The researcher spoke about the causes of the decline of the Maya civilization

The decline of Maya cities was caused not only by drought, but also by a combination of climate change, conflict, and economic factors. When rural conditions improved, residents preferred to return to spacious lands, leaving the cities. This was reported on November 26 in the journal Science Daily.

As noted in the article, the growth and decline of cities at all times has been determined by a combination of opportunities, stress and human ingenuity. The first cities were created by rural communities that depended on agriculture and preferred to live in dispersed settlements to make it easier to get to the fields.

However, even in ancient times, life in cities was more expensive and more difficult: high population density increased the risk of infections, competition for land and resources intensified, and social inequality increased. Despite this, many rural residents chose urban life.

Douglas Kennett, an archaeologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, studied the development of Maya cities by applying the theory of population ecology to analyze the factors that contributed to urbanization. The researcher found that the growth of Maya cities was driven by the interaction of climate downturns, intergroup conflicts, and economies of scale achieved through investments in agricultural infrastructure. These factors contributed to the formation of the urban social structure.

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At the same time, Kennett found that residents left cities not because of the deteriorating climate, but on the contrary - when conditions in rural areas improved, allowing people to gain more freedom and autonomy, and the costs of urban life ceased to justify themselves.

The new model combines previously competing explanations: environmental factors, wars, and economic dynamics. She shows why agrarian societies sometimes concentrated in cities, despite the social and financial costs, and also explains that urban decline can occur under favorable climatic conditions.

Earlier, on November 19, in Mexico, researchers discovered a large-scale structure among the ancient Maya, which, as it has now been established, was a cosmogram — a geometric map of the universe. New data show that the 3,000-year-old structure was used for collective observations of the sky and simulated the structure of the world.

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