What happened to the Mayans? The gorgeous Blue Hole in Belize and its surrounding lagoons may have the answer.
Human history is defined by different civilizations, including Hindu and Incan, but nothing seems to be more intriguing and controversial than the Mayan Empire.
For centuries they thrived and built technologies and methods that continue to marvel scientists all around the world, such as their calendar that many thought to predict the world's end. The Meso-American civilization was one of the first to have a comprehensive writing system. They thrived for many, many years-then disappeared.
The question is why. Scientists and researchers then embarked on ambitious and long-time projects trying to find the answers. Based on one of the newest studies, it's possible that they succumbed to drought.
How did they come up with this theory? Researchers including André Droxler of Rice University looked into the minerals found in Belize's majestic Blue Hole and the nearby lagoons. These minerals pointed out that there was a very long drought that happened around the same time the Mayan civilization experienced a very dramatic slowdown. The sediments also told of another drought around the time the Mayans had moved to the northern region.
The dry spell may have been caused by a change in the weather system wherein rain just didn't happen in the Yucatan Peninsula, where the Mayans lived, especially during summer.
The two periods of long droughts were more than enough to cause the Mayan decline and eventually the end of their civilization. There was hunger and famine, as well as civil unrest, as people tried to fight their way through survival-very similar to what happens in the present age whenever there's food shortage and drought.
There were many theories that tried to explain the loss of this civilization, but the drought story seems to be the more plausible, especially since a previous study around 1995 suggested it while studying cave stalagmites in Belize that are more than 1,500 years old.