Thousands of Mysterious Maya Structures Discovered in Guatemala

[ronmac]

Thousands of Mysterious Maya Structures Discovered in Guatemala

This is pretty amazing.

The finding of a sprawling Maya population shows there are means of supporting people in the area without destroying the forest, said Lisa Lucero, an anthropologist at the University of Illinois who was not involved in the new survey. [See Images of the Amazing Maya Discoveries]

While I admire and support their work, I find that statement to be misleading by ignoring the billions who live outside the area that have contributed to the destruction of the rainforest.

[Scott Bails]

Fascinating stuff.

[rcarlberg]

What's the timeframe here? Does this increase the estimate of 90% of all Native Americans dying after the first European contact? Is it more like 99%? 99.9%?

[markwoll]

The book 1491 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_...efore_Columbus, is a fascinating read about civilization in the Americas ( South, Central, and some Southern North ).
Something swept the continent not long after that general time frame that decimated the local populations.
The level of development in some regions had been pretty extensive, but evidence was swallowed by the jungles once regular maintenance ceased.

[Jerjo]

“It’s not just a simple collapse, but there are waves of collapse,”

I found this article the other day when this story broke. It wasn't a case of a pandemic or agricultural disaster - looks like a series of events that just cascaded.

http://www.history.com/news/what-cau...over-new-clues

[spellbound]

While I admire and support their work, I find that statement to be misleading by ignoring the billions who live outside the area that have contributed to the destruction of the rainforest.

Archaeologists made a fantastic discovery using modern lidar tools. Then the anthropologists make educated guesses about how people lived long ago. They are guesses, and may sometimes be wrong, but they are certainly not without value. Perhaps the ancient Maya would have used "slash and burn" agriculture if they had thought of it. Humans are destructive, and earlier humans probably never considered conservation or preservation.

It is undoubtedly true that many people living outside the world's rain forests contribute to the destruction of those forests so that they can, for one example, assemble IKEA furniture for their homes.

It wasn't a case of a pandemic or agricultural disaster - looks like a series of events that just cascaded.

More than likely this is the case for the collapse of most civilizations. It is foolish to look for a single cause, except in the rare cases where a single cause can be proven. Real life is complicated. There are seldom easy answers. If we want only easy answers, we could leave all discovery and explanation up to politicians rather than scientists. That always seems to work out well.

[rcarlberg]

It is foolish to look for a single cause, except in the rare cases where a single cause can be proven.

Something swept the continent not long after that general time frame that decimated the local populations.

There's pretty good evidence that smallpox, gonorrhea, measles, influenza, cholera, chicken pox, typhus, scarlet fever, bubonic plague, yellow fever, whooping cough, diptheria and a few others were unknown in the New World prior to the first missionaries. These merchants of death brought 99.9% mortality along with their religion.

Europe was overcrowded and not very sanitary.

Incidentally, "decimated" technically means killing one-in-ten. What the missionaries did was kill 999 out of a thousand.

[Rune Blackwings]

There's pretty good evidence that smallpox, gonorrhea, measles, influenza, cholera, chicken pox, typhus, scarlet fever, bubonic plague, yellow fever, whooping cough, diptheria and a few others were unknown in the New World prior to the first missionaries. These merchants of death brought 99.9% mortality along with their religion.

Europe was overcrowded and not very sanitary.

Incidentally, "decimated" technically means killing one-in-ten. What the missionaries did was kill 999 out of a thousand.

my understanding too, from what i have seen and read, was that climate changes, natural disasters and invasion of other groups in the Americas lead to some of the declines.

[Buddhabreath]

You can get the story directly from David Lin on the History Hit podcast. He is an engineer who worked on the survey using LIDAR which was central to the survey process. Absolutely astounding - some 60,000 structures detected last year alone including major plazas, huge agricultural infrastructure, Maya population possibly underestimated by a factor of 40. Total game changer!

https://www.historyhit.com/podcasts/...s-history-hit/

Scroll down to "Exciting new Mayan discoveries with Albert Lin"

[Casey]

When disparate peoples collide there is always bound to be mutual contagion. Bubonic plague and leprosy originated in the Middle East. Tuberculosis was well established in the "new/3rd world" long before the 1st world Europeans came. And what greeted those Europeans were the indigenous diseases: malaria, trypanosomiasis/sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis, dengue, yellow fever, schistosomiasis, Chagas' disease, filariasis, not to mention dozens of worms and water flukes. Disease and death went both ways. That's how we (the survivors) become stronger: natural immunity through exposure (Or immunity through immunization.) Sadly, many of those exposed do not survive the onslaught . This is the genesis of the old adage: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Oh, and let's not forget the influenza pandemic of 1917-1918. Origin: Asia.