Fall of the Maya Empire1

Isaac Silva Ura

Prof. Christopher Minster
ENG 0100
April 08, 2015

Fall of the Maya Empire

The Maya was a powerful empire that suddenly after hundred years it disappeared. There
are several reasons for the decline of the Maya Empire that are still unclear to historians. One of
the reasons is the Warfare Theory, it says that the Maya city-states were always in war between
themselves, and at the end this was a reason why they collapsed. Other reason, was The Famine
Theory. It says that they practiced the agriculture. But after some years, like the Maya population
grew, there was not enough food for all the people. According to Bruce H. Dahlin, an
archaeologist at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, said that a new research introduces
some hard-core empirical evidence for a market economy, adding that the soil studies provide
the first way of confirming that an area that looks like a marketplace is a marketplace. These
tell us that there was a lack of food that started to make difference in which city had the better
status than the others. To conclude, there are several reasons that make the fall of the Maya
empire, and which of these factors were most important than the others.

Fall of the Maya Empire2

Sources
Minster, Christopher. What Happened to the Ancient Maya? About Education. Christopher
Minster. n.d. Web. 8 Apr 2015.
Noble, John. Ancient Yucatn Soils Point to Maya Market, and Market Economy. The New
York Times. 8 Jan. 2008. Web. 8 Apr 2015.