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Belize's "Blue Hole" Reveals Clues To Maya's Demise
An anonymous reader writes The collapse of the Mayan civilization has been a mystery for decades, but now new research suggests that the blue hole of Belize could provide an answer. Studying minerals from Belize's famous underwater cave, researchers have discovered that an extreme drought occurred between AD 800 and AD 900, which is when the Mayan civilization collapsed. From the article: "Although the findings aren't the first to tie a drought to the Mayan culture's demise, the new results strengthen the case that dry periods were indeed the culprit. That's because the data come from several spots in a region central to the Mayan heartland, said study co-author André Droxler, an Earth scientist at Rice University."
It's so bad that even the past is affected.
Not really new news to me, 30 years ago taught that a megadrought was likely cause for collapse of most (not all, continued in the north) of Mayan civilization
You do realize that current leading theories of the cause of the drought in question was mass deforestation caused by the Mayan Civilization?
At the same time the Vikings started to become a factor in Northern Europe. So it's not improbable that this was a global phenomenon where many other changes also occurred.
Wikipedia attributes the fall of the Mayan Civilization to the 10th century, but some delay from cause to effect is not unexpected.
In any case - this overall indicates that changes topples some structures while new ones starts to thrive. If your civilization starts to relax then nature will throw something unexpected at you and if you have become too stagnant then you are out and will become a footnote in history.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Although the findings aren't the first to tie a drought to the Mayan culture's demise, the new results strengthen the case that dry periods were indeed the culprit.
This is kind of an understatement. Drought has been one of the (if not THE) leading theories for the Mayan decline source. Jared Diamond called it out as the cause in his popular book Collapse almost a decade ago.
Its good to see some more data points confirming this theory, but that appears to be all this is.
That is patently ridiculous. Definition of "discover":
to see, find, or become aware of (something) for the first time
to show the presence of (something hidden or difficult to see) : to make (something) known
to learn or find out (something surprising or unexpected)
The "finding of evidence" sounds exactly like what is defined here. Evidence itself is discovered. If the just-discovered evidence is sufficiently compelling to accept a conclusion, then as a matter of linguistic convenience we can say that the conclusion was also "discovered."
People discover things all the time. Your strange understanding of the word's meaning is not shared by the rest of the world, so you can count on people continuing to chafe you into the future.
Look into the past to see your future.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
It's been repeated many times. Sinagua, without water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... The Anasazi: http://www.desertusa.com/ind1/... QED.
Wow, they must have really ticked off their gods. A 100 year drought? What did they do, accidentally sacrifice a non-virgin?
So their End of the World calendar was just a tick late?
Not porn?
In this case I am afraid that I am not interested.
-- 29A the number of the Beast