The Fall of Civilizations -- Wikipedia

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Terms / Concepts:

• methods
  
  
• comparative methods
  
  
• ethnographic analogy
  
  
• interdisciplinary research
  
  
• dating techniques
  
  
  • obsidian hydration dating (Ann Corrine Freter)
    
    
  • palynology using core camples (David Rue)
    
    
  • dendrochronology (tree-ring dating)

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Notes:

• World population is now estimated at 7.5 billion
  
  
• About A.D. 800 all over the lowlands people stopped erecting dated stelae
  
  
• What changes in revolutions are the elite levels of a culture. the bottom level, the working class, remains the same
  
  
  • Rome crumbled 4th century A.D.
    
    
  • Mashkan Shapir (Mesopotamia)
    
    
• irrigation and salination contributed to the destruction of civilization after civilization
  
  
  • but in Mexico (Mayan area) the irrigation is insignificant, no major climactic changes took place, there were no major disasters, so what caused the downfall of the Maya?
    
    
• the most enduring explanation of the fall of the Maya has always been an ecological one
  
  

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Cultures:

• Maya
  
  
• Aztec
  
  
  • Tenochtitlán
  • [this is different than Teotihuacán]
    
    
• Mexico City
  
  
  • Zocolo
    
    
  • The Moon Goddess (Coyolxauhqui), stone relief discovered at the foot of an early building of the Templo Mayor, TEnochtitlán, Late Post-Classic Aztec

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Sites:

• Mesoamerica
  
  
• sometimes the invasion of foreign armies explains the collapse of a civilization
  
  
• but the most enduring explanation of the collapse of the maya has to be an ecological one
  
  
  • overcropping land (overcultivation) led to an increase in erosion
    
    
  • major droughts, major famine may have led to a peasant revolt
    
    

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• Copán, Honduras
  
  
• 16 rulers
  • List of known Xukpi rulers -- Wikipedia
    
    
• 400 years
  
  
• Altar L
  • the last carved monument at Copán
  • sides never carved with the Copán Royal dynasty lineage
  • represented a metaphor for the fall of the city
    
    
• Altar Q
  • contains the Dynastic History of Copán
    
    
• end: 10 February 822
  
  
• research of 150 years focused on the elite and on the city centers
  
  
• but what was happening to the common people?
  
  
• what were the factors, mechanisms and process of the decline?
  
  
• Copán Mapping Project
  
  
• today the Copán Valley supports ca. 25,000 people, which is almost the same as it was at the peak of prehistoric Copán
  
  
  • in 9 years on one farmer's fields corn crop yields declined to 1/3 of original
    
    
  • the long-fallow system of agriculture yields to shorter fallow cycles in face of an increase in population
    
    
• Rebecca Storey (physical anthropologist)
  
  
  • 80% of the skeletons are anemic, and they are higher class
    
    
  • and the commoners fared even worse
    
    
• Palenque
  
  
• Tikál
  
  
  • 3,000,000 ---> "tens of thousands
    
    
  • and this happened over a period of only a century or a century and a half
    
    
• Tenochtitlán
  
  
  • Aztec
    
    
  • [this is different than Teotihuacán]

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• American Southwest
  
  
  • Mesa Verde Colorado
    
    
  • Anasazi
    
    

    • until A.D. 500 were migratory hunters / collectors

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• Chaco Cañon, NM
  
  
• between the 11th and 13th centuries A.D. almost all of the Anasazi communities were abandoned
  
  
• but Sand Cañon Publo persisted
  
  
  • Kiva
  • 500 people
    
    
• Tewa Pueblo, New Mexico (Rena Swentzell)
  
  
• Tree Ring Lab (Director Jeffrey Dean)
  
  
• drought, population growth, overexploitation of resources
  
  
• Sand Cañon declined with the decline in rainfall that led to severe draught
  
  
• irrigation led to salt problems

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• San Joaquin Valley, California
  
  
  • salt: calcium carbonate, sodium chloride (Larry Turnquist)
    
    
• Rome
  
  
  • fell in the 4th century A.D.
    
    
• Iraq
  
  
  • Ancient Mesopotamia
    
    
  • Mashkan Shapir

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Individuals:

• Frederick Catherwood (1840s)
• John L. Stephens (1840s)
  • Incidents of Travel in Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas, & Yucataán
• William Sanders
• Elizabeth Stone
• David Webster
• William Fash
• Wiliam Lipe
• David Rue (palynologist)
• Stephen Whittington
• Rebecca Storey
• An Corrin Frieter
• Larry Turnquist