I think the Mayans collapsed towards the end of the Classic Period because of a chain reaction between weather problems and crop disease. I would say it all started with the weather being really wet, which probably led to the spreading of the "diplodia ear rot" disease. The disease is caused by warm temperatures and lots of soil moisture, which was caused by the weather because it rained really often, so naturally the soil would be wet. This would also explain why, when archaeologists talked with modern farmers in the Copan Valley, they said that their crop was getting worse every year, and the Mayans would really have been hit hard because they didn't have the modern day materials that the farmers can use today.
-The images wouldn't load, it only showed the URL for them in words, so here are the links
http://cropdisease.cropsci.uiuc.edu/corn/images/28LARGEDipcrnerrot017%20copy.jpg
http://www.mexira.com/images/yucatan_map.jpg
http://extension.missouri.edu/explore/images/ipm1001art51.jpg
http://www.treehugger.com/jesus-leon-santos-mixteca.jpg
Thursday, November 6, 2008
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