Great Blue Hole May Have Solved the Centuries Old Mayan Destruction Mystery

Drought may have caused the mighty Mayan civilization to collapse, a new study claims.

According to UPI, a team of researchers analyzed sediments on the walls of the Belize's Great Blue Hole to conclude that an extended period of drought caused the civilization to migrate north and eventually breakdown. Blue holes are massive underwater caves that sink sediments and present them in a chronological form, giving an insight about the climate in different eras. The Great Blue Hole is 400 ft deep sinkhole in the bet near Belize City.

Slash Gear reported that drought as a cause for destruction of Mayan civilization has been discussed in the past though no concrete evidence was ever compiled to support the hypothesis. The present study studied aluminum and titanium which is deposited in blue holes through rainfall. Lower levels of titanium indicate decreased rainfall.

The drought occurred between 800 and 900 AD, just around the time the civilization collapsed.

"We present a precisely dated subannual climate record for the past 2000 years from Yok Balum Cave, Belize. From comparison of this record with historical events compiled from well-dated stone monuments we propose that anomalously high rainfall favored unprecedented population expansion and the proliferation of political centers between 440 and 660 C.E. This was followed by a drying trend between 660 and 1000 C.E. that triggered the balkanization of polities, increased warfare, and the asynchronous disintegration of polities, followed by population collapse in the context of an extended drought between 1020 and 1100 C.E," researchers said.

The findings of the study have been published in the journal Science.