Ancient History Threatens to Repeat Itself

The San Diego Union - Tribune;

San Diego, CA. Mar 21, 2001, by Robert S. Boyd

Abstract:

Researchers say the overcrowded cities, water shortages and electricity brownouts in 21st century California, India and Brazil are ominous reminders of the fate of ancient Rome, Babylon and the Maya empire.

"Overpopulation was a major factor in making the Maya vulnerable to failure," [Vernon Scarborough] told a conference on "The Collapse of Complex Societies" in San Francisco last month. "The trigger event of the collapse appears to have been a long drought beginning about 840 A.D."

Intensive agriculture and excessive irrigation led to the salinization of the Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now Iraq. Scarre said this "ultimately damaged the very landscape these societies were striving to improve."

Full Text:

Copyright SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY Mar 21, 2001

Historians and archaeologists who study the downfall of ancient civilizations are warning that parts of the modern world may be heading the way of history's fallen empires.

Previous prophets of doom, such as English political economist T.R. Malthus and the "Club of Rome," which in 1972 predicted that the world's population would overwhelm its resources, have been proved wrong so far by the rapid progress of technology. This time, however, some researchers say the complexity caused by high technology could be mankind's undoing.

The Mayas, who dominated Central America in the ninth century, built elaborate irrigation systems to support their booming population. But they "suffered from problems that are startlingly similar to those today," said Vernon Scarborough, an archaeologist at the University of Cincinnati.

"Overpopulation was a major factor in making the Maya vulnerable to failure," Scarborough told a conference on "The Collapse of Complex Societies" in San Francisco last month. "The trigger event of the collapse appears to have been a long drought beginning about 840 A.D."

Although many factors, such as war and disease, contributed to the calamities of antiquity, speakers at the conference singled out two causes: too many people and too little fresh water. This one-two punch can become lethal, they said, when environmental problems such as a prolonged drought or a change in climate put too much stress on a society.

The movement of peoples into big cities such as Rome and Tikal, the Maya capital, created great wealth, rich cultures and complex bureaucracies that ultimately proved to be unsustainable.

"Complex societies have been collapsing for 12,000 years -- as long as they have existed," said Joseph Tainter, an expert on prehistoric American Indians at the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Albuquerque, N.M.

"High population levels gave early societies a fragility that made them especially vulnerable to environmental changes," said Christopher Scarre, an archaeologist from Cambridge University in England.

Search for water

Now the world is facing an increasingly serious shortage of fresh water. Although water covers three-quarters of our planet, 95 percent of it is salty and 70 percent of the rest is locked up in ice.

A billion people lack adequate clean water, according to Peter Gleick, director of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security in Oakland.

Water-borne diseases kill 10,000 to 20,000 children every day, said Gleick, author of a report "The World's Water, 2000-2001."

Lessons ignored

People all over the globe are abandoning small towns and villages and jamming into metropolitan areas, especially in poorer, Third World countries.

By 2015, population experts predict, there will be 28 "megacities," each with more than 10 million people. The Tokyo region is already home to more than 26 million people. Bombay, India, is expected to grow from 18 million to 26 million; Los Angeles from 13.1 million to 14.1 million; New York City from 16.6 million to 17.4 million.

To be sure, modern cities enjoy more advanced technologies than ancient metropolises. Nevertheless, the problems of crowding, pollution, crime and sanitation that overwhelmed populous societies in the past threaten to do so again, especially in less fortunate parts of the world.

"The lessons from history, or prehistory, are usually inconvenient and painful to deal with and easy to ignore," Scarborough said.

Credit: KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE

From SignOnSanDiego.com