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Mercury and Algal Blooms Poisoned Maya Reservoirs at Tikal

posted by chromas on Wednesday July 01 2020, @01:28AM   
from the science-and-history dept.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/mercury-and-algal-blooms-poisoned-maya-reservoirs-at-tikal/

For centuries, Tikal was a bustling Maya city in what is now northern Guatemala. But by the late 800s CE, its plazas and temples stood silent, surrounded by mostly abandoned farms. A recent study suggests a possible explanation for its decline: mercury and toxic algal blooms poisoned the water sources that should have carried the city through dry seasons.

Tikal’s Maya rulers built the city’s reservoirs to store water from rain and runoff during the winter months. The pavement of the large plazas in the heart of the city tilted slightly, helping funnel rainwater into the reservoirs. Over the centuries, dust and litter settled into the bottom of the reservoirs, too, providing a record of what the environment around Tikal was like—and what was washing into the city’s water supply. University of Cincinnati biologist David Lentz and his colleagues sampled layers of sediment dating back to the mid-800s, and they found that two of Tikal’s central reservoirs would have been too polluted to drink from.

Journal Reference:
David L. Lentz, Trinity L. Hamilton, Nicholas P. Dunning, et al. Molecular genetic and geochemical assays reveal severe contamination of drinking water reservoirs at the ancient Maya city of Tikal [open], Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-67044-z)

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Original Submission

• Re:re You're PWNED (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday July 01 2020, @11:00PM

  by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday July 01 2020, @11:00PM (#1015186)

  Goodness, that link to survive2012.com is mental.

  It even has a page titled "Fractal time and the I Ching". I'm going to discount anything it has to say about the Maya as being conspiracy theory grade bullshit.

  The ABC News link includes:

  Richard Thornton thinks so. He says he's an architect and urban planner by training, but has been hired to research the history of native people in and around Georgia since 2003.

  Weird, but OK, but oh dear:

  ...an archeologist he cited, Mark Williams of the University of Georgia, took exception. In the comments section after Thornton's piece, he wrote, "I am the archaeologist Mark Williams mentioned in this article. This is total and complete bunk. There is no evidence of Maya in Georgia. Move along now."

  Oh, right. Another conspiracy theory.

  The Digital Journal link is the exact same conspiracy theory.

  The lostworlds.org link is oddly the most convincing, but fails to prove the existence of Mayans in North America also.

  It does have pictures of some pottery fragments found in Florida which might be Mayan. They might also be similar to Mayan designs, or the result of trade with Mayans, or something else entirely.

  Your links don't show what you're claiming.

  Parent

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