Ancient Tomb Could Explain Maya Collapse

[Judi Lynn]

Ancient Tomb Could Explain Maya Collapse
Artifacts found in the newly discovered ancient Mexican tomb offer clues to the civilization's demise. Thu Jan 28, 2010 06:07 AM ET | content provided by Manuel De La Cruz Associated Press

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Mexican archaeologists have found an 1,100-year-old tomb from the twilight of the Maya civilization that they hope may shed light on what happened to the once-glorious culture.

Archaeologist Juan Yadeun said the tomb, and ceramics from another culture found in it, may reveal who occupied the Maya site of Tonina in southern Chiapas state after the culture's Classic period began fading.

Many experts have pointed to internal warfare between Mayan city states, or environmental degradation, as possible causes of the Maya's downfall starting around A.D. 820.

But Yadeun, who oversees the Tonina site for Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, said artifacts from the Toltec culture found in the tomb may point to another explanation. He said the tomb dates to between A.D. 840 and 900.

"It is clear that this is a new wave of occupation, the people who built this grave of the Toltec type," Yadeun said Wednesday. "This is very interesting, because we are going to see from the bones who these people are, after the Maya empire."

The Toltecs were from Mexico's central highlands and apparently expanded their influence to the Maya's strongholds in southern Mexico. They are believed to have dominated central Mexico from the city of Tula -- just north of present-day Mexico City -- between the 10th and 12th centuries, before the Aztecs rose to prominence.

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