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BOB HIRSHON (host):
Climate change and the Maya…I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.
For centuries, the Maya empire flourished in present-day Central America, but rapidly began to decline around 900 A.D. A new report in the journal Science suggests that climate change helped do in the great Maya cities. Penn State University environmental anthropologist Doug Kennett and his team studied cone-shaped mineral deposits, called stalagmites, in a cave in Belize.
DOUG KENNETT (Penn State University):
And you can obtain a climate record from them by using oxygen isotopes, which basically reflect the amount of rainfall at any given time.
HIRSHON:
From the stalagmites, Kennett’s team correlated the rise and fall of the Maya empire with centuries of ample rainfall, followed by a long, dry spell. Kennett argues that the drought-related crop failures may have fueled the warfare and political instability that marked the empire’s collapse. I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.
