[ExI] mayan forecast

[BillK]

On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 4:10 PM, spike wrote:
> I am trying to interpret the collapse of the Mayan civilization in terms of
> the 10th century version of an energy trap, similar to the one modern
> civilization appears to be in.  The Easter Island collapse can be
> interpreted in terms of an energy trap.  Are there other examples of
> energy-trap collapse I should study?
>
>


I don't know if I would call the Maya collapse an energy trap as their
civilisation wasn't really dependant on energy.
There is still a lot of debate about the causes of the Maya collapse.
I think mainly because it didn't *all* collapse. It was the cities in
the lowlands that collapsed. The most likely cause appears to be
climate change. The region was accustomed to years of drought and the
Maya built large cisterns and irrigation systems to cope with this.
But when a two centuries period of drought happened, their cities in
the lowlands had to be abandoned.

Archeologists are beginning to appreciate more how climate change was
involved in many of the lost civilisations of the past.


BillK