▶ Your Answer : According to the lecture, the speaker maintains that the writer's three hypotheses are not convincing, accounting for three reasons that refute them. First, the lecturer says that there is no record that the breakdown of Maya Empire resulted from revolution and if it is the case, there should be something which can prove it because Mayan writing system was highly developed. Furthermore,as the Maya society was decentralized, each state had government and ruler. Hence, it was nearly impossible that the one revolt spread to another state. Second, the speaker claims that the record is not consistent with the author's assertion in that it indicated that Teotihuacan was a major city economically; however, its population and power decreased a long time ago before collapse of Maya Empire began. In this perspective, it is not clear that the change of trade route and the decline of influence of Teotihuacan were the principal reason that caused the Empire's breakdown. Lastly, the professor maintains that in 16th century, the Spanish brought epidemic such as malaria from Africa, thee is low possibility that Maya citizens were exposed to such epidemic before then. Moreover, mass graves do not exist which are the evidence that numerous people died in a short period. In conclusion, the speaker supports that the three reasons that the author mentioned were not the causes of Maya Empire's collapse for these reasons: there is no certain evidence which can support the claim the collapse was because of revolution, the written material does not concord with the writer's thought that the change of trade route was the main reason of it, and disease was not the reason in that supporting evidence lacks. |