 1995 Three Rivers: Interregional Global Climate Response Surface for the Southwestern Maya Lowlands (Candelaria, Usumacina, and Champotón Watersheds). Paper presented at the 1995 Campechano Conference, Campeche, Campeche, Mexico.
Hammond, Norman 1977 The Earliest Maya. Scientific American 236:116133.Google Scholar
Harrison, Peter D. 1990 The Revolution in Ancient Maya Subsistence. In Vision and Revision in Maya Studies, edited by Flora S. Clancy and Peter D. Harrison, pp. 99113. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Haviland, William 1969 A New Population Estimate for Tikal, Guatemala. American Antiquity 34(4):429433.Google Scholar
Henderson-Sellers, A., R.E. Dickinson, T.B. Burbidge, P.J. Kennedy, K. McGuffie, and A.J. Pitman 1993 Tropical Deforestation: Modeling Local- to Regional-Scale Climate Change. Journal of Geophysical Research 98(D4):72897315.Google Scholar
Hodell, David, Jason H. Curtis, and Mark Brenner 1995 Possible Role of Climate in the Collapse of the Classic Maya Civilization. Nature 375(1):391394.Google Scholar
Hodell, David, Mark Brenner, Jason H. Curtis, and Thomas Guilderson 2001 Solar Forcing of Drought Frequency in the Maya Lowlands. Science 292:13671370.Google Scholar
Hutjes, R.W.A., P. Kabat, S.W. Running, W.J. Shuttleworth, C. Field, B. Bass, M.A.F. da Silva Dias, R. Avissar, A. Becker, M. Claussen, A.J. Dolman, R.A. Feddes, M. Fosberg, Y. Fukushima, J.H.C. Gash, L. Guenni, H. Hoff, P.G. Jarvis, I. Kayane, A.N. Krenke, Changming Liu, M. Meybeck, C.A. Nobre, L. Oyebande, A. Pitman, R.A. Pielke Sr., M. Raupach, B. Saugier, E.D. Schulze, P.J. Sellers, J.D. Tenhunen, R. Valentini, R.L. Victoria, and C.J. Vorosmarty 1998 Biospheric Aspects of the Hydrological Cycle. Journal of Hydrology 212–213:121.Google Scholar
Johnston, Kevin 1997 La ecología de la agricultura tropical y el colapso de los Maya clásicos. In IX simposio de arqueología Guatemalteca. Museo Nacional de Arqueología e Etnología, Guatemala.
Johnston, Kevin 2000 What Goes Up Must Come Down: Malthus, Boserup, and the Maya Collapse. Paper presented at the 65th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Philadelphia.
Jones, Christopher 1991 Cycles of Growth at Tikal. In Classic Maya Political History: Hieroglyphic and Archaeological Evidence, edited by T. Patrick Culbert, pp. 102127. School of American Research, Advanced Seminar Series. Cambridge University Press, New York.
Kepecs, Susan, and Sylviane Boucher 1996 The Pre-Hispanic Cultivation of Rejolladas and Stone-Lands: New Evidence from Northeast Yucatán. In The Managed Mosaic: Ancient Maya Agriculture and Resource Use, edited by Scott L. Fedick, pp. 6991. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Laurance, William F. 1998 A Crisis in the Making: Responses of Amazonian Forests to Land Use and Climate Change. TREE 13(10):411415.Google Scholar
Lawson, T.L.R. Lal, and K. Oduro-Afriyie 1981 Rainfall Redistribution and Microclimatic Changes over a Cleared Watershed. In Tropical Agricultural Hydrology: Watershed Management and Land Use, edited by R. Lal and E.W. Russell, pp. 141151. John Wiley and Sons, New York.
Leyden, Barbara, Mark Brenner, and Bruce Dahlin 1998 Cultural and Climatic History of Cobá, a Lowland Maya City in Quintana Roo, Mexico. Quaternary Research 49:111122.Google Scholar
Leyden, Barbara, Mark Brenner, David A. Hodell, and Jason H. Curtis 1993 Late Pleistocene Climate in the Central American Lowlands. In Climate Change in Continental Isotopic Records. Geophysical Monograph 78. American Geophysical Union.
Leyden, Barbara, Mark Brenner, David A. Hodell, and Jason H. Curtis 1994 Orbital and Internal Forcing of Climate on the Yucatán Peninsula for the Past ca. 36ka. Paleogeography, Paleoclimatology, Paleoecology 109:193210.Google Scholar
Leyden, Barbara, Mark Brenner, Tom Whitmore, Jason Curtis, Dolores Piperno, and Bruce Dahlin 1996 A Record of Long- and Short-Term Climatic Variation from Northwest Yucatán: Cenote San José Chulchaca. In The Managed Mosaic: Ancient Maya Agriculture and Resource Use, edited by Scott L. Fedick, pp. 3050. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
MacKie, Euan 1961 New Light on the End of the Classic Maya Culture at Benque Viejo, British Honduras. American Antiquity 27(2):216224.Google Scholar
Martin, Simon, and Nikolai Grube 1995 Maya Superstates. Archaeology 48(6):4146.Google Scholar
Meggers, Betty 1954 Environmental Limitation on the Development of Culture. American Anthropologist 56(5):801824.Google Scholar
Messenger, Lewis 1990 Ancient Winds of Change: Climatic Settings and Prehistoric Social Complexity in Mesoamerica. Ancient Mesoamerica 1:2140.Google Scholar
Mosiño Aleman, Pedro 1963 Factores determinantes del clima en la republica Mexicana con referencia especial a los zonas áridas. Publication No. 19. Instituto Nacional del Antropología e Historia, Departmento de Prehistoria, México, DF.
O'Brien, Karen 1996 Tropical Deforestation and Climate Change. Progress in Physical Geography 20(3):311335.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Karen 2000 Upscaling Tropical Deforestation: Implications for Climate Change. Climatic Change 44:311329.Google Scholar
Pohl, Mary D., and Paul Bloom 1996 Prehistoric Maya Farming in the Wetlands of Northern Belize: More Data from Albion Island and Beyond. In The Managed Mosaic: Ancient Maya Agriculture and Resource Use, edited by Scott L. Fedick, pp. 145164. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Rice, Don S. 1996 Paleoliminological Analysis in the Central Petén, Guatemala. In The Managed Mosaic: Ancient Maya Agriculture and Resource Use, edited by Scott L. Fedick, pp. 193206. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Rice, Don S., and Prudence M. Rice 1990 Population Size and Population Change in the Central Peten Lake Region, Guatemala. In Pre-Columbian Population History in the Maya Lowlands, edited by T. Patrick Culbert and Don Rice, pp. 123148. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Robles C., Fernando, and Anthony P. Andrews 1986 A Review and Synthesis of Recent Postclassic Archaeology in Northern Yucatán, Mexico. In Household and Community in the Mesoamerican Past, edited by R.R. Wilk and W. Ashmore, pp. 5397. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Sabloff, Jeremy 1973 Major Themes in Past Hypotheses of the Maya Collapse. In The Classic Maya Collapse, edited by T. Patrick Culbert, pp. 3542.
Sabloff, Jeremy, and E. Wyllys Andrews V (editors) 1986 Late Lowland Maya Civilization: Classic to Postclassic. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Salati, E., and P.B. Vose 1994 Amazon Basin: A System in Equilibrium. Science 225:129138.Google Scholar
Sanchez, W.A., and J.E. Kutzbach 1974 Climate of the American Tropics and Subtropics in the 1960s and Possible Comparisons with Climatic Variations of the Last Millenium. Quaternary Research 4:128135.Google Scholar
Scarborough, Vernon 1996 Reservoirs and Watersheds in the Central Maya Lowlands. In The Managed Mosaic: Ancient Maya Agriculture and Resource Use, edited by Scott L. Fedick, pp. 304314. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Scarborough, Vernon 1998 Ecology and Ritual: Water Management and the Maya. Latin American Antiquity 9(2):135159.Google Scholar
Schele, Linda, and David Freidel 1990 A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya. William Morrow, New York.
Sharer, Robert 1991 Diversity and Continuity in Maya Civilization: Quirigua as a Case Study. In Classic Maya Political History: Hieroglyphic and Archaeological Evidence, edited by T. Patrick Culbert, pp. 180198. School of American Research, Advanced Seminar Series. Cambridge University Press, New York.
Shaw, Justine M. 1998 The Community Settlement Patterns and Residential Architecture of Yaxuná from a.d. 600–1400. Ph.D. dissertation, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
Shukla, J., C. Noble, and P. Sellers 1990 Amazonian Deforestation and Climate Change. Science 247:13221325.Google Scholar
Siemens, Alfred H. 1982 Prehispanic Agricultural Use of the Wetlands of Northern Belize. In Maya Subsistence: Studies in Memory of Dennis E. Puleston, edited by Kent V. Flannery, pp. 205225. Academic Press, New York.
Spinden, Herbert 1928 The Ancient Civilizations of Mexico and Central America. American Museum of Natural History Handbook Series No. 3. American Museum of Natural History, New York.
Thien, Leonard, Anne S. Bradburn, and Arthur Welden 1982 The Woody Vegetation of Dzibilchaltun, a Maya Archaeological Site in Northwest Yucatan, Mexico. Middle American Research Institute Occasional Paper No. 5. Tulane University, New Orleans.
Tinker, P. Bernard, John S.I. Ingram, and Sten Struwe 1996 Effects of Slash-and-Burn Agriculture and Deforestation on Climate Change. Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment 58:1322.Google Scholar
Tourtellot, Gair 1993 A View of Ancient Maya Settlements in the Eighth Century. In Lowland Maya Civilization in the Eighth Century a.d., edited by J.A. Sabloff and J.S. Henderson, pp. 219241. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.
Turner, B.L. 1974 Prehistoric Intensive Agriculture in the Mayan Lowlands. Science 185:118124.Google Scholar
Turner, B.L. 1990 Population Reconstruction of the Central Maya Lowlands: 1000 b.c. to a.d. 1500. In Precolumbian Population History in the Maya Lowlands, edited by T. Patrick Culbert and Don S. Rice, pp. 301324. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Vaughan, Hague H. 1979 Prehistoric Disturbance of Vegetation in the Area of Lake Yaxha, Peten, Guatemala. PhD dissertation, Department of Zoology, University of Florida.
Vaughn, Hague H., Edward S. Deevey_Jr., and S.E. Garrett-Jones 1985 Pollen Stratigraphy of Two Cores from the Petén Lake District, with an Appendix on Two Deep-Water Cores. In Prehistoric Lowland Maya Environment and Subsistence Economy, edited by Mary Pohl, pp. 7389. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Walker, G.K., Y.C. Sud, and R. Atlas 1995 Impact of the Ongoing Amazonian Deforestation on Local Precipitation: A GCM Simulation Study. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Association 76(3):346361.Google Scholar
Whitmore, Thomas J., Mark Brenner, Jason Curtis, Bruce Dahlin, and Barbara Leyden 1996 Holocene Climatic and Human Influences on Lakes of the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico: An Interdisciplinary, Palaeolimnological Approach. The Holocene 6(3):273287.Google Scholar
Wren, Linnea, and Peter Schmidt 1991 Elite Interaction during the Terminal Classic Period: New Evidence from Chichén Itzá. In Classic Maya Political History: Hieroglyphic and Archaeological Evidence, edited by T. Patrick Culbert, pp. 199225. School of American Research, Advanced Seminar Series. Cambridge University Press, New York.