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Environmental Degradation and the Classic Maya Collapse at Copan, Honduras (a.d. 600–1250): Evidence From Studies of Household Survival

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

Richard R. Paine  and
AnnCorinne Freter
Richard R. Paine
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-1190, USA
AnnCorinne Freter
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701-2079, USA
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Abstract

The Late Classic Maya abandonment of the Copan Valley, Honduras, began in the ninth century a.d. and lasted approximately 250–300 years. The relationship between local ecological setting and residential group abandonment is examined by applying event-history analysis to the known occupation spans of 140 residential mound groups, dated by obsidian hydration. Late Classic households in ecologically vulnerable sections of the Copan Valley—as measured by slope, soil type, and natural vegetation—had significantly higher risk of abandonment than households in more ecologically stable settings. Abandonment risk rises sharply in all regions at the end of the seventh century a.d. Both computerized agricultural simulations and settlement demographic reconstructions indicate that increased levels of agricultural intensification necessary to meet the subsistence needs of Copan's growing population would have led to large-scale erosion in upland areas and a significant reduction of soil fertility in all regions of the valley at that time. Mound-group abandonment patterns tend to support the hypothesis that environmental degradation played a dominant role in the collapse of the Copan polity.

Type
Articles
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , Spring 1996 , pp. 37 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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