The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

Scott G. Beach · 2004-01-18 19:36:27

In an article titled ?Destined for Destruction? (New Scientist, January 10-16, 2004), science writer Kate Ravilious posed the question, ?Why did the Maya civilization suddenly collapse a thousand years ago?? Ravilious reports that studies of Maya settlement patterns may help to answer this question.

Archaeologists have calculated the size and density of Maya settlements in a particular area and have concluded that the settlements were arranged in a fractal pattern. The overall density of the settlements had brought Maya civilization to a high level of efficiency. Consequently, there was little room for improvement and even less room for error. Maya civilization was ?balanced on a knife edge? and when the balance was disrupted the civilization collapsed.

I have drafted a Constitution of the Provisional Government of Mars (see ?The Problem of Owning Mars? at [http://www.geocities.com/scott956282743]http://www.geocities.com/scott956282743 The draft constitution provides that a group of people may obtain a ?Settlement Charter? and may then build a settlement on Mars and exert sovereignty over an area that is 10 kilometers in radius. There would be a 1-kilometer-wide buffer zone between settlements.

After reading Ravilious? article, I wonder whether the settlement pattern that I have proposed is too dense for safety. Can an area of Mars that is 20 kilometers in diameter support a settlement of up to 15,000 people?

Rxke · 2004-01-19 05:15:08

Read it too, interesting...

Of course, the Mayans were much more dependent on 'nature' than the first generation of Martian settlers would be, though the theory is the same: insted of aerable land, they'd have to work out things liek ooptimum powergeneration, atmospheric conditioning, communication networks, and of course food production, too.

Looks like it's even more complicated...

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-04-30 04:55:22

an old topic

another option could be to post this news about Maya Time and island and lost Civlisations in South America and Asia or 'Atlantis' myth in the Mars Calendar thread

Mass evictions at Angkor Wat leave 10,000 families facing uncertain future
https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve … itage-site

'The Ukrainian famine was a 'Soviet genocide' different from the Holocaust and other mass atrocities'
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/artic … 86_23.html

Germany says Stalin’s Holodomor famine was a genocide
https://www.politico.eu/article/germany … -genocide/

Eight unbelievable theories about Atlantis - that people actually believed!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articl … y-believed

Easter Island to Tahiti: Tales of the Pacific
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/expe … nd-cruise/

Scientists Think They've Finally Figured Out How a Maya Calendar Works
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists … ndar-works

The Maya calendar is actually a complicated system made up of smaller calendars, developed centuries ago in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Of the component calendars, the 819-day count is the most baffling to modern anthropologists.
It's a glyph-based calendar that is repeated four times, with each 819-day block corresponding with one of four colors and, scientists initially thought, a cardinal direction. Red was associated with east, white with north, black with west, and yellow with south. It wasn't until the 1980s that researchers realized that this assumption was incorrect.
Instead, white and yellow were associated with zenith and nadir respectively – an interpretation that fits with astronomy, as the Sun rises in the east, travels across the sky to its highest point (zenith), sets in the west, then travels through its nadir to rise again in the east.
There were other clues to suggest that the 819-day count was associated with the synodic periods of visible planets in the Solar System. The Maya had extremely accurate measurements of the synodic periods of the visible planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
However, the difficulty lay in trying to figure out how these synodic periods worked in the context of the 819-day count. Mercury is easy; it has a synodic period of 117 days, which fits into 819 days exactly seven times. But where did the rest of the planets fit?
It turns out that each of the visible planets has a synodic period that exactly matches a number of cycles of the 819-day count. Venus' synodic period is 585 days; that matches neatly with 7 counts of 819-days. Mars has a 780-day synodic period; that's exactly 20 counts of 819-days.
Jupiter and Saturn aren't left out, either. Jupiter's 399-day synodic period fits exactly 39 times into 19 counts; and Saturn's 378-day synodic period is a perfect match for 6 counts.
And there's even a compelling link with the 260-day calendar known as the Tzolkʼin. Twenty 819-day periods is a total of 16,380 days. If you multiply the Tzolk'in 63 times, you get 16,380 days. In fact, 16,380 is the smallest multiple that 260 and 819 have in common. So the two link up beautifully with the 20-cycle 819-day count laid out by Linden and Bricker.
"An expansion of the standard 4 × 819-day cycle to 20 periods of 819 days does provide a larger calendar system with commensurations at its stations for the synodic periods of all the visible planets. Most importantly this larger calendar system of 20 periods of 819 days provides a mechanism for reestablishing the day number and day name of the Tzolk'in each time the cycle of 20 periods of 819 days begins," the researchers write.
"Rather than limit their focus to any one planet, the Maya astronomers who created the 819-day count envisioned it as a larger calendar system that could be used for predictions of all the visible planet's synodic periods, as well as commensuration points with their cycles in the Tzolk'in and Calendar Round."
Any time historians are required to interpret significant measurements of ancient origins, they run the risk of reading too deeply and misattributing values. That's not to say Linden and Bricker's proposal is numerology dressed up as academia, though it is important to let science do its work and keep an eye out for critiques and rebuttals.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-04-30 05:00:51)

tahanson43206 · 2023-04-30 07:00:59

For Mars_B4_Moon re topic and Maya Calendar ...

Thank you for giving this old topic a moment in the sun, after all these years.

And! Thank you for that detailed report on the 819 day cycle of the Mayan calendar.

I note the skepticism expressed by the author you quoted. Still, it ** is ** possible the Mayan astronomers ** were ** that sophisticated.

It's likely we'll never know for sure, but I appreciate all the effort those folks invested in trying to find patterns that might explain the otherwise inexplicable.

***
Re-reading the topic from the top ... this is the first I'd heard of the fractal distribution observation of Mayan settlements. I think that may be a bit of a stretch as well, but at least the concept sounds plausible to me.

(th)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-05-08 09:16:32

Nearly 100 works make for a once-in-a-generation show of Maya art at Fort Worth's Kimbell

https://www.keranews.org/arts-culture/2 … he-kimbell

Cosmic-Ray Muons Used to Detect Underground Tombs In Naples

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology … necropolis

Cosmic rays and lasers have revealed that deep underneath the city streets of Naples, Italy, lie the remains of the Greeks who originally settled the area, as well as the catacombs of Christians who lived there during the Roman era nearly two millennia ago, a new study finds...

The layers of contemporary buildings make it difficult to access ancient sewers, cisterns and tombs 33 feet (10 meters) underneath the streets, so a group of Italian and Japanese researchers hypothesized that they could identify previously unknown burial hypogea from the Hellenistic period using 21st-century techniques.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-05-10 09:38:02

I wonder if there was a large loss of life in Mars towns would they become lost civilizations of the future?

The Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/maga … s-croatoan

The Lost Colony of Roanoke: New Evidence
https://www.avclub.com/film/reviews/the … dence-2022
It follows a joint team of investigators from the US and UK as they make new discoveries and piece together clues to reveal what really happened to the settlers of The Colony of Roanoke.

The establishment of the Roanoke Colony was an attempt by Sir Walter Raleigh to found the first permanent English settlement in North America. The colony was first founded in 1585, but after only five years, when a ship visited the colony in 1590, the colonists had disappeared without explanation. The colony has since been known as the Lost Colony, and the fate of the 112 to 121 colonists remains unknown to this day.

A spooky thriller Horror Story tv episode?

""Which 'AHS: Roanoke' characters are real? The "Based on a true story" claim isn't false""

https://web.archive.org/web/20191009072 … alse-19713

More rude nasty tourists that show little cultural respect?

well I guess at least they were not dumb enough to do this in some jihad ruled part the Middle East

'Machu Picchu: French and Swiss tourists thrown out of Inca citadel for taking nude photos'
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/machu-picchu- … 51649.html

Two European tourists were thrown out of Machu Picchu
https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/05 … ude-photos

How Nasa technology uncovered the 'megacity' of Angkor
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016 … r-megacity

“The laser technology has been a total game-changer,” says Damian Evans, the Australian archaeologist who has been leading the airborne scanning survey at the École Française d’Extrême-Orient, working with Cambodian APSARA National Authority and the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts. “Our surveys have revealed the pattern of a settlement comparable in size to LA or Sydney, with an urban form that resembles the kind of dispersed low-density megacity characteristic of the modern world.”

Africa's Atlantis and City of the Monkey God: Five lost ancient cities discovered around the world
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/africas-atlan … ld-1572603

In Pictures: 15 Lost Cities Of The World
https://www.forbes.com/2011/04/05/lost- … slide.html

Atomic Pilgrimage: Ghost Towns, Nuclear Relics, and Lost Civilizations on the Road to the Trinity Site
https://www.avclub.com/film/reviews/ato … -site-2019

Asteroid Impacts Could Have Warmed Ancient Mars
https://eos.org/articles/asteroid-impac … nt-mars?ut

Study quantifies global impact of electricity in dust storms on Mars
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 … 161232.htm
Electrical discharge could be major driving force of Martian chlorine cycle

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-05-10 09:42:51)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-06-08 16:30:35

Will the Moon or Titan or Mars smash and knock down and bulldoze its own history?

Killing your past heritage

Around 40 standing stones thought to have been erected by prehistoric humans 7,000 years ago have been destroyed near a famed archaeological site in northwest France to make way for a DIY store
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/2 … -diy-store

tahanson43206 · 2023-06-08 18:09:50

For Mars_B4_Moon re #7

Thanks for the link to the report on the decision to put an end to a very small number of stones of the thousands that (apparently) are still standing in France. The question I have (without trying to put a burden on anyone in the forum or otherwise) is how long should stones erected for whatever reason (long lost) be preserved?

I don't know the answer, but I ** do ** think that 7000 years is a ** very ** good run for human artifacts.

If the stones had artistic significance (such as cave paintings elsewhere in Europe) then I would think that some additional regard would be appropriate.

The article indicates the stones might have been grave stones, but after 7000 years, I get the impression that is just a guess.

(th)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-06-09 16:40:02

1,100-year-old ceramics were ritualistic offerings to Mayan god and goddess, experts say
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/natio … 98411.html

Lego Stonehenge replica being created with thousands of bricks
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england- … e-65789776

many theories

Many early historians were influenced by supernatural folktales in their explanations. Some legends held that Merlin had a giant build the structure for him or that he had magically transported it from Mount Killaraus in Ireland, while others held the Devil responsible.

Henry of Huntingdon was the first to write of the monument around AD 1130 soon followed by Geoffrey of Monmouth who was the first to record fanciful associations with Merlin which led the monument to be incorporated into the wider cycle of European medieval romance. According to Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniae, when asked what might serve as an appropriate burial place for Britain's dead princes, Merlin advised King Aurelius Ambrosius to raise an army and collect some magical stones from Mount Killarus in Ireland. Whilst at Mount Killarus, Merlin laughed at the soldiers' failed attempts to remove the stones using ladders, ropes, and other machinery. Shortly thereafter, Merlin oversaw the removal of stones using his own machinery and commanded they be loaded onto the soldiers' ships and sailed back to England where they were reconstructed into Stonehenge. Contrary to popular belief Geoffrey did not claim Merlin had commanded a giant to build Stonehenge for him, it appears this detail was embellished by Robert Wace who later translated Geoffrey's original text into French.

In 1655, the architect John Webb, writing in the name of his former superior Inigo Jones, argued that Stonehenge was a Roman temple, dedicated to Caelus, (a Latin name for the Greek sky-god Uranus), and built following the Tuscan order. Later commentators maintained that the Danes erected it. Indeed, up until the late nineteenth century, the site was commonly attributed to the Saxons or other relatively recent societies.

The first academic effort to survey and understand the monument was made around 1640 by John Aubrey. He declared Stonehenge the work of Druids. This view was greatly popularised by William Stukeley. Aubrey also contributed the first measured drawings of the site, which permitted greater analysis of its form and significance. From this work, he was able to demonstrate an astronomical or calendrical role in the stones' placement. The architect John Wood was to undertake the first truly accurate survey of Stonehenge in 1740. However Wood's interpretation of the monument as a place of pagan ritual was vehemently attacked by Stukeley who saw the druids not as pagans, but as biblical patriarchs.

By the turn of the nineteenth century, John Lubbock was able to attribute the site to the Bronze Age based on the bronze objects found in the nearby barrows.

Britain's Geoffrey Wainwright, president of the London Society of Antiquaries, and Timothy Darvill, on the 22nd day of September 2008, speculated that it may have been an ancient healing and pilgrimage site, since burials around Stonehenge showed trauma and deformity evidence: "It was the magical qualities of these stones which ... transformed the monument and made it a place of pilgrimage for the sick and injured of the Neolithic world." Radio-carbon dating places the construction of the circle of bluestones at between 2400-2200 BC, but they discovered charcoals dating 7000 BC, showing human activity in the site.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110816232 … tonehenge/

https://www.theguardian.com/science/200 … y.heritage

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/ … ander-text

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-06-22 03:46:50

Archaeologists unearth 4,000-year-old ‘Stonehenge of the Netherlands’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ … etherlands

Ancient Mayan empire city was found in the Mexican jungle - Ocomtún, with large pyramid-like buildings, stone columns, a ball field and imposing buildings and plazas, was likely an important city, according to anthropologists.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/anc … -rcna90351

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-06-22 03:47:27)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-08-06 07:52:50

How scientists lasered in on a 'monumental' Maya city — with actual lasers
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/01/11910711 … tun-lasers

A Bronze Age Arrowhead was Made Out of a Meteorite
https://www.universetoday.com/162687/a- … meteorite/

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-09-07 10:02:20

Causes of the Qing Dynasty's collapse: Parallels to today's instability

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 … 104620.htm

The Qing Dynasty in China, after over 250 years, crumbled in 1912. Led by the Complexity Science Hub (CSH), an international research team has pinpointed key reasons behind the collapse, revealing parallels to modern instability and offering vital lessons for the future.
China is considered today to be the world's largest economy (in terms of PPP). However, this position is not new. In 1820, China's economy already held the top spot, accounting for 32.9% of the global GDP. In the interim, there was a period of decline followed by a resurgence. In 1912, after over 250 years in power, the Qing Dynasty collapsed despite being considerably wealthier at the time than modern-day China.
...
Scientists have been attempting to pinpoint the causes behind the fall of the Qing Dynasty for two centuries. Various factors had previously been proposed, including environmental disasters, foreign incursions, famines, or uprisings. However, "none of these factors provides a comprehensive explanation," notes Turchin.
...
Firstly, there was a fourfold population explosion between 1700 and 1840. This resulted in reduced land per capita and caused an impoverishment of the rural populace.
Secondly, this led to increased competition for elite positions. While the number of contenders soared, the number of awarded highest academic degrees declined, reaching its nadir in 1796. Because such a degree was necessary for obtaining a position in the powerful Chinese bureaucracy, this mismatch between the number of positions and those desiring them created a large pool of disgruntled elite aspirants. The leaders of the Taiping Rebellion, perhaps the bloodiest civil war in human history, were all such failed elite-wannabes.
Thirdly, the state's financial burden escalated due to rising costs associated with suppressing unrest, declining per capita productivity, and mounting trade deficits stemming from depleting silver reserves and opium imports.

We can draw valuable lessons from this historical process for the contemporary era and the future. Many nations worldwide are grappling with potential instability and conditions that closely resemble those of the Qing Dynasty. For instance, competition for top positions remains exceedingly fierce. Orlandi cautions, "When a large number of individuals vie for a limited number of positions, political decision-makers should view this as a red flag, as it can, at the very least, lead to heightened instability."

Calliban · 2023-09-07 20:09:25

Both the Maya and Qing were agricultural societies, in which all wealth was ultimately drawn from what people could grow in the dirt. In both cases, there was population growth. In the early days, both societies were able to scale food production by increasing cultivated area. But this reaches limits and eventually, population growth led to a decline in food per capita. That would have resulted in serious hardship, since preindustrial agricultural societies produced only weak surpluses at the best of times. Then factor in the unfortunate reality that till agriculture weakens to soil, causing yields to gradually decline. Maybe they also had a run of bad years, with drought or floods that weaken production further. That would have left a lot of people seriously hungry, disillusioned and with no choice but to loot and steal. That disrupts production even further. Agricultural societies were strictly local. Food rarely travelled far and regional rivalries were intense. This raised the spectre of civil war, as neighbouring city states fought over productive land. This killed young men and destroyed infrastructure. As regions grew poorer, less wealth was available for maintenance of systems that maintain food production.

All of these problems tend to generate positive feedback that accelerates collapse. Complex societies are inherently unstable, requiring complexity and resource flows to maintain their existence. Men like Robert Zubrin tend to mock people that warn of resource limits that might lead to collapse. They usually reference an essay that was written by Thomas Malthus at the end of the 18th century, warning that population growth woukd eventually lead to mass famine. That didn't happen, or at least hasn't happened yet, so they assume that he is discredited. Therefore all such warnings must be bogus. What they forget is that Malthusian type collapses have been a constant feature of human history right up to the 20th century. We have mostly stayed ahead of famine and collapse this past century, only through the intensive exploitation of energy and other resources. Past civilisations didn't have the technology or social structures to do that. If our present day energy abundance goes into reverse, we will be getting the history lesson that none of us wanted.

Last edited by Calliban (2023-09-07 20:13:01)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-09-17 07:29:23

Some faith in Tech and politically positive Optimists?

'Why Malthus Is Still Wrong'
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti … ill-wrong/

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-10-07 06:52:26

Tests confirm humans tramped around North America more than 20,000 years ago

https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/10/05/te … -years-ago

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-10-09 06:32:45

A comet explosion may have started agriculture in Syria 12,800 years ago

https://www.space.com/comet-debris-led-to-farming-syria

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-10-20 14:38:00

Man digs up 1,000-year-old sword from Swedish Crusades in his yard in Finland

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology … in-finland

Scientists are getting worried about a volcano in Italy and people should be ‘prepared’

https://www.ladbible.com/news/world-new … -20231017/

Volcanic fallout from Taupō eruption 1,800 years ago found in Antarctic ice core

https://phys.org/news/2023-10-volcanic- … years.html

evidence has been found buried deep in Antarctic ice

Massive New Zealand eruption 1,800 years ago flung volcanic glass 3,000 miles to Antarctica

https://www.livescience.com/planet-eart … antarctica

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-10-29 14:31:37

Declassified spy satellite images reveal 400 Roman Empire forts in the Middle East
https://www.space.com/spy-satellite-ima … discovered

Ruins Of 2,300-Year-Old City Of Jiaohe On The Silk Road
https://www.ancientpages.com/2023/08/06 … silk-road/

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-11-22 17:14:19

Archaeologists Unearth a Secret Lost Language From 3,000 Years Ago

https://www.sciencealert.com/archaeolog … -years-ago

Experts say the mysterious idiom is unlike any other ancient written language found in the Middle East, although it seems to share roots with other Anatolian-Indo-European languages. The sneaky scrawlings start at the end of a cultic ritual text written in Hittite — the oldest known Indo-European tongue — after an introduction that essentially translates to: "From now on, read in the language of the country of Kalasma"... Currently, there are no available photos of the newly discovered tablet with Kalamaic writings, as experts are still working out how to translate it.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-11-26 06:48:27

The Mayan gene and DNA might not have totally died out, their genetics still in South America but the civilization did collapse, even today there is no true accounting for the collapse, ideas ranging from the plausible overhunting, a local volcano erupting, to foreign invasion, some local climate change drought event with bush fires, to peasant revolt...to silly insane ideas like Lizard Alien UFOs simply beamed them up to space. They had made advances they had mathematics using a base number of 20 and had a concept of zero and constructed great buildings. The Maya were also a people of war, the Humans were sacrificed to appease their superstition of gods, the elite also tortured themselves, there was an obsession with blood rituals. By the time European Warships and Colonials arrive in the Americas only a fraction of the Maya people survived to face the Spanish conquistadors, it was already a finished Empire, could it have been a disease or the arrival of a new weapon, a better bow for example?

Sometimes a Civilization might collapse turning inward fighting among itself, others might fade by way of cultural Conquest not a direct defeat in battle but eventually they turn away from their Native Culture and see another as superior as Paganism faded in Europe to be replaced by gods of Greek Hellenistic religion and Rome a polytheistic religion Roman deities and integration of the Greek counterparts and then Christianity, and other ideas spreading like Communism and Western Democracy, one culture overwhelms another by immigration or propaganda.There is no universally accepted Maya collapse theory, although some kind of crop failure and drought has gained momentum in recent times because of new scientific theory and findings at archaeological sites.

The arrival of foreign firearms in Japan totally changed the landscape and political system, the Asians had gun powder but the introduced of a more modern firearm which became known as the tanegashima was through the Portuguese, various warlords and shogunate would fight using new technologies but Japan had almost totally closed itself off to the outside world for hundreds of years Sakoku the island mentality isolationist Japanese foreign policy, with Dutch study airguns were develop and flintlocks, a historical figure from the USA arrives Commodore Perry in 1850s with threats forced opening of the Japanese country to trade. In New Zealand Musket Wars were a series of as many as 3,000 battles and raids fought throughout New Zealand including the Islands among Maori between 1807 and 1837, after Maori first obtained muskets and then engaged in an inter-tribal arms race in order to gain territory or seek revenge

In Entertainment the USA channels Hulu and Fx will remake a tv show 'Shogun' based on William Adams who recognized as one of the most influential foreigners at that time in Japan during the lockdown isolation period.
From Aus/NZ Not a Thanksgiving movie but can Hollywood make movies anymore?
If they keep the budget modest this movie made by New Zealand and an Australian production team might show Hollywood how its done.

Guy Pearce, Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne, Antonio Te Maioha, Jacqueline McKenzie and preacher arriving at a British settlement in 1830s then finds himself caught in the middle of a bloody war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI4Z7t3AZ5E

in Maya news articles

The 3 Secrets Behind Ancient Maya's Super Strong Architecture
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sc … chitecture
Mayan temples and pyramids are just as strong as skyscrapers. Discover the architectural tricks used by ancient Central American builders.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-11-26 06:50:23)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-12-27 12:47:20

spirals and hand prints

Discovery of 'calendar' rock carvings from Ancestral Pueblo in US Southwest surpasses 'wildest expectations'

https://www.space.com/calendar-rock-car … ral-pueblo

High atop the imposing butte at the entrance of the canyon is the most famous of Chaco’s sites. There, a set of spiral petroglyphs pecked into a cliff face behind three giant slabs of rock functions as a solar marker. At summer solstice , a vertical shaft of light pierces the main spiral exactly at its center. On the winter solstice, two shafts of light perfectly bracket the same spiral. Light shafts strike the center of a smaller spiral nearby on the spring and fall equinoxes .

https://annex.exploratorium.edu/chaco/HTML/fajada.html

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-02-19 06:16:46

Thanks to Machine Learning, Scientist Finally Recover Text From The Charred Scrolls of Vesuvius

https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/0 … s#comments

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-04-06 12:22:13

perhaps a number of global quakes, perhaps a Chinese, Latin American and Iceland or European volcano that plunged Europe into darkness.

a report

fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months. "For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year," wrote Byzantine historian Procopius. Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2300 years. Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed; people starved. The Irish chronicles record "a failure of bread from the years 536–539." Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt. What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and hastening its collapse, McCormick says.
Historians have long known that the middle of the sixth century was a dark hour in what used to be called the Dark Ages, but the source of the mysterious clouds has long been a puzzle. Now, an ultraprecise analysis of ice from a Swiss glacier by a team led by McCormick and glaciologist Paul Mayewski at the Climate Change Institute of The University of Maine (UM) in Orono has fingered a culprit. At a workshop at Harvard this week, the team reported that a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in Iceland spewed ash across the Northern Hemisphere early in 536. Two other massive eruptions followed, in 540 and 547.

Year 536 AD was the worst year to be alive – What happened?
https://en.protothema.gr/year-536-ad-wa … ned-video/

https://www.science.org/content/article … r-be-alive

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-05-02 16:31:24

Face of a 75,000-year-old Neanderthal woman revealed by scientists

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/nean … rcna150344

She looks pretty good for 75,000 years old.
Particularly given that her skull was smashed into 200 pieces, possibly by a rockfall, before it was meticulously pieced together by scientists over the last six years.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-05-03 08:29:25

Another lost colony

a remote dead island is more inviting than Mars as habitable but even these places have seen failure, Pitcairn Islands had good weather, water and resources, plants and animals and yet it fails/

Although islands are more habitable, despite the fact they are lush and green some of their people have failed in the distant past and even if we start a process of making Mars better the planet Mars will have thinner air, it will be extremely dry and cold compared with almost any island on Earth.

some in online reports said it had 'Creole Language' but in social media video clips they communicate as good as anyone from Australia or New Zealand, maybe there is a confusion with reports from Henderson, Ducie and Oeno which seem to be uninhabited, people were on the Pitcairn Islands maybe for almost a thousand years but then everything is suddenly gone, they may have traded with Mangareva to the northwest the central and largest island of the Gambier Islands in French Polynesia. One theory states a civil war might have happened at Mangareva, causing the small populations on Henderson and Pitcairn to be cut off and eventually become extinct. Portugese, Spanish and British found evidence of a lost people missing in time, ;left behind rock carvings and petroglyphs, marae religion communal or sacred place sites, art similar to Easter Island or Native American Totem, the tiki is a large or small wooden carving sometimes stone but a description of human figure or half-man or half-animal in humanoid form

perhaps trade, immigration, fishing, tourism, education and the web connected them with the world.

The People of Pitcairn Speak
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1-uD1PN0Ho

'Top things to do/see on Pitcairn Island'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vC56kc8EkM

Pitcairn Island (Adamstown) - Lonely but beautiful
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYGi2yK5des

languages Comparison

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUG7yFhiycw

a lesson on dead forgotten colonies and empty stations

If you had 18 square miles or 47 km2 in a good climate not so far in human past, could you still die as a people? Pitcairn the main island and perhaps all of these islands remain a British Overseas Territory, the British government may at some stage be required to make a decision about the island's future. Some time ago in the past the culture of the Polynesian it spreads, small boats having different island peoples mixing and exchanging, they have air, water, food, a culture some languages share terms for descriptions of the sky, the land, similar words for food drinks and people even far of trade established. Long ago people of the Pitcairn Islands may have died off, it was populated again in modern history and a high profile even with 'Sexual Assault Trials' a British investigation and also police officers in Australia, New Zealand checking possible crimes, Pitkern a pidgin english creole language derived from 18th-century English, with elements of the Tahitian language. Long ago a people die off and now they are descended mostly from nine Bounty mutineers a small handful of other islander peoples, old Polynesian languages part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.

Maybe the original islanders ate everything cut all stuff down and ravaged all the natural resources, islands becoming unsustainable even with access to water, fresh air, sun, minerals discovered, benign climate supporting a wide range of tropical and temperate crops and plant and animal life and yet it failed like Easter Island, or Rapa Nui.

Where they went is like a murder mystery or the Mary Celeste a Canadian built, American-registered merchant brigantine that was discovered adrift, some even wrote paranormal books and made a lot of money telling stories the Haunting Mystery of the Mary Celeste UFO Abduction, Foul play, strange but 'Natural phenomena' like a Waterspout which frightened the crew, the Mary Celeste that is or the misspelled Marie Celeste, has become fixed in people's minds as synonymous with inexplicable desertion. The missing island people are another mystery. One simple answer to where they went is they depended too much on foreign resources and foreign trade, they were not self-sufficient and disruption could have sent the culture to extinction.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2024-05-03 08:37:46)

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2004-01-18 19:36:27

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#2 2004-01-19 05:15:08

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#3 2023-04-30 04:55:22

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#4 2023-04-30 07:00:59

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#5 2023-05-08 09:16:32

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#6 2023-05-10 09:38:02

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#7 2023-06-08 16:30:35

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#8 2023-06-08 18:09:50

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#9 2023-06-09 16:40:02

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#10 2023-06-22 03:46:50

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#11 2023-08-06 07:52:50

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#12 2023-09-07 10:02:20

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#13 2023-09-07 20:09:25

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#14 2023-09-17 07:29:23

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#15 2023-10-07 06:52:26

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#16 2023-10-09 06:32:45

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#17 2023-10-20 14:38:00

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#18 2023-10-29 14:31:37

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#19 2023-11-22 17:14:19

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#20 2023-11-26 06:48:27

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#21 2023-12-27 12:47:20

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#22 2024-02-19 06:16:46

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#23 2024-04-06 12:22:13

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#24 2024-05-02 16:31:24

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

#25 2024-05-03 08:29:25

Re: The Sudden Fall of Maya Civilization - A Lesson for Martians

Board footer