In matters of this kind, one thing you can count on absolutely is that there is no such thing as a “last word.” Gill has proposed a theory, which, without fail, will be disputed by others. Even if this were not the case, however, and miraculously every single scientist concurred in his theory, the fact would remain that no drought lasts forever, and if the Maya had believed (as we do) that this is the way people were meant to live, they would have rebuilt their civilization.
In other words, having been forced to walk away from it by drought, they would have willingly walked back to it when the drought ended—as we have done repeatedly throughout our history. But in fact they didn’t. They walked away and STAYED away, and so my personal convictions remain unchanged.
ID: 562
posted:
updated: 28 Apr 2002