Despite popular opinion about the destruction of the Mayans by the Spanish Conquistador, their great empire was decayed before Columbus was born, say British scientists.
In the middle of the tenth century they created the constructions of wonderful Pyramids and temples, urban residents fleed in panic from them. At the time of the appearance of the Europeans all this was an empire of small villages, which were constantly at war with each other.
There are two new hypotheses for the destruction of the Mayan civilization. One of them is that it happened after their defeat by another Central American nation - the Toltecs.
The second hypothesis claims, eco-catastrophe brought about by a primitive system of Mayan agriculture.
They abandoned their old fields every three or four years to make a new, burning jungle.
As a result, it changed the soil structure and began a terrible drought resulting in the harvest of the main food for the Mayan civilization, maize, to fall near to zero.
After emerging Conquistador, the remainder of the Mayan civilization was subjected to Diseases, Persecution and the Inquisition, however in fact people have not died out entirely.
We have over 6 million survivors of the Mayan civilization, living in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras.
