Finally, while we still have some other past societies to consider in this book
before we switch our attention to the modern world, we must already be struck
by some parallels between the Maya and the past societies discussed in Chapters
2-4. As on Easter Island, Mangareva, and among the Anasazi, Maya
environmental and population problems led to increasing warfare and civil strife.
As on Easter Island and at Chaco Canyon, Maya peak population numbers were
followed swiftly by political and social collapse. Paralleling the eventual
extension of agriculture from Easter Island's coastal lowlands to its uplands, and
from the Mimbres floodplain to the hills, Copan's inhabitants also expanded
from the floodplain to the more fragile hill slopes, leaving them with a larger
population to feed when the agricultural boom in the hills went bust. Like Easter
Island chiefs erecting ever larger statues, eventually crowned by pukao, and like
Anasazi elite treating themselves to necklaces of 2,000 turquoise beads, Maya
kings sought to outdo each other with more and more impressive temples, covered
with thicker and thicker plaster—reminiscent in turn of the extravagant
conspicuous consumption by modern American CEOs. The passivity of Easter
chiefs and Maya kings in the face of the real big threats to their societies
completes our list of disquieting parallels.