🏛️ What if urbanization caused the Maya decline?

The oscillation between the attraction of cities and their abandonment represents a recurring pattern in human history. This dynamic, visible today in urban migrations, proves to be rooted in ancient mechanisms, as demonstrated by a study on Maya cities.

In the Classic Maya lowlands, researchers gathered extensive archaeological data on population changes, armed conflicts, and investments in agricultural infrastructure. In parallel, access to new detailed climate data and advances in computer modeling have offered unprecedented perspectives.

This combination made it possible to elucidate the dynamics that led to the rise and fall of Maya cities. The team, composed of specialists from various institutions, applied concepts from population ecology to quantify the drivers of urbanism. Their results show that the interaction of climate hazards, intergroup warfare, and the benefits of economies of scale favored the coevolution of urbanism, systemic inequalities, and patronage relationships in Maya cities.


The factors that pushed agrarian populations to gather in cities include periods of unfavorable climate, which made rural life more difficult, and intergroup conflicts, which encouraged mutual protection. Furthermore, economies of scale achieved through investments in agricultural infrastructure, such as irrigation systems, offered collective benefits that offset the individual costs of urban life, such as vulnerability to disease and competition for resources. This aggregation allowed for the pooling of efforts and strengthened security, despite increasing disadvantages.

When climatic conditions improved, making rural areas more attractive, and when environmental degradation near cities increased the costs of urban life, the balance shifted. The advantages of human concentration, such as security and economies of scale, were surpassed by the disadvantages, leading to a gradual deurbanization. This finding is surprising because the Maya decline was often attributed solely to drought, but it is a more nuanced process where rural freedom and autonomy become preferable again.


The model developed by the researchers integrates various theories on urbanization, offering a unified explanation that resolves the paradox of agrarian concentration. It shows how environmental, social, and economic pressures interact to dictate cycles of population clustering and dispersion.

This understanding is relevant to contemporary urban issues, where similar dynamics can be observed.

An unexpected observation from the study was that the abandonment of Maya cities coincided with better, not worse, climatic conditions. This challenges the dominant hypothesis that linked the decline solely to drought and shows that deurbanization can occur when rural benefits become competitive again, even in the absence of acute environmental crises. Populations then opted for a more dispersed lifestyle, where autonomy and access to natural resources were easier to maintain.

The drivers of Maya urbanization

The urbanization of the Classic Maya was influenced by several interdependent factors. Periods of unfavorable climate, such as droughts, made agriculture difficult in rural areas, pushing populations to gather in cities to pool resources and protect themselves. Intergroup conflicts, frequent at that time, reinforced the need to live in larger communities to ensure security against external attacks. Furthermore, economies of scale played a key role in this dynamic.

Investments in shared agricultural infrastructure, such as irrigation systems or collective granaries, made it possible to produce more food with fewer resources per person. These collective benefits offset the individual costs of urban life, such as overcrowding and increased health risks. Human concentration also facilitated task specialization, improving productivity and allowing the development of elites who controlled resources. However, this led to growing inequalities and dependency relationships.

The interaction of these factors led to a coevolution of urbanism, inequalities, and social structures in Maya cities. The ecological model used by the researchers shows how climate, conflict, and economies of scale reinforce each other, creating a cycle of urban expansion. When one of these elements changes, the balance can break, leading to population dispersion. This understanding helps explain why Maya cities could prosper and then decline cyclically.