The Mayan Empire: He is not Chac, he is a very naughty boy

I have to say, I think my last two posts have set me up nicely for the finale in my trilogy of the Ancient Mayans, and from the title, I bet you can see where I am going. The elite linking themselves with Chac, the god of rain, perceiving themselves as deities; the iconography of the pure water lilies and the access to the resource under pinning the entire basis of the civilization. Take that all away and all hell is going to break lose, which as explained in previous posts, can cause a breakdown in the social complexity of the system reverting the civilization back into smaller, more mobile groups (Coombs and Barber 2005). 

An image of an deity impersinator
Source: Wikipedia

In terms of the Mayans, if there was a pro-longed period, or several smaller but frequent arid events, this will cause the populous to call in to question whether these ‘conduits of the Gods’ actually have any power (Linden 2006). As soon as doubt surrounding the validity of the ruling elites creep in, it’s only a matter of time before the social system starts to collapse in on itself as resources become scarcer, as it undermines the power in which the elite had over the populous (Haug et al 2003). It is not only the access, but the quality of the resource which can erode the legitimacy of the elite (Lucero 2002). Since they integrated Water Lilies intensely into their iconography, once that environmental symbol is lost, again people will feel insecure, threatened and begin to question those associated to the plant (Lucero 2006).

As stated in several papers (e.g. Haug et al2003; Medina-Elizalde et al 2010) during this period there were many factors which could have attributed to the Ancient Mayans fall: Yellow fever caused by poor water quality, reduction in food production from reduced rainfall, social unrest caused by discovering the sham of the elites. All of these led to the breakdown of the political system, pushing people away from these centres of power under the ruler ship of the southern kings and deities. The only option left was to migrate north, to a more stable secure lifestyle not bounded by kings, but congregating in smaller community and local groups (Lucero 2002). 

So human factors in turn played a big role, maybe a significant one, but it is all trumped by one driver, the climate. As previously stated, it is hard to pin climate as the sole cause for the collapse, but in fact, when you look at all of the social causes you will find that they all link back to a drier, more arid climate. By itself it was not the cause, but it did set in motion the other causes, it is the main determinant. Without the arid conditions, it is unlikely that these human and health factors would materialize. Therefore, with a certain degree of confidence I would conclude that climatic change is an over aching driver, which led to the manifestation of the social and health issues which undermined and eventually caused the fall of the Ancient Mayan Empire

Civilization V losing screen... better luck next time