Day Twenty

A Road Map for the Future

By A.D. 909, the bulk of an already impoverished Maya population abandoned the cities and let the jungle reclaim more than 2,000 years of history.

A setting sun is a fitting metaphor for the last day of an expedition that explored the final days of a civilization. For 600 years, the Maya were one of America's rising stars. But like the ancient Greeks, and Egyptians before them, the Maya stumbled and fell. Why? And perhaps more importantly, why do successful civilizations seem to inevitably fail?

MayaQuest helped answer these questions. We gathered dozens of clues, explored both human and environmental factors and formulated a theory of our own.

The history of the classic Maya closely parallels our own. In both cases, a largely agricultural society organizes, gains a technological advantage and outpaces its neighbors. But are we doomed to follow the same disastrous arch of rise, peak, and fall?

	Clouds settle in amidst the Cuchumatanes Mountains near San Mateo Ixtatán.

MayaQuest provided a mirror for us to look at ourselves. In the ancient Maya, we saw the fatal combination of excess and natural forces. In the simple ways of the modern Maya, we see an alternative to the destructive shopping mall myth that more is better. The combination makes us more socially and environmentally conscience. We emerge from the experience with an incomplete-but discernible-road map for the future.

Explore MayaQuest to find out what the team and its many online collaborators have discovered over the past five weeks!

Pedals Up!

- Dan Buettner

< previous   MayaQuest Home  

MayaQuest is produced by Classroom Connect as part of The Quest Channel series of online adventures.