The Maya didn’t just collapse, and neither did the other societies mentioned in my previous post about Jared Diamond’s book Collapse. The idea of collapse was a long-standing belief held by many scholars, but it just doesn’t make sense. Entire societies don’t just fall to pieces and vanish overnight, particularly ones that reach such high levels of sophistication. In fact, there are still Mayan people living in the same jungle regions, speaking the same languages, and carrying on similar traditions as their ancestors. The Maya didn’t disappear, leaving behind only ghostly pyramids covered in vines to show where they had been. In reality, they never even really left. Instead, they adapted to changes that were causing difficulties for their society and found a new way to live in the region. No one knows exactly what caused the shift away from cities full of monumental architecture, but many suggestions have been put forward.
Frederick Catherwood painting of the Pyramid of Kulkulcán
in the Maya city of Chichén Itzá. (From the online archive of lithographs at
the Frederick Catherwood House, Plate 22).
One of the most popular suggestions involves a drastic change in the climate of the region, specifically, a drought. There are, of course, many other theories involving everything from political mismanagement, and a souring of trade relations, to widespread war over resources and social turmoil. The mystery of what caused the Maya to move away from their cities may never be solved; but there are many other interesting aspects of the change in their society to consider. Among these, what mechanism allowed them to carry their language and culture to the present day, in the face of whatever changes forced the abandonment of their cities?
Modern day murals in Honduras depict traditional cultural
elements of Mayan Ancestors.
The answer to that question is resilience in the face of change and quick adaptations. The Maya left their cities, instead choosing to live in smaller units, like towns or villages, which are still the social structure of the Maya people today. This move to a different organization technique allowed their society to absorb the stress of change and still maintain central elements of the culture, despite a structural shift. The ability to absorb the changes and reorganize into a new structure while still maintaining the original identity of the culture or system is called resilience and it plays a critical role in how social systems function over time.
A resilient society will be made up of various interacting parts, which encourage “persistence, adaptiveness, variability, and unpredictability” within the overall structure of the organizational system (Gunderson & Holling, 2002: 27-28). This is referred to as “ecosystem resilience” and is best applied when dealing with a great deal of uncertainty. It also emphasizes understanding how much change can be absorbed into a system before the overall structure is altered. A resilient system can incorporate stresses into its structure without losing its stable or current state.
Figure 2: The black circle represents the society, and the
arrows are stresses acting on it within its current, stable state (resting in
the trough). The stresses try to push the ball up either side of the trough,
but don’t succeed. As long as the society stays within the trough, it is
absorbing stress and not losing its overall structural position. It is
resilient. Even if one stress is significantly stronger than the other one, it
would take a great deal to shift the society out of its stable position and tip
it into an additional state (as indicated at the “threshold” peak on either
side of the trough). Source: http://www.arctic-council.org/arr/resources/what-is-resilience/
In terms of a society, like the Maya, the organizational structure generally starts out as being one with fairly equal parts spread out over an area. As time passes, those parts (like villages or towns) unite into a more formalized group, with a central organizational point in one place. Eventually, this point or town grows in size (becoming a city) and holds more centralized power over the other, smaller towns that make up the system. Once power is centralized, certain stresses on the system as a whole are harder to handle because the resources are no longer spread around and immediately accessible by all the parts of the system.
Figure 3: When the society consolidates its resources and
power too much, it can become brittle or weak. This would result in the society
still maintaining its overall current organization (still within range of its
trough), but shifting to a less stable state. In a brittle society, stress can
be absorbed and allow the society to return to a more stable location (if the
ball rolled back to the left) or it can be too strong and push society into a
new position by crossing the threshold (the ball rolling over the peak and into
a new position or trough). Source: http://www.arctic-council.org/arr/resources/what-is-resilience/
If a unified society is resilient, they can react accordingly to a change in their society or environment, using their centralized power structure as an advantage. The Mayan civilization was unified for more than one thousand years, suggesting that they were fairly resilient for quite some time. Much like the eventual weakening and final separation of the Mayan civilization, a system won’t always be strong enough to absorb changes like war, social unrest, or drought. Eventually, even a resilient system will lose its level of resilience and reach its threshold. This threshold is a tipping point, where the stress on the system can no longer be absorbed into the system without leading to change.
Figure 4: While a society is effectively consolidating
power, its resilience is higher, a deeper trough formed by the dotted resilience
line (benefiting from consolidation and organized structure). When the
centralized power begins to cause difficulties, the resilience is lowered and
thus more susceptible to disturbance from both external and internal stressors,
as shown by a shallower solid line trough. With less resilience, the threshold
is easier to reach and cross, leading to an additional state. Source: http://www.arctic-council.org/
arr/resources/what-is-resilience/
The Maya reached their threshold during the final century of the Classic Period (AD 250 -900). Their resilience was no longer high enough to over-power stresses, and Mayan society was pushed over the threshold. An “additional state” (a new equilibrium – see Figure 1), became the new normal, and the Post-Classic Period began. Up to this point, Mayan society had been resilient enough to shape their cities from a wild jungle and establish vast trade networks across the region. Their resilience had allowed them to build up complex government and a recognizable social system, but nothing stays the same and change happens. Modern people look at the end of the Classic period in Mayan history as a fall from power, a collapse, but is this really the case? Is the move over a threshold into a different state always a bad thing, or is that shift really an integral part of all systems, even social ones? Our own society has plunged into what has been termed the “Great Recession,” and it affects every part of our culture. Does that mean we, like the Mayans and the Romans, are collapsing, or is it just a symptom of changes in our stable state?
~Margaret Mariani, Research Contractor.
Works Cited:
Diamond, Jared M. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Viking Press, 2005.
Gunderson, Lance H. and C.S. Holling, Eds. Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems. Washington: Island Press, 2002.
Resilience Alliance and Santa Fe Institute. 2004. Thresholds and alternate states in ecological and social-ecological systems. Resilience Alliance. (Online.) URL: <http://www.resalliance.org/index.php?id=183.>