Speech for Collapse presentation
Jared Diamond described a lot of reasons why many civilizations such as Maya collapsed. In my speech I included some facts from Collapse book by Jared Diamond.
• A unique tradition was created by a society numbering barely 4,000 people, and sustained at its peak for a few generations before abruptly disappearing. The U.S. southwestern societies operated on a much smaller scale than did the Maya cities, with populations of thousands rather than millions. As a result, Maya cities are far more extensive in area, have more lavish monuments and art, were products of more steeply stratified societies headed by kings, and possessed writing.
• In the Southwestern U.S. we are dealing with a whole series of cultures
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• Outlier Great Houses beyond the Canyon – provincial capitals of junior chiefs.
• Small homesteads of just a few rooms for other people.
• The highest concentration of luxury items located to date comes from Pueblo Bonito`s room number 33.
• The increasing population and environmental problems caused civil unrest and warfare. One of the signs of warfare was cannibalism.
• Low rainfall could make rainfall-fed dryland agriculture and irrigation impossible. A drought that lasted more then three years would have been fatal, because modern Puebloans can store corn for only 2 years after which it is too rotten or infested to eat.
• During a drought in 1670s, many people starved to death, and some people killed each other. Between 800 and 1350 the population decreased from 1070 to 400 people. Conclusion:
There were human environmental impacts of several types, especially deforestation and arroyo cutting. In addition, there was climate change in rainfall and temperature that interacted with the effects of human and environmental impacts. Anasazi groups supplied food, timber, stone, luxury and other supporting each other in an interdependent complex society, but put the whole society at risk of collapsing. There were also some other factors, such as political or religious factors that played an essential role in society (for example, to motivate people to do
a. The global warming and extinction of megafaunal animals allowed agriculture to be born. From this agriculture came inequalities in the social structure due to specialized labor. For the Eastern Woodland Communities, the social inequalities from the agriculture created classes with a chief at the top. They demonstrated power by conquering other tribes in warfare. This was the first time in history when birth determined leaders and upperclassmen.
Because of the drought there were no crops. Which of course without the fish there was No food! And it shows in Document B that it lasted from 1565-1573. There were more droughts to come, in fact in 1610 110 died from it. They even called it the “Starving Time” in Document
This shift from gathering berries and hunting wild animals to producing food by themselves was major because it resulted in the developement of permanent settlement, social classes, and technology. As mentioned once before, there was a great change in the way food was produced. Mankind shifted from being mere hunter-gatherers to complex and
In “The end s of the world as we know them” article Jared Diamond looks at the collapse of several historical societies and the factors that caused their collapse. The factors are:
The city states consisted of numerous citizens but these citizens were not all equal. Indeed, one characteristic of Maya society was the hierarchical nature of its social organization. This meant that, at different levels in the society, people would be treated according to their status. This difference in social treatment automatically meant that some citizens enjoyed a better standard of living with more of the amenities of life than others. It also meant that at the bottom of this graded social pyramid were the agricultural farmers and foot soldiers of the empire flourished. By virtue of being at the bottom of the social pyramid their training and skills consisted largely of the social functions that they performed. Hence, they were not literate and concerned themselves largely with issues of agriculture and the basics of following orders in warfare.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed shows Jared Diamond's five-point framework. Jared Diamond came up with five key elements that determine whether a civilization collapses or succeeds. Many factors help decide whether a society succeeds or not but Diamond narrowed it to five. The Mayans are the best example of Diamond’s framework because it clearly shows how environmental problems, failure to adapt to those environmental problems, climate change, essential trading partners, and neighbors caused this civilization to collapse. The first of Jared Diamond's five-point framework is climate change, this contributed to the Mayans collapsing.
The society was affected because the farm lands abandoned and the food food prices dropped. There was not as much food needed because the populations had dropped. The people were down sick and they could not work which caused the farm lands to be abandoned and
Ever since the collapse of the once powerful Maya civilization, people have been trying to find out what caused it. Authors of the article, "Climate and the Collapse of Maya Civilization", which include Gerald Haug, Detlef Günther, Larry Peterson, Daniel Sigman, Konrad Hughen, and Beat Aeschlimann propose a theory that the Mayans collapsed because of an extended dry period between 760 and 910 A.D.
After reading about the Maya,Aztecs,and the Inca i can say that all of these societies are very alike in many ways.Both the Maya and the Aztecs had a mathematical system based on the unit 20.All the societies had vary strong beliefs when it came to there religion and there gods.The societies all had a strong beliefs but nun like the Aztecs, the Aztecs would go as far as to do a human sacrifice so they could keep the sun alive and pleas there gods.Also in all of the articles that i read it seamed to be the Spanish that would take down the civilizations.The conquistadors would always arrived to there native land and as there name implied they would conquer the natives.The Maya however did something that the other two societies didn't do.The
The mystery concerning the fundamental explanation for the collapse of the Mayan Civilization has been a major focus for researchers in the fields of anthropology and archeology for a considerable period of time. At the very core of this mystery of the Mayan collapse was the question of how could such a strong, stable civilization that had flourished for approximately twenty-seven hundred years disappear without a clear, rational explanation. As a result, researchers have put forth a large number of theories for the explanation of the collapse and subsequent decimation of the Mayan empire.
Aside from the great temples and pyramids the Mayas also had city states spread throughout. Unlike the Aztecs in Mexico, the Maya were never a unified empire ruled by a single ruler from a single place. The Maya’s were a series of smaller city states who ruled their immediate vicinity. Each city was different in its own unique way. Although they had their differences they tended to share certain characteristics as well, such as their general layout. The Maya’s laid out their cities similarly to the Aztecs and built around a central plaza. In the center of the cities were the important public buildings such as temples, palaces and a ball court. Residential areas radiated out from the city center, growing sparser the further they got from the center. Raised stone walkways linked the residential areas with each other and the center as well. Something important to note is that these plazas were rarely neat and orderly, and this is because the Maya’s
only having little water there was a food shortage. Over the five year period of the
The Mayan Civilization at its height was one of the greatest civilization to ever reign on the planet. Their advances in astronomy and mathematics well in advance has helped present civilizations to prosper. But one of the great questions is what happened to the Mayans? Why did they collapse? What caused them to collapse? It is a question that had gone unanswered for decades until some of the worlds great historians and scientist finally concluded to three reasons why the Mayan Civilization collapsed. The Mayans Collapse was fast and occurred due to Deforestation and Climate Change, Overpopulation, and Internal and Exterior Rivalry.
As population rose, the nobles of the independent city states both intermarried and made war on one another. Ultimately, the system of rule that had served the Maya for centuries had failed. Faced with famine, foreign invasion, chronic warfare, and perhaps disease, an era ended what is generally called the Classic Maya collapse.
Many decades ago, northern Central America and southern Mexico cultures developed complex political and social ranks. Researchers today know this region as Mesoamerica, known for its rich soil, abundant amount of rainfall, and agriculture. (Judge & Langdon, 2012) The Mesoamericans, Aztec and Mayan tribes, developed into complex civilizations for multiple reasons. These societies were advanced and complex for their time in areas, such as architecture, agriculture, militarism, and education. Each had unique religion and political systems as well. The rise and fall of both were due to several factors.