What wiped the Mayans?

Finally, some catastrophic environmental change–like an extremely long, intense period of drought–may have wiped out the Classic Maya civilization. All three of these factors–overpopulation and overuse of the land, endemic warfare and drought–may have played a part in the downfall of the Maya in the southern lowlands.Click to see full answer. In this way, what killed off the Mayans?The drought theory holds that rapid climate change in the form of severe drought (a megadrought) brought about the Classic Maya collapse. Paleoclimatologists have discovered abundant evidence that prolonged droughts hit the Yucatán Peninsula and Petén Basin areas during the Terminal Classic.Secondly, did the Spanish wiped out the Mayans? The Spanish colonization of the Maya officially began in 1521 when Francisco de Montejo petitioned the King of Spain for the right to conquer the Yucatan. It took the Spanish 170 years and a number of expeditions to finally subjugate the Maya peoples, much longer than their campaigns against the Aztecs and Incas. People also ask, what really happened to the Maya? The invasion occurred during the height of the drought, and the result was pure devastation. Pyramids and temples were torn apart to build fortifications, and what few trees were left in the razed rainforest were cut down to build fences. Eventually, farmers had to retreat to the fast-growing weeds.What caused the collapse of the Mayan civilization?Maya historians have generally settled on a combination of three main factors which could have caused the Maya collapse: warfare between city-states, overpopulation, and drought. The factors were not always contemporary or found all together in a single city.