[EV-02] Lunchtime Special Lecture

[EV02-03] Coring lakes across Mexico to uncover the mystery of the Maya civilization: Did climate change drive a great civilization to collapse?

Ikuko KITABA¹ (1. Research Centre for Palaeoclimatology, Ritsumeikan University)

Why did the Maya civilization decline? To explore this mystery, we cored one lake after another in search of a special type of sediment called "varves." After three years, we finally found one at an ancient Maya site. These varves recorded time, the weather the Maya experienced, and how they lived. This is a muddy story of chasing facts with hands, feet, and eyes.