The Collapse of Complex Societies

The Collapse of Complex Societies: The Mayan Civilization
By Avtaar Dhalliwal

The Maya are probably the best-known of the classical Mesoamerican civilizations, even though the collapse of their civilization still remains an archaeological mystery. Instead of facts and concrete evidence, Mayanists have only been able to produce numerous theories and opinions on how the Mayan civilization collapsed, which i have summarized to three main ideas:
- Exploited land and environmental/resource problems
- Political and warfare disputes
- Climate-change and drought issues
The Maya are well known for their intelligence, having inherited inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations such as the Olmec, and building on them, developing one of the first Written languages, as well as sophisticated knowledge of mathematics and astronomy, but despite their intelligence, they still collapsed as all societies inevitably do.

The dominant cause for the collapse of the Mayan civilization has been a highly debated and disagreeable topic, although many Mayanists agree that the collapse was due to a combination of problems. The collapse of this civilization occurred sometime near the end of the 9th century, the gradual decline of the society shows how this was a devastating event and the impact it had on other historical civilizations. My findings and analysis of several expert opinions and theories concludes that overpopulation was the main contributor, as it triggered a chain of events and mishaps, which resulted in the collapse of the Mayans.
Overpopulation and the construction of numerous statues and monuments, which required the majority of the civilizations resources, is mainly what caused the Mayans to collapse. This resource depletion caused stress on crop produce and environmental erosion, and because of this the Mayans began to question their enforced belief system, which outlined the gods as those to regulate the society and its resources, in return for the sacrifice of royal blood. Since all the superiors of society had either been sacrificed or had abandoned their post in fear, there was nobody to control the civilization. None or very little response to crisis was taken into action, as most if not all remaining authority figures still valued their belief system. Without any planned defense or structure, the society was very vulnerable, the majority of the population fled in fear of being captured by neighboring warriors, while others died due to malnutrition and disease caused by the lack of resources. Additionally, drought was an issue for the Mayans; because of location there was a rarity in lakes and rivers, and absence of ground water, which caused even further scarceness of resources. Therefore, I would say the other dominant causes was a belief system that couldn't hold up under a drastic change in circumstances, and the Mayan's exploit of their resources in turn causing death and the breakdown of the Mayan civilization.

Joseph Tainter

The first framework of collapse presented will be Joseph Tainter's Model on modes of society's response to crisis, which is one framework that can associate certain aspects with the Maya collapse very well. Joseph Tainter's framework consists of three main points that outlines causes of collapse which he says at least one or more contribute to the collapse of a civilization. The first point of his theory is named “The Dinosaur”. This is when a society consumes its resources at an exponential rate, and its leaders do nothing to solve the dilemma, relying on old answers or cultural beliefs to solve problems, or not even doing anything to resolve their failing state of society. The second point, the “Runaway Train”, is when a society requires the presence of economical growth in order to sustain itself, and when/if there is a time that there is no growth, the society collapses. The third and final point of Tainter's model is the “House of Cards”. Which is when a society has grown so big and complex that the population exceeds the resource produce, and some small problems, for example; resource depletion, have higher chances of causing unnecessary conflicts, and furthering damage of the society. These three points usually do not occur individually but are interrelated, supporting each other and resulting in a combination of causes.

Joseph Tainter's framework suits the Mayan collapse quite convincingly, as it is much more detailed than others such as Jarad Diamond's 5 point framework, which i will discuss further in this report. I would say the collapse of the Maya were affected by the majority of Tainter's points, mostly by "The Dinosaur" and "House of Cards" which relate to the main issue of resource depletion, and was the dominant cause in the Maya collapse. The Mayans self-inflicted a lot of economic damage by exploiting the environment in that way, over farming and deforestation, used purely for building larger and larger statues and monuments, which was actually the main cause of resource depletion that the Mayans encountered. In fact, it required burning 20 trees just to produce the temperature used to melt and shape one large rock into a slab used for building (consuming resources at an exponential rate), a very precise example of "The Dinosaur". Authorities were even declining to take action due to their belief system. The explanation of "House of cards" is a perfect, almost exact example of the Mayan collapse. Their population grew to a very high level, exceeding the produce rate, and their problem of resource depletion, which could have been overcome by saving resources instead of building those great stone structures, that ended up having massive effects on the well-being of the society. Continued use of these resources affected the fragile balance of their ecosystem, leaving the Mayans vulnerable to disease, invasion, and drought.

Jarad Diamond

Another convincing framework is Jarad Diamond's 5 point framework, which is the next model i will be applying my theory to. Although this framework has been substantially generalised, it still presents an appropriate model for the causes of Mayan collapse. Diamond's framework outlines the 5 main factors he thinks has most impact on societal collapse; Environmental damage, Climate change, Hostile enemies, Loss of Allies/Trade partners and Response to Crisis.

Environmental Damage: The environmental damage that contributed to the Mayan collapse was mainly self-inflicted. Over farming and deforestation was implemented on a lot of their agricultural land, clearing trees in order to build their giant stone statues and god worshipping monuments, not to mention the vast amount resources that was used in the actual construction of these alters. These all contributed to the depletion of resources, which was already down to a minimal because of overpopulation and demand. This made the Mayan society almost fully dependant on seasonal crops, whose produce would be drastically affected even if only a minimal amount of it failed, perhaps starving and droughts dehydrating, some of the population.
My theory also suggests that epidemic disease was factor in the Mayan collapse, caused by environmental stress such as resource depletion, and droughts which could have forced their civilization to live off un-healthy water, causing famine and spread of disease, depopulating their society.
Although, other theories regarding drought state that disease can actually be helpful in some situations, by reducing population, disease lessens pressure in society, eliminates the need to farm additional agricultural land or destroy the environment, which increases the ratio of resources to people. Although this theory may apply to other civilizations, it does not for the Mayans. This is because in the Mayans case, there were multiple causes of resource depletion (overpopulation, over farming, deforestation, use of resources at an exponential rate, and drought), so even after the society was slightly depopulated from disease, which would counteract overpopulation, there was still significant environmental damage.

Climate Change: The collapse of the Mayans had very minimal relevance to climate change, as the only aspect of my theory which applies is drought. The main location, humidity of the climate and absence of nearby lake or rivers caused a mega-drought for the Mayans, obviously heavily restricting water supply, and killing off crops, which were the Mayans main remaining food source after resource depletion.

Hostile Enemies: In my chosen theory, there aren’t any instances of hostile enemies, although i have come across several other theories which do, and were excluded for a variety of reasons.
Some theories and expert opinions point to large-scale conflicts between Mayan empires as the cause of the collapse, but if this was the case, then why did those Mayan empires that were not involved in warfare, collapse? Conflict couldn’t have been the dominant cause, as it does not explain the abandonment of other cities that were not involved in these wars.
Warfare with foreign city-states or nations simply does not cause the type of collapse seen in the entire Classic Maya region. Even when war exterminates a population, the victors move in to take that space, which was not the case for the Mayans; as all of the affected cities resulted in being permenantly abandoned instead of being conquered, therefore excluding the theory of Hostile enemies.

Loss of Allies/Trade Partners: Other theories hypothesized that the decline of the Maya were directly related with the collapse of their trade routes. Much of the Classic Maya trade was in obsidian, feathers, cacao, and other luxury items. As staple foods were produced where the people lived, because storage was not far advanced in the humid environment. The collapse of trade routes would most likely be a temporary phenomenon, or one that was caused by the economical collapse of nearby cities. Trade route discontinuation is most likely an effect, rather than a cause of, the Classic Maya collapse.

Response to Crisis: The Mayan society had a very negative response towards their crisis. Being a deeply religious race, authority figures such as Elders and Royals simply did nothing except reinforce their cultural beliefs, hoping their Gods will come and save their civilization. If anything, they probably made their society worse, by sacrificing Royals and superior classes, which were the only educated class in their society.

One theory i encountered which is not supported by Jared Diamond's 5-point framework, is the Peasant Revolt/Rebellion, which was a revolution among the lower class of society. As life became more burdensome, work began to undermine the religious development and collective enterprise of ordinary people. The increased burden of work may have caused people to abandon their values and revolt against the elite of society. This might help explain the abrupt collapse of elite functions, as well as unfinished buildings and ceremonial centers. Despite what damage this Peasant revolt may have caused, it is still very minor when compared against the issue of resource depletion, and all the theories that support it, which in my opinion is still the dominant cause. If there were a rebellion in the Mayan civilization, it would have been a lesser problem which the elite could have solved, and defiantly wouldn’t have caused such an abrupt in society, which is why i excluded this theory.

After analyzing various theories in relation to the frameworks, it’s easier to relate the evidence to the theory i support, and conclude on how it caused the collapse of the Maya. Relating to my theory, resource depletion was the dominant cause of collapse, considering there mere multiple contributors towards it (overpopulation, over farming, deforestation, usage at an exponential rate, and drought), which depleted not only agricultural resources, but because of drought, restricted water supply swell. In addition, the Elite's belief system overruled their judgment and therefore bringing response to crisis to a minimum, as they did nothing to ensure their survivability except "value their gods", which obviously didn’t resolve anything.

The comparison between the collapse of the Mayan civilization and Easter Island is very interesting, as they are both different and alike in many ways, each having similar and different accomplishments and achievements before their steep decline. Alike the Mayans, Easter Island's dominant cause of collapse was also the depletion of main resources, additionally, it was a very similar dominant cause which resulted in this resource depletion.
As Easter Islands population increased, closely related households formed clans, each clan was headed by a chief, unlike the Mayans who had a king for each city they built. The Easter Islanders built large stone platforms and statues for burials, ancestor worship, and to commemorate past clan chiefs. This form of organization created competition among the clans to build more and more statues. Many of the stone statues were 20 feet tall and weighed several tons. As population peaked at 7,000 in 1550, more clans were formed causing an increase in competition and obviously, population. By the sixteenth century, hundreds of platforms were created and over 600 statues were built. The amount, and usage of resources in this way had a very similar effect on Easter island, as it did on the Mayans; overpopulation, deforestation and resource usage at an exponential rate being dominant factors for resource depletion for both societies, resulting in collapse.
Despite the environmental collapse of the civilization, the Easter Islanders did have some achievements, They were able to build a complex society capable of great cultural and intellectual achievements, but ended up destroying what they had created, just as the Mayans did. As you can see, these past civilizations had many similarities of environmental collapse, both sharing overpopulation and resource depletion as their main defects, and at the same time having vast differences in culture and values, but the result was the same, as both societies inevitably declined.

What can contemporary societies learn from the collapse of past societies?
In my opinion, contemporary societies could learn allot from studying past societies, their causes of collapse, and their response to the crisis, which hopefully will help them avoid similar collapse in the future. Unfortunately, some problems such as climate change has been developing for decades now, and will probably be threatening human existence for generations, although modern society has different threats and concerns, i think we could still learn significantly from the mistakes of ancient civilizations, and hopefully, use them to fix today's environmental problems. Modern societies could learn to ensure resource stability such as conserving natural resources, and learning how to avert deforestation, which some modern societies such as Japan, has already done, who avoided collapse in the late 17th century by importing resources. This already shows how modern societies have come further than those of the past, in means of survivability, as past civilizations such as the Mayans and Easter Islanders collapsed because of similar environmental problems, when Japan did not. From the mistakes of past societies we can learn numerous ways of collapse aversion and causes of action against them such as:
Avoiding deforestation, and attempt to build up our existing rainforests.
Ensuring resources remain at a sustainable level.
Taking all actions against pollution, to avoid major climate change related problems.
Ensuring a backup plan for all imported well and exports.
Even attempting to avoid dysfunctional and corrupt governments by setting up emergency procedures.

Conclusion
Will our civilization succumb as the Maya's did? Or will higher issues such as global warming destroy our societies? Making us vulnerable, and causing ourselves to collapse, as suggested by Jared Diamond- "Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder" when they fail to meet the challenges of their times." Or maybe we will follow the footsteps of these past societies, and learn nothing from their collapse; in turn collapsing due to similar environmental, political and climatically issues. Perhaps that is where we will end up. Thousands of years from now, will people discover ruins of our capital cities and wonder what caused them to collapse?





Sources:

Web Sources:

Daniel. A (2008, March 19). Dannesley. Retrieved March 19, 2008, from Dannesley's Blog:
http://www.dannesley.blogspot.com/

http://www.cambodianonline.net/earth03003.htm

http://www.indians.org/welker/maya.htm

http://www.learner.org/interactives/collapse/mayans_sub.html