Abstract
The problem of explaining the collapse in the ninth century A.D. of the Classic Lowland Maya civilization is among the most celebrated puzzles of archaeology. The present remarks are a study of certain aspects of the explanatory controversy which this problem has generated. My objective is to support a partial answer to the question Q: How do historians show that one explanation of some event is a better explanation of that event than are competing explanations?1 What follows is divided into three parts. The first is devoted to a discussion of Q. The second is a characterization of the Maya collapse, of the principal hypotheses which have been proposed to explain it, and of the main arguments for and against four of these hypotheses. Elements of these arguments will be numbered to facilitate cross reference later in the paper. The third part of what follows is my answer to Q.
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Notes
I am using ‘history’, ‘historian’, and related expressions in a broad sense to include not only history proper but also archaeological enquiries of the sort under discussion in the present paper.
Thus, it is a commonplace of historiography that historians will continue to debate the relative merits of competing explanations of some event even though none of the competing explanations is supported by substantial evidence.
See, for example, W. T. Sanders, `The Cultural Ecology of the Lowland Maya: A Reevaluation’, in T. P. Culbert (ed.), The Classic Maya Collapse, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1973, pp. 325–365, pp. 362–365.
An example of the former may be found in Carl G. Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation, Free Press, New York, 1965, p. 419; and of the latter in Raymond Martin, `Marc-Wogau and Mackie on Singular Causal Statements’, in Philosophical Forum 3 (1971), 145–151, p. 150.
Sanders, op. cit., p. 361.
(1.1)—(1.2): S. G. Morley and G. W. Brainerd, The Ancient Maya, Stanford University Press, Stanford, Calif., 3rd ed., 1956, p. 69; E. W. MacKie, `New Light on the End of Classic Maya Culture of Benque Viejo, British Honduras’, American Antiquity 27 (1961), 216–224; R. E. W. Adams, `The Collapse of Maya Civilization: A Review of Previous Theories; in Culbert, op. cit., pp. 21–34, p. 27. (1.3)—(1.5): Morley and Brainerd, op. cit., p. 69; G. L. Cowgill, `The End of Classic Maya Culture: A Review of Recent Evidence’, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 20 (1964), 145–159, p. 152; Adams, op. cit., p. 27.
Adams, op. cit., 27.
In forest swidden maize agriculture, the forest is cleared with hand tools, the resulting debris burned, and maize planted for a period of time from one to three years. The land is then allowed to rest for several years before recultivation.
(2.01)—(2.03): Adams, op. cit., 24–26; T. P. Culbert, The Lost Civilization, Harper and Row, New York,1974, p. 46. (2.04): Elizabeth P. Benson, The Maya World, Thomas Y. Crowel, New York, 1967, p. 126; Sanders, op. cit., pp. 328–332; Culbert, op. cit., pp. 41–46. (2.05)—(2.07): Adams, op. cit., pp. 26, 29, 32; Sanders, op. cit., pp. 332341. See also Cowgill, op. cit., p. 153, F. B. Saul, `Disease in the Maya Area: The Pre-Columbian Evidence’, in Culbert (ed.), op. cit., pp. 301–324; and G. R. Willey `Certain Aspects of the Late Classic to Postclassic Periods in the Belize Valley’, in Culbert (ed.), op. cit., pp. 93–106, p. 100. (2.08): Cowgill, op. cit., p. 152; E. W. Andrews IV, `The Development of Maya Civilization After- Abandonment of Southern Cities’, in Culbert (ed.), op. cit., pp. 243–265, pp. 259–260. (2.09)—(2.13): Adams, op. cit., pp. 26; Culbert, `The Maya Downfall at Tikal’, in Culbert (ed.), op. cit., pp. 63–92, pp. 71–72; Sanders, op. cit., p. 340; G. R. Willey and D. B. Shimkin, `The Maya Collapse: A Summary View’, in Culbert (ed.), op. cit., pp. 457–501, pp. 474–476, 482–483; Culbert, Lost Civilization, pp. 47–49. (2.14)—(2.16): Morley and Brainerd, op. cit., p. 71;Cowgill, op. cit., p. 152; J. E. S. Thompson, The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1966, pp. 102–103; J. A. Sabloff and G. R. Willey, `The Collapse of Maya Civilization in the Southern Lowlands: A Consideration of History and Process’, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 23 (1967), 311–336, p. 315.
Sabloff and Willey, op. cit., p. 316. See also Adams, op. cit., p. 26, and C. J. Erasmus, `Thoughts on Upward Collapse: An Essay on Explanation in Anthropology’, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 24 (1968), 170–194.
Op. cit., p. 340.
For example, Culbert notes that prehistoric South Americans farmed their swamplands by “building ridged-field systems in which dirt is piled up to make ridges that are high enough to avoid destructive amounts of moisture [and that] ... some [such systems] have been discovered along the Rio Candelaria at the western edge of the Maya lowland”, in Culbert (ed.), op. cit., p. 49.
Thompson, op. cit., pp. 100–109. See also Morley and Brainerd, op. cit., pp. 57–73; Charles Gallenkamp, Maya: The Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization, McKay, New York, 1959, pp. 158–163; Sabloff and Willey, op. cit., pp. 317–318; Thompson, Maya History and Religion, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1970, pp. 79–83, Adams, op. cit., pp. 29–30; Sabloff, `Major Themes in the Past Hypotheses of the Maya Collapse’, in Culbert (ed.), op. cit., pp. 35–40, pp. 37–38; Sanders, op. cit., p. 346; and Willey and Shimkin, op. cit., pp. 467–468, 485.
Op. cit., p. 361.
Lost Civilization, p. 109.
(4.1)—(4.2): Cowgill, op. cit., p. 154; Benson, op. cit., pp. 130–131; Sabloff and Willey, op. cit., pp. 319–330; Adams, op. cit., pp. 30–33; Adams, `Maya Collapse: Transformation and Termination in the Ceramic Sequence at Altar de Sacrificios’, in Culbert (ed.), op. cit., pp. 133–163, pp. 149–158; Sabloff, `Continuity and Disruption During Terminal Late Classic Times at Seibal’, in Culbert (ed.), op. cit., pp. 107–131, pp. 127–129; M. C. Webb, `The Peten Maya Decline Viewed in the Perspective of State Formation’, in Culbert (ed.), op. cit., pp. 367–404, p. 402; Willey and Shimkin, op. cit., pp. 464–465, 469–470. (4.3): Cowgill, op. cit., p. 154. (4.4)—(4.5): Sanders, op. cit., pp. 364–365; Willey and Shimkin, op. cit., pp. 470–473. (4.6)—(4.7): Culbert, in Culbert (ed.), op. cit., pp. 89–92; R. L. Rands, `The Classic Maya Collapse: Usumacinta Zone and the Northwestern Periphery’, in Culbert (ed.), op. cit., pp. 165–205, p. 197. See also Webb, op. cit., p. 368.
Cowgill, op. cit., p. 154.
Ibid.
For example, Sanders argues that nutritional deprivation would result at most in “a reduction of population to the point where a viable subsistence system would become reestablished ... ”, (op. cit., p. 364).
Ibid., pp. 364–365.
Cowgill, op. cit., pp. 155–156.
There are, of course, also arguments which are intended to increase or diminish the likelihood that a particular explanandum is true. But since there is no difference in structure between these arguments and arguments of type (1), I consider subsequently just arguments of type (1).
All arguments of type (1) support the conclusion of an argument of type (2). All arguments of type (2) support the conclusion of an argument of type (3) and vice versa. Hence, an argument in the archaeological literature may often be regarded as an instance of more than one of my argument types.
(2.03) is one of the few clear exceptions which I discovered to this rule (Culbert, Lost Civilization, p. 46). See also the use made by D. B. Shimkin of what he calls “comparative evidence” in `Models for the Downfall: Some Ecological and Culture-Historical Considerations’, in Culbert (ed.), op. cit., pp. 269–299.
Other examples include (2.02), (2.04), and (4.1). See also (3.4) and (3.5).
Other examples include (2.01), (3.2), (3.3), and (4.2).
Other examples include (3.7) and (4.6).
Benson, op. cit., p. 127. Other examples include (4.5).
Sanders, op. cit., p. 340. For additional examples, see Cowgill, op. cit., p. 152; Sabloff and Willey, op. cit., p. 315; and Culbert, Lost Civilization, pp. 47–49. Perhaps (4.7) is an additional example.
Sanders, op. cit., p. 334; see also p. 362.
Shimkin, op. cit., pp. 269–299. Other examples include (2.05) and Saul, op. cit.
Perhaps (2.13), (2.14), and (2.15) are negative arguments of type (2).
For additional examples, see (4.3) and Cowgill, op. cit., p. 152.
Andrews, op. cit., pp. 259–260. For additional examples, see (1.4), (2.08) and Cowgill, op. cit., p. 152.
Sanders, op. cit., p. 364. For an additional example, see Thompson, Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization, p. 104.
Sanders, op. cit. For additional examples, see Cowgill, op. cit.; and Adams, `Maya Collapse’, pp. 149–158.
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Martin, R. (1980). Explanatory Controversy in Historical Studies. In: Van Inwagen, P. (eds) Time and Cause. Philosophical Studies Series in Philosophy, vol 19. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3528-5_13
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