On societal collapse (and yes the coming end of our current high civilization)

[nadinbrzezinski]

well here I am writing a class on Pre Hispanic, Meso American culture, Perforce this leads to the usual question, why the hell did the Maya collapse around the 9th century? What drove that civilization to go poof? Well I could recommend Diamond's opus, but while doing some fast research I came across this nine page PDF. I offer it with no further comment. Figured it might add to the discussion. And yes, historians and archeologists deal with this question regularly, and yes civilizations and empires do go poof. We will not escape this fate.

http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/bradley/weiss2001.pdf

Have fun, me back to readying it... I need to also find my copy of Diamond's book.

[Quantess]

1. You wrote this?

[eShirl]

3. "I came across this nine page PDF" (n/t)

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Nope, I came across it

seven pager, my PDF reader on the PAD really miscounted. Fascinating little article

[Ozymanithrax]

2. That is very enlightening...

especially when you think about the drivers for societal collapse as related to both peak oil and global warming.

How low can we fall?

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. The Maya are a clue, and not a warm fuzzy one either

[freshwest]

6. Jared Diamond's Collapse

Had a consistent theme. It was the rigid ruling class that destroyed the ecological basis of those societies that 'chose to fail.' One of the controls were religion and social class. The poor ended up fleeing or literally eating the rich as the crisis came. Anyway...

[bgisborn]

7. social collapse

Attributing the Mayan high culture collapse to environmental degradation ignores the fact that at it's height the civilization was widely spread out and even had trade with teotihuacan. They would simply have moved their cities and built others. That collapse was a collapse of the learned class, the ones who could read and write their language, do their mathematics and make astrological observations. It was a social collapse.