The Defensive Systems Project

Under the umbrella of the ‘Vanderbilt Petexbatun Regional Archaeological Project’, the Defensive Systems project was initially created to investigate issues of warfare and fortifications that may have contributed to the Maya collapse. After seven years of surveys and excavations (1989-1996), some remarkable history of warfare in the late 8^th and 9^th centuries has been unearthed, particularly in the Petexbatun region, where the study sites were concentrated (Demarest et al., 1997).

What did they find?

• ·         Evidence of fortification systems, including defensive walls, for example the walls of the Plaza Group at Dos Pilas, a relatively small city (see the picture below)
• ·         Many of the walls seem to have been constructed in haste, showing signs of weaknesses that led to their failure
• ·         These were constructed in the Late Classic; those that have been precisely dated using ceramic markers, show ages between 760 AD and 830 AD.
• ·         They had baffled gateways or ‘killing alleys’ between walls, where enemies could be trapped and speared.
• ·         Hilltop fortresses were also later constructed, with more care and subsequently more success.

Although it clarifies many issues surrounding this controversial topic, this is reviewed as only a contributing factor and not an ultimate causality of the collapse.

The image above reconstructs what Dos Pilas may have looked like, before and after the defensive wall was put into place. 

But what could have caused the warfare?

It has been proposed that the rulers of major Maya centres, for example Tikal, Copan and Palenque, attempted to impose levies on their neighbours, due to stresses on the local economic base. This in turn could have led to warfare between rulers by the Late Classic period, who were fighting to acquire tributary domains where subsistence and luxury goods were concentrated. Agricultural failure and associated degradation may have led to a decentralisation of political authority, in turn leading to further instability and eventually abandonment (Foias and Bishop, 1997). Diamond (2005) actually makes a direct comparison between the rulers and 21st century CEOs, claiming that they were and are too concerned with short-term personal gain. 

Interestingly, another paper focusing on the Dos Pilas collapse (one of the first cities to collapse) found evidence from ceramics and hieroglyphics that the elite societies were the first to crumble, supporting the above theories of heightened competition within the elites. However, they even went as far as to reject the environmental degradation hypothesis to explain the collapse of this particular region (basically the opposite of papers that I have reviewed in former posts).

Is it likely that it did occur?

Numerous documentaries have also shown discoveries of defensive walls and hieroglyphic texts that potentially depict stories of bloodshed and huge battle, which are sure signs of warfare. The video below is the first of five parts of a documentary that looks into this in further detail.

In my opinion, it is most likely that there was some warfare, especially if there were food shortages etc. This probably weakened the societies further so that when they were faced with other challenges they were not able to survive, subsequently leading to their demise. But of course, that is just what I think from the evidence I have seen so far!