once tikal was one of the most important mayan sites and the ancient city is located in the rain forest of the petén. The petén was considered as the seventh largest rainforest area on earth but on our way from rio dulce to tikal we hadn´t seen rainforests – instead there was maiz fields, cattle pastures, oil palm trees and waste land.
From the beginning of the 3rd century there was a lot of activities in tikal and in honor of the gods they had to build temples, pyramides and of course residential sites for the kings. Tikal subdued neighboring cities and had a long enmity with calakmul from which it was hammered down 562. But in 695 there was the revanche and calakmul was subjugated, this meant for tikal a new heyday.
in the city and in the surrounding area there once had lived up to 200.000 humans but in the beginning of the ninth century suddenly the game was over. Why the exodus came remains unclear up today but one assumes that an extreme drought happend between 800 and 830.
Perhaps the mayas had cleared too much rainforest for growing crops etc. and thus might had changed micro climate?
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