Collapse and Resilience

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter discusses the period of breakdown and reorganization referred to colloquially as the Classic Maya Collapse. Available data indicate that a series of particularly intense droughts lasting anywhere from three to twenty-plus years affected the Maya lowlands in the ninth and tenth centuries ce. Although scholars continue to refine understandings of the exact timing, intensity, location, and impacts of these droughts, it is now widely accepted that they contributed to the destabilization of the Classic Period order. It is clear, however, that drought was but one of a number of factors that disrupted Classic Maya communities across the lowlands. Other critical factors included environmental exploitation, increasing inter-site warfare, and destabilizing socio-political forces within individual polities. Different combinations of factors affected different sites and subregions at different times and in different ways, resulting in a very complicated picture. One way that communities adapted to the changing circumstances was to adopt new resource-conservation strategies during this tumultuous period. Not all communities succumbed, and numerous cultural practices survived. Viewing this period through the lens of resilience theory highlights how the Classic to Postclassic Period transformation was part of a much longer cyclical trajectory that can be used to characterize all civilizations in human history. We can learn a lot about cultural flexibility from examining the processes that disrupted Classic Maya society during the Terminal Classic Period and the strategies that many communities employed to address them.