Rome and the Classic Maya ─ Comparing the Slow Collapse of Civilizations

Why do societies that seem to be successful and flourish come to an end? In this detailed comparative study, Rebecca and Glenn Storey examine the cultural changes marking the fall of two well-known ancient complex societies: the Classical Maya and the Ancient Roman Empire. Despite their dissimilarities, the two experienced comparable problems that ultimately led to the long process of decline, or slow collapse.” This book

-explains the concept of slow collapse and its applicability to the fall of these two cultures;
-presents the common problems that these two societies could not solve;
-demonstrates that these problems resemble those that developed societies face today, thus providing a cautionary tale to contemporary societies.

This engaging volume will generate much fascinating discussion, and will appeal to scholars as well as to advanced students in archaeology and ancient history interested in collapse of complex societies.

Rebecca Storey is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Houston, who has been teaching anthropology for 30 years. Trained in both biological anthropology and archaeology, she received her Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University. Her research has specialized on the Precolumbian civilizations of Teotihuacan and the Classic-period Maya sites of K’axob and Copan, especially on the skeletal remains that provide information about health and lifestyle not available from other kinds of archaeological data. The Classic Maya collapse is an important focus of her research, as both K’axob and Copan were abandoned as part of this phenomenon. Glenn Reed Storey is Associate Professor of Classics and Anthropology at the University of Iowa. He has degrees from Columbia University and Oxford University and a doctorate from Penn State University in anthropology. He teaches a wide range of courses, ranging from Beginning Classical Greek to Anthropology and Contemporary World Problems. His research has focused on the Roman economy and demography, while carrying out excavations at the site of Gangivecchio, a Greco-Roman site in Sicily, in tandem with investigations using ground penetrating radar.