Maya Civilization

Tikal Settlement, Capital of Maya Civilization
(Pappas, 2013)

What, you may ask, would you do to survive if the only water sources were undrinkable? Well, you would do as the Mayans did and look to the heavens. 

In the beginning, early Mayans used springs located close to their settlements to survive but as their population increases so did their thirst for the elixir of life. And so the great and mighty Mayan civilisation began the arduous and risky process of collecting rain water in a temperate climate where rain would not fall for months at a time. The Mayans began their journey into the history books with their cleverly devised and well executed civil constructions, in the rugged landscape of Central America. As the civilisations became more complex so did their method of collecting usable water. Each villages storage system boiled down to one key idea; that harvesting rainwater and manipulating it to their advantage was the only way to survive.

Geology Of The Area

The Maya civilisation was situated on the Yucatan Peninsula which consists of karst limestone (Scribol, 2016). The peninsula is the exposed portion of the Yucatan Platform. The entire platform consists of the same material which is the layering of fossilised calcareous organisms and sediment on the ocean floor, most likely in the inner to a mid-shelf region. In some parts at depth, there is dolomite and evaporates present. Following the formation of the limestone was a period of uplift, resulting in a reverse Atlantis (Yucatan, 2008). The platform is defined by a flat low-lying area, and the limestone is geologically very young (Backyard nature, 2/9/16). A system of complex faulting and volcanism makes up the rest of the mountainous area of Mexico (Mines Online, 2013). For the purposes of the Mayan civilisation, the limestone peninsula is what we will focus on. 

How The Hydrology Was Influenced

Due to the porosity of the limestone, there is a remarkable absence of surface water. On the other hand, any rainwater that hits the surface starts dissolving the limestone due to the low amount of carbon dioxide present. This means there is a large amount of fresh ground water and natural cisterns below the ground surface that store it. Essentially, the Mayans discovered these and utilised their resources, which contributes to their intelligence and intuition as a civilisation. 

The overall design of their water system was simplistic yet achievable with the resources at hand, which is a key attribute to its considerable success. The method was quite simply to collect rain water in these natural cisterns and in man-made chultuns. They would often line the chultuns with a mixture of limestone, sand and water to make a hard stucco that would waterproof the storage units (Pappas, 2013). This meant no rainwater would be lost through absorption into the soil or dissolved further into the limestone. How this water was then distributed throughout each settlement depended on the creativity of the architects. 

An example of a settlement in the Mayan civilisation that used the basic method was the Puuc civilisation. In one settlement called Xcoch, which lasted from 800BD – 100AD, they found caves that reach down to the water table, as shown in figure 2. These caves were thought to be used not only for a clean drinking source but for religious purposes also. The Mayans' in this settlement connected these caves to reservoirs, which were also collecting rainwater. Elaborate cisterns, which Mayans called chultuns, were designed to help keep the water flowing throughout the settlement. (Scribol, 2016)

Figure 2: A subterranean water cave (cenote) in Yucatan. (Scribol, 2016)

How The Paleoclimate Affected The Survival Of The Mayan Civilisation 

By the year 800 AD around 14 million people were living on the Yutacan peninsula (Gill, 1994). Within the next 200 years, more than half of the cities had been deserted with the remaining cities severely depopulated.  Throughout the 19th and 20th century historians and archaeologists alike have been asking the same question: what caused the mass depopulation of the Mayan civilisation in such a short period of time? For a long time, a popular theory suggested the downfall was caused by the Mayans themselves whether it was due to deforestation, bad agricultural practices, war or in relation to a potential precarious political system, no one really knew (Medina-Elizalde et al, 2010). It hasn't been until recent years that the theory of severe drought around the time of the Mayan downfall, has been brought to life. This theory takes into account the paleoclimate, bringing forth the hypothesis that the Mayans could have had very little to do with their untimely downfall (Turner, 2010).
The theory is based around little water coming into their local hydrologic system. This is most likely due to less water being precipitated into the basins, therefore less water is flowing into the system. The impact of this is that the water table will drop, making it harder for the Mayans to collect water from their underground cisterns, such as in Xcoch. It also means other cities which collected water in reservoirs were in a deficit loss. This is derived from a basic understanding that if less water is coming into the system and the same amount of water as before the drought is leaving the system to provide for the masses, then the water will run out quicker. Either way, the Mayans were getting less and less water as the severe drought continued on for a period of hundreds of years. By the time the Mexicans came to invade and conquer, there wasn't much protest going on as most of the Mayans had been taken by the drought.

Figure 3: Map of Desertification spatially around the world.
(Ace geography, 4/9/16) 

How The Mayans Actions Affected Future Civilisations

Before the drought came and cleared out all the Mayans, they were in a similar situation as all major civilisations. This was the centuries of abuse to their land of deforestation and degradation, causing desertification. This is still a major issue and contributes to one of the highest environmental challenges of our society today (World day to combat desertification, 3/9/16). As you can see to the right in figure 3, desertification is a major problem in a scarily large portion of the world. It also shows that where the Yucatan Peninsular is located, the land that connects North America with South America is vulnerable to desertification. This is seen in present Yucatan Peninsula where there used to be jungles is now just desert. The soils are depleted of nutrients due to over farming and have never managed to regenerate.

References

Ace geography, What is desertification?, viewed: 04/10/2016, http://www.acegeography.com/what-is-desertification.html

Backyard nature, An Over View of The Geology Of the Northen Yucatan, viewed: 02/10/2016, http://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/geology~.htm

Gill, R.B., 1994, 'The great Maya droughts', ProQuest.  
World day to combat desertification, Desertification, viewed: 03/10/2016, http://www.un.org/en/events/desertificationday/background.shtml

Medina-Elizalde, M., Burns, S.J, Lea, D.W., Asmerom, Y., von Gunten, L., Polyak, V., Vuille, M., Karmalkar, A. 2010. 'High resolution stalagmite climate record from the Yucatán Peninsula spanning the Maya terminal classic period', Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 289, pgs 255-262.

Mines Online, 2013, Mexico's Geological Setting, viewed: 04/09/2016, http://www.minesonline.com/government-project-opportunities/mexico-opportunities/mexico-s-geological-setting.aspx

Pappas, S., Live Science, 2013, Sustainable Tech Saw Ancient Maya Through Drought, viewed: 06/10/2016, http://www.livescience.com/21622-ancient-maya-water-system.html 

Scribol, 2016, The Amazing Water Management of the Ancient Mayans, viewed: 4/10/2016, http://scribol.com/anthropology-and-history/archaelogy/the-amazing-water-management-of-the-ancient-mayans/ 

Turner, B.L., 2010, 'Unlocking the ancient Maya and their environment: Paleo-evidence and dating resolution', Geological Society of America, v0. 38; no. 6; p. 575–576; doi: 10.1130/focus062010.1. 575

Yucatan, 2008, Geology of the Yucatan Peninsula, viewed: 05/10/2016, http://www.beautiful-yucatan-peninsula.com/yucatan-peninsula.html

Figure 1 - Pappas, S., Live Science, 2013, Sustainable Tech Saw Ancient Maya Through Drought, viewed: 06/10/2016, http://www.livescience.com/21622-ancient-maya-water-system.html

Figure 2 - Scribol, 2016, The Amazing Water Management of the Ancient Mayans, viewed: 4/10/2016, http://scribol.com/anthropology-and-history/archaelogy/the-amazing-water-management-of-the-ancient-mayans/

Figure 3 - Ace geography, What is desertification?, viewed: 04/10/2016, http://www.acegeography.com/what-is-desertification.html

Bibliography and Suggested Reading

http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.canterbury.ac.nz/docview/304104303/abstract/7D3225B0C9AB41D0PQ/1?accountid=14499
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/a-mayan-water-system-with-lessons-for-today/?_r=0

http://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/64742-sophisticated-mayan-water-management-system-revealed

http://nationalgeographic.org/media/technology-rainwater-survival-maya/

https://www.geo.umass.edu/climate/papers2/Medina-Elizalde_EPSL2010.pdf

http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/38/6/575.full.pdf+html