According to NASA-funded research, the disappearance of the ‘once vibrant Maya society, dubbed as ‘one of the greatest demographic disasters in human prehistory,’ was due to the Maya themselves. According to veteran archeologist Tom Sever, “They did it to themselves.”

The Maya flourished in Central America for 1,200 years, peaking in 900 A.D. They were a vast society, with their cities holding more than 2,000 people per square mile. That population density can be compared to modern day Los Angeles County. ‘Even in rural areas the Maya numbered 200 to 400 people per square mile.’ Suddenly, the Maya were no more, in complete demographic demise.

“The Maya are often depicted as people who lived in complete harmony with their environment. But like many other cultures before and after them, they ended up deforesting and destroying their landscape in efforts to eke out a living in hard times,” says PhD student Robert Griffin.

Sever expounds, “They had to burn 20 trees to heat the limestone for making just 1 square meter of the lime plaster they used to build their tremendous temples, reservoirs, and monuments.” The Maya deforested using the method of slash-and-burn agriculture.

Also, ‘a major drought occurred about the time the Maya began to disappear. And at the time of their collapse, the Maya had cut down most of the trees across large swaths of the land to clear fields for growing corn to feed their burgeoning population. They also cut trees for firewood and for making building materials.’ These scientists believe that ‘a deadly cycle of drought, warming and deforestation may have doomed the Maya.’

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Via PHYSORG