It is one of the great mysteries of history. What was the reason for the end of the Mayan empire? A study in the journal ‘Nature’ is getting closer to the answer. It was, they say, drought. The theory already existed, but it was never proven with so many scientific studies. Anthropologist Douglas Kennett of the University of California leads it.
The Mayan empire, was settled in what is now southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador. Its fall as an empire occurred between 1400 and 1450. According to the study, it was a period of severe drought.

Social conflict
“Drought stimulated civil conflict in Mayapán, the great capital of the Maya empire. The institutional collapse occurred in that environmental context,” reads the research.
The consequences of the drought were diverse. Water scarcity was one of them. Something catastrophic for a pre-Columbian civilization. Their economy depended almost entirely on agriculture, especially maize.
There were other problems that aggravated their crisis. They had no centralized long-term grain storage. And they had minimal opportunities for artificial irrigation. This contributed to the political and economic climate going into intense convulsion.

Similar future
“The drought resulted in famine. This generated political instability, civil conflict and, finally, institutional collapse in Mayapán,” they add. “The difficulties provoked tensions. And these were fanned by political groups, creating violence,” they add.
The Mayas were the people who put up the greatest resistance to the conquest. The study warns about the importance of natural phenomena in the decline of civilizations. Currently, Mexico and the United States are facing a continuous drought and water shortage.
“Large effects are expected from current and future anthropogenic influences. Extreme events in the water cycle will worsen. More intense and prolonged droughts will come than those that affected agricultural productivity in the past”, the essay concludes. The reason for the end of the Mayan empire could be the same for us if we do not do something.