The Mayan people were a very sophisticated people; they had a very well developed calendar for there time. Also they had good work ethic, they were a smart people. The Mayans also believed very strongly in pleasing their gods, they would sacrifice hundreds of people for no reason but to please their gods. The Mayans also went to war a lot, sometimes for no reason; this quote explains one reason they would go. "Lifted into the next world by hallucinogenic drugs, the king will take an obsidian blade or the spine of a stingray, pierce his own penis, and then draw a rope through the wound, letting the blood drip onto bits of bark paper." "When the king finally emerges, on the verge of collapse, he reaches under his loincloth, displays a bloodstained hand and announces the ancestors' message--the same message he has received so many times in the past: "Prepare to go to war." The crowd erupts in wild cheers." Uncontrolled warfare such as probably the type that took place after the king made that speech was probably one of the main causes for the Mayan peoples eventual downfall. Because of the skirmishes that city-states had that escalated to full-fledged vicious wars, the cities turned to ghost towns with no one left, they were either dead or ran away. If they didn't die in the battle then the prisoners that were taken and the town's people were usually sacrificed to the gods. .
While many people agree that wars contributed to the collapse, no one thinks they were the whole reason. Another factor was overuse of the rain forest, which the Mayans depended for food, and wood. An archaeologist from Arizona says, "Pollen recovered from underground debris shows clearly that "there was almost no tropical forest left."" .
Some people ask what lessons can we take from the Mayan collapse? And most experts say the environmental messages. The Mayan were overpopulated and they overused their environment and because of that millions of them died.