What Can the Chicxulub Crater Tell Us About the Maya?

In all the discussions about the K/T Extinction Event that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, it's seldom remarked that the Chicxulub crater--the remnant of that famous asteroid impact--lies smack in the middle of what was once Mayan territory. Like the dinosaurs, the Mayans eventually, and mysteriously, disappeared about 1,000 years ago, for reasons that archeologists have been unable to piece together. (One shouldn't take the analogy too far, though--unlike the dinosaurs, millions of people of Mayan ancestry have survived to the present day.)

Now, a team of American, English and Swiss scientists believe that the remnants of the K/T meteor impact may shed light on the fate of the Mayans. It seems that the slow erosion of the crater's rim, as marked by deposits of the radioactive element strontium, may help experts to recreate the Mayan terrain of centuries past--and in turn help to delineate patterns of habitation and agriculture. With any luck, the demise of the dinosaurs will allow us to grasp the near-demise of a much more recent civilization!