The example of societal collapse in which I will be making reference to throughout this essay is the Maya civilization. The Maya civilization is, “probably the best known of all early American civilizations.” (Fagan, 1995) It was at its strongest point between AD 300 AND 900. Around AD 900 was the time of its collapse. This civilization was developed in a densely, tropical forest on either highlands or lowlands. Today to visit a Mayan site, people would go to the modern Mexican state, capital city of Merida.
The New World, in the minds and descriptions of European explorers and settlers during the sixteenth century, was comparable to a paradise on earth. The landscape was so vast and indescribably beautiful that even Columbus had trouble articulating its splendor. However, lacking a consciousness of conservation, Europeans felt little remorse in exploiting the land and subjugating its people. From the beginning Europeans set out to transform as much of the New World into the Old World as possible. As a result, the New World, over the course of two centuries, was overtaken by foreign plant and animal species, leveled by deforestation, and devastated by disease.
The land is ruined ^way of life (farming) gone, people ^uprooted and forced to leave. Secondly, the dust stands for ^profiteering banks in the background that squeeze the life out the land by forcing the people off the land. The soil, the people (farmers) have been drained of life and are exploited: The last rain fell on the red and gray country of Oklahoma in early May. The weeds became a dark green to protect themselves from the sun's unyielding rays.
The Dust Bowl displaced more than 1 million farmers and author John Steinbeck writes about these former farmers who he refers to as the “Harvest Gypsies,” whom had their lands destroyed and the places they called home disappeared, forcing them to migrate for work. People that may have
Currently countries with significant deforestation are Brazil, Indonesia, and Thailand. First of all, Deforestation is the permanent destruction of forest to make land available for other interests. Deforestation has increased rapidly in the past 50 years. In 1600, 90 percent of the United States indigenous forest have been removed. Deforestation became a serious concern in 1950’s it has been an issue since humans began making fire hundreds of years ago.
Also what caused the Pueblo Revolt, who was involved and what was the outcome of the Revolt are among the most important aspects of these great battles. Around the mid 1500’s the Pueblo Natives had around 110 separate pueblos flourishing in the region. They were living of the advanced farming skills and trading with other colonies. By 1680, around the eve of the revolt the number of Pueblos dropped to be around only forty. Not only did the number of pueblos decrease drastically the total population was hit very hard.
The people were rioting, burning villages and abandoning farms, and any form of authority was overthrown. After being in place for more than 1000 years, the feudal system was to be no more. In hindsight, many people of the time may agree that the feudal system was indeed destined to crumble. But why did the very people it was designed to protect overthrow the feudal system? The feudal system existed in Europe from the collapse of the Roman Empire, circa AD400, until the Renaissance period, circa AD1400.
The main reason for deforestation is agriculture. The farmers cut the forests down so that they have a lot of land to farm on including moist soil and etc. Sometimes farmers only cut or burn a little bit of trees so they could plant and feed their families. Also a lot of trees are cut each year for paper. Sometimes loggers do illegal things like building roads to access forests which leads to more and more deforestation.
If famine or a drought occurred, the resulting deaths due t... ... middle of paper ... ... The citizens of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Hittites believed that their government had a connection to the gods, a doomed enterprise in the climacteric period. When there was a lack of food supply for the people, they abandoned their home and the civilizations collapses. The time period between 2000 and 1000 BCE can be considered climacteric due to many factors, the most prominent, being the growth and collapse of civilizations. During this time many civilizations collapsed such as the Hittites and, Mesopotamia and some prevailed such as the Egyptians.
Popular believe we want to believe that the Mayan culture collapsed because of disintegration of the political structure. Actual reasons of the collapse were much more complex than a breakdown of the political hierarchy, contrary to this belief evidence suggests a disorganization of system structures such as agriculture. Variables that caused the Mayan collapse started with the late classic Maya and their issues with reproduction and raising children due to a series of nutritional problems which cause the burden of disease. These depopulation factors coupled with the decrease of full production because of a lack of labor required to maintain the agricultural ecosystems which cause erosion of the systems economic base. The insight of this article suggests that the collapse of the Mayan civilization was caused primarily to environmental instability of their ecosystem.