School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-5302, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Aug 28;109(35):13908-14. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1210106109. Epub 2012 Aug 21.
The ninth century collapse and abandonment of the Central Maya Lowlands in the Yucatán peninsular region were the result of complex human-environment interactions. Large-scale Maya landscape alterations and demands placed on resources and ecosystem services generated high-stress environmental conditions that were amplified by increasing climatic aridity. Coincident with this stress, the flow of commerce shifted from land transit across the peninsula to sea-borne transit around it. These changing socioeconomic and environmental conditions generated increasing societal conflicts, diminished control by the Maya elite, and led to decisions to move elsewhere in the peninsular region rather than incur the high costs of maintaining the human-environment systems in place. After abandonment, the environment of the Central Maya Lowlands largely recovered, although altered from its state before Maya occupation; the population never recovered. This history and the spatial and temporal variability in the pattern of collapse and abandonment throughout the Maya lowlands support the case for different conditions, opportunities, and constraints in the prevailing human-environment systems and the decisions to confront them. The Maya case lends insights for the use of paleo- and historical analogs to inform contemporary global environmental change and sustainability.
公元 9 世纪，尤卡坦半岛上的中美洲低地发生崩溃和废弃，这是复杂的人类-环境相互作用的结果。大规模的玛雅景观改造以及对资源和生态系统服务的需求，造成了高压力的环境条件，而气候干旱的加剧又进一步放大了这些条件。与这种压力同时出现的还有，商业活动从穿越半岛的陆路运输转变为绕着半岛的海上运输。这些不断变化的社会经济和环境条件导致社会冲突不断加剧，玛雅精英的控制力减弱，最终人们决定迁往半岛的其他地区，而不是承担维持现有人类-环境系统的高昂成本。废弃之后，中美洲低地的环境在很大程度上得到了恢复，尽管与玛雅人居住之前的状态有所不同；人口却再也没有恢复。这一历史以及玛雅低地整个地区崩溃和废弃模式的时空可变性，为不同的条件、机会和环境系统的约束以及应对这些约束的决策提供了依据。玛雅案例为利用古环境和历史类比来为当代全球环境变化和可持续性提供了启示。
