Collapse: Looking for Clues at Copan

The Habitable Planet
This course will guide viewers through topics including the atmosphere, oceans, and ecosystems, as well as the impact of human activities and population growth on water and food resources, biodiversity, energy use, and global pollution. Each of the 13 programs in the series includes two case studies featuring the work of top scientists in the field.

Click on a topic above to begin.

Through fieldwork and lab work, archaeologists have been piecing together what happened to bring about the collapse of Copán, once a thriving center of Maya civilization. In this activity, you'll be following in the steps of the archaeologists who studied Copán, looking for clues to how it collapsed. You'll be trying to answer two questions:

1. Why did Copán collapse?

2. Was the end a gradual decline or a rapid fall?

To get started, click on one of the topics to the left (monuments, houses, bones, people, or botany). Use your Copán journal to record important clues along the way.

"Collapse" is inspired by programs from Out of the Past,
a video series from Annenberg Media.