By Rees Abrook

In 800 A.D., the Maya Empire consisted of a number of powerful city- states spreading from southern Mexico to northern Honduras. These cities were home to vast populations and were ruled by a dominant elite who could command mighty armies and claimed to be descended from the stars and planets themselves. Maya culture was at its peak: mighty temples were lined up in precision with the night sky, stonecarvings were made to celebrate the accomplishments of great leaders and long- distance trade was flourishing. Yet a hundred years later, the cities were in ruins, abandoned and left to the jungle to reclaim. What happened to the Maya?

Archaeologists have learned that the Maya were subjected to a series of droughts, which occur when there is not enough rainfall in an area to sustain its vegetation. Not having the technology to find water underground, the Maya were completely dependent on rainfall for their water supply. Though the Yucatan is lush with vegetation, it's aseasonal desert - which means that it depends on summer rainfall to sustain it. If summer rainfall was light or didn't come at all, the Maya would experience a drought. Over time, the Maya learned to manage their water effectively, but repeated droughts would have tapped their reserves.

The Maya were farmers and fed their people through agriculture. One of the main ways they made room for their fields was through a slash-and-burn method, where they cut down all the trees and foliage in an area and burned what was left. Then they planted their crops. Rainforest soil is not nutrient-rich, so this method would have only yielded 3 to 5 years' worth of crops. As the land eroded and was depleted of nutrients, each subsequent year would have produced less and less food. Eventually, the Maya would not have been able to produce enough food to feed everyone. The Famine Theory: Preclassic maya (1000 B.C A.D.) practiced basic subsistence agriculture: slash-and-burn cultivations on small family plots. They planted mostly corn, beans and squash. On the coast and lakes there was some basic fishing as well. As the Maya civilization advanced, the cities grew, their population growing much larger than could be fed by local production. Improved agricultural techniques such as draining wetlands for planting or terracing hills picked up some of the slack, and improved trade also helped, but the large population in the cities must have put great strain on the food production. A famine or other agricultural calamity affecting these basic crops could certainly have caused the downfall of the ancient Maya.

Spanish Explorers may have brought Smallpox, which the Mayan’s would not have been immune to. Or poisoned water sources could have made them ill and wood have led to death.

The Maya were once thought to have been a peaceful, pacific culture. This image has been shattered by the historical record: new discoveries and newly deciphered stonecarvings clearly indicate that the Maya warred frequently and viciously among themselves. City-states such as Dos Pilas, Tikal, Copán and Quirigua went to war with one another quite often: Dos Pilas was invaded and destroyed in 760 A.D. Did they war with one another enough to cause the collapse of their civilization? It’s quite possible that

Environmental Change Theory: Climate change may also have done in the ancient Maya. As the Maya were dependent on the most basic agriculture and a handful of crops, supplemented by hunting and fishing, they were extremely vulnerable to droughts, floods, or any change in the conditions that affected their food supply. Some researchers have identified some climatic change that occurred around that time: for example, the coastal water levels rose towards the end of the Classic period. As coastal villages flooded, people would have moved to the large inland cities, placing strain upon their resources while at the same time losing food from farms and fishing

Some people think they were aliens who went home Some people think they were abducted by aliens Some people think they left on a pilgrimage to meet their Gods I think they left in search of food and water to make new settlements.