Collapsing Assumptions: Climate and Agriculture in Prehispanic Coastal Guatemala

Shawn Collins (Sandstone Archaeology, LLC), Deborah M. Pearsall (University of Missouri), and John G. Jones (Washington State University). Some scholars have argued that the “Maya Collapse” was a phenomenon caused by widespread drought and the decline of agriculture, resulting in the demise of Maya civilization in Mexico and Guatemala between AD 700 and 1000. Paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic data from along the Pacific Coast of Guatemala show that not only was the climate locally favorable at that time, but that agricultural signatures persist well after the period of population decline on the coast. This evidence, taken together with archaeological data, questions the nature of the relationship between climate, agriculture, and “civilization.”