Maya collapse (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Webster.

Over the last decade archaeologists have shifted from dramatic accounts of collapse to more nuanced narratives of decline and disruption, resilience and recovery. This shift partly reflects richer archaeological data, and partly fashion. Although Copan has long been a poster-child for the Classic Maya collapse, the history of research there has long prefigured this shift in archaeological perception and contributed importantly to it.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Paine.

Since John Bongaarts introduced it in 1978, demographers have used the concept of proximate and ultimate causality to understand fertility, mortality, and other demographic events. Bongaarts distinguished between proximate causes of fertility, like contraceptive use or age at marriage, and ultimate causes like socioeconomic class or education, which affect fertility through those proximate causes. The proximate-ultimate framework could provide Mayanists with a more sophisticated, and ultimately...

DOCUMENT Citation Only B Turner.

Understanding the socioeconomic demise and depopulation of much of the Maya lowlands from the eighth to tenth centuries has been influenced historically by environmental evidence and human-environment frameworks emanating from beyond archaeology. Climate change was involved as early as 1917, but subsequently muted by the excesses of environmental determinism. The role of environment was subsequently reinstated in the latter parts of the 20th century, especially influenced by compelling evidence...