Paper short abstract:

Exploration of long-term relationships between Maya society and the local environment, using archaeological, epigraphic, ethnographic a climatological data.

Paper long abstract:

An increased interest in climate change within the last few decades has meant that a large amount of paleoclimatic data have been collected from the Maya area, often indicating considerable changes in rainfall patterns during the mid- to late Holocene. These data, beside other things, challenged the general assumption of abundant water supply in the tropics. The ethnographic research conducted among contemporary Maya communities (Downey and Jobbova 2011) supports this new outlook; it showed that "drought" and especially high variability in rainfall patterns are real phenomena with often severe consequences for people's livelihoods. It also confirmed that people developed a wide variety of strategies to cope with the extreme climate events; as well as to adapt to changes in the long run. This paper combines the data from this ethnographic fieldwork with archaeological, epigraphic and climatological evidence in order to explore relationships between Maya society and the local environment over the long-term, from the Classic (c. 250 to 900 AD) to the Early Colonial (1500/1600 AD) period. Preliminary analyses show that while there seem to be no direct relationship between the periods of diminished precipitation and population changes in the case study areas, there are significant changes observable in culture and written records (in some cases specifically related to high variability in rainfall); thus corroborating well with patterns observed in ethnographic research.