Red alert - Invasion

Certainly the idea of an entire civilization being brought down by an epidemic outbreak is fairly exciting and in some ways relevant to today (it would definitely give many people a reason to overly freak out about the current Ebola outbreak).

But in the case of the Maya, there were probably other forces at play.

Sabloff and Willey (1967) argue that a foreign invasion by non-classic Mayans was ultimately the cause of the Maya collapse. They propose that the Mayans were invaded from the west by Mexicans and from the north by people from the Gulf of Mexico lowlands, just before the end of the Classic Period. They draw attention to the fact that they believe the Maya had not started to decline at the time of invasion, suggesting that it was the invasion itself which led to the fall of the Maya. This invasion would have led to warfare between surrounding populations and would have lasted several years.

An idea of what an invasion might have looked like... Source: ByCommonConsent

This idea of invasion is used by Sabloff and Willey to explain the large scale migration of people away from the Maya heartland, arguing that people were displaced after the invasion and were forced to resettle elsewhere.

Some archaeological evidence does support their hypothesis, with a sudden appearance and then rapid decline in fine paste ceramics in Classic Maya settlements. These ceramics, which were made from material and skills not practised by the Maya, were brought into Mayan settlements very suddenly but were not reproduced once there.

A theory of internal rebellion brought about by religious tensions between leaders and the public exists. This, according to Sabloff and Willey, is supported by archaeological evidence of the defacing of statues. However Sabloff and Willey emphasise that it is difficult to prove an internal rebellion occurred and that an external invasion was a much more likely cause of collapse.

Wouldn't want to bump into these guys. Source: Asady Movie - Apocalypto

Although this theory of external invasion would provide an exciting, dramatic, Hollywood-style explanation of Maya collapse, there is little real evidence for this hypothesis. Having said that, recently Tainter, 2014 has looked at conflict from a new angle. He argues that warfare became a very normal occurrence throughout the Classic Mayan period. As new enemies emerged and as new weapons were developed, warfare became more and more expensive. Their agriculturally-based economy could not sustain the pace of development and so resources were over-exploited. This led to collapse.

It is important to remember that war does not cause itself – there must have been some forcing factor which triggered an invasion (perhaps climatic pressures). Although an external invasion is quite likely to have occurred after the decline of the Maya once the civilization was weak, I think that it’s unlikely an invasion alone was the cause in the Mayan collapse. With advances in paleoclimatic evidence for historical climate change, this theory seems unlikely.

Till next time!