Progression of The Decline
The Maya often recorded dates on monuments they built. Few dated monuments were being built around 500 AD - around 10 per year in 514 AD, for example. A steady increase made this number 20 by 672 AD and 40 by around 750 AD. After this, the number of dated monuments begins to falter relatively quickly, collapsing to 10 by 800 AD and to 0 by 900 AD. Likewise, recorded lists of kings complement this analysis. Altar Q shows a reign of kings from 426 AD to 763. One last king not recorded on Altar Q was Ukit Took, "Patron of Flint", who was likely a usurper. The dynasty likely collapsed entirely shortly thereafter. In Quirigua, twenty miles north of Copán, the last king Jade Sky began his rule between 895 and 900, and throughout the Maya area all kingdoms similarly fell around that time.
A third piece of evidence of the progression of Maya decline gathered by Ann Corinne Freter, Nancy Gonlin, and David Webster uses a technique called obsidian hydration. The technique allowed them to map the spread and growth of settlements in the Copán Valley and estimate their populations. Between 400 and 450 AD, the population was estimated at around six-hundred people. This rose to a peak of twenty-eight thousand between 750 and 800 AD - larger than London or Paris at the time. Population then began steady decline. By 900 AD, the population had fallen to fifteen thousand, and by 1200 AD the population was again less than 1000 in Copán.
Read more about this topic: Classic Maya Collapse
Famous quotes containing the words progression of, progression and/or decline:
“Measured by any standard known to science—by horse-power, calories, volts, mass in any shape,—the tension and vibration and volume and so-called progression of society were full a thousand times greater in 1900 than in 1800;Mthe force had doubled ten times over, and the speed, when measured by electrical standards as in telegraphy, approached infinity, and had annihilated both space and time. No law of material movement applied to it.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Measured by any standard known to science—by horse-power, calories, volts, mass in any shape,—the tension and vibration and volume and so-called progression of society were full a thousand times greater in 1900 than in 1800;Mthe force had doubled ten times over, and the speed, when measured by electrical standards as in telegraphy, approached infinity, and had annihilated both space and time. No law of material movement applied to it.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)