© Photograph by DEA/G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty
Scholars have widely assumed that the Maya practiced "total war"—that is, devastating violence that involved the destruction of cities—only after they began to compete for food resources during a series of droughts beginning in the 9th century A.D.
Scholars have widely assumed that the Maya practiced "total war"—that is, devastating violence that involved the destruction of cities—only after they began to compete for food resources during a series of droughts beginning in the 9th century A.D.
A long-standing idea about the ancient Maya is that for most of the civilization's 700-year-long Classic period, which lasted from 250 to 950 A.D., warfare was more or less ritualized. Perhaps the royal family might be kidnapped, or some symbolic structures torn down, but large-scale destruction and high numbers of civilian casualties were supposedly rare.
Researchers have generally believed that only towards the very end of the Classic period, increasing droughts would have reduced food supplies, in turn escalating tensions between Maya kingdoms and resulting in violent warfare that is believed to have precipitated their decline. Research presented today in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, however, is adding to the evidence that violent, destructive warfare targeting both military and civilian resources (often referred to as "total warfare") was taking place even before a changing climate imperiled Maya agriculture.
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