For
approximately 1,500 years the Mayan empire reigned supreme in what is now
southern Mexico and northern Central America. But for some reason, in the 8th
and 9th centuries A.D., the Mayan architects stopped building, its historians
stopped recording history, and the civilization seemed to almost completely
disappear. There has been ongoing speculation for the Mayans' demise including
that they were wiped out by disease as what occurred to many Indians in North
America. Or perhaps it was a civil war, or an army of invading forces or some
type of ecological calamity. Most recently, in 2012, a study from the Yucatan
Center for Scientific Research in Mexico concluded that rainfall reductions
drove the Mayans into oblivion, though many remain skeptical of that rather
uninspiring conclusion.
