news.bbc.co.uk By Helen Sewell BBC News Online science staff

Climate change was largely to blame for the collapse of the Mayan civilisation in Central America more than 1,000 years ago, research suggests.

By the middle of the 8th Century there were up to 13 million people in the Mayan population but within 200 years their cities lay abandoned.

The Mayans built complex systems of canals and reservoirs to collect rainwater for drinking in the hot, dry summers.

Despite this there has long been speculation that the whole population was wiped out by drought, but there has not been enough evidence to support this theory.

Now research published in the journal Science suggests that climate change was indeed a major factor.

Coloured bands

To investigate the Mayan decline, scientists studied the ancient build-up of sediment on the sea floor just off the northern coast of Venezuela.

They discovered layers of deposits in bands of alternating dark and light colours each about a millimetre deep. The light bands consisted of algae and tiny fossils, while the dark bands were due to sediments of the metal titanium.

The scientists say titanium was washed into the sea by rivers during the rainy seasons. Shallower dark bands, which indicate lower levels of the metal, show the rivers were flowing more weakly. The researchers say this was because there was less rain.

They have worked out that in the 9th and 10th Centuries, probably just before the Mayan civilisation collapsed, there was a long period of dry weather and three intense droughts.

Modern implications

Archaeological evidence suggests that one reason for the Mayans' initial success over other societies was that they controlled the artificial reservoirs.

If this is true, the scientists say the drought could easily have pushed the whole civilisation to the verge of collapse.

The German scientist who led the research, Gerald Haug, said this had serious implications for climate change today.

"A three-to-nine-year drought, which could be a failure of the monsoon systems in Africa or in India, and in particular the change in the background state of climate... is a very severe threat to modern humanity," he told BBC News Online.

www.theage.com.au Friday 14 March 2003, 2:30 PM

World oil prices slumped as the twisted road to war in Iraq appeared to lengthen, warm weather approached and Venezuela pumped more crude, traders said.

US President George W Bush had run in a diplomatic tangle in the UN Security Council, traders said.

"The troubles the Bush administration is having at the UN appear myriad, giving the market the impression that the imminency of war has been pushed out a bit," said Fimat USA analyst John Kilduff.

New York's reference light sweet crude contract for April delivery skidded $US1.82 to $US36.01 a barrel.

In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for April delivery slid $US1.44 to $US32.47 a barrel.

The United States, looking for a way around French, Russian or Chinese vetoes, said it could allow a UN Security Council vote on war against Iraq to slip into next week or even forgo the vote altogether.

"We are still talking to the members of the Council with respect to coalescing around a position that wouldn't draw a veto, but the options remain: go for a vote and see what members say, or not go for a vote," US Secretary of State Colin Powell told Congress.

Michael McAllister, energy analyst at Fahnestock and Co, said news that Venezuela had recovered from strike action to push production up to 2.95 million barrels a day depressed prices.

"It is a jittery market that can be swayed by one story," he said.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez broke the news that the country's production had exceeded OPEC quotas, after having fallen to record lows during a crippling strike.

"Good news," Chavez announced from the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas. "Oil production in Venezuela has reached 2.95 million barrels per day."

Expectations of lower fuel demand as spring approached in the northern hemisphere also weighed on prices, traders said.

"There are milder temperatures forecast in the States driving the natural gas, heating oil and crude lower," said Prudential Bache trader Tony Machacek in London.

"There is also talk about further delays of the UN making any decision on Iraq or tabling any further steps," he said.

Matthew Parry, commodities expert at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London, said prices would probably rise to $US40-45 per barrel if and when conflict breaks out.

www.channelnewsasia.com First created : 14 March 2003 0831 hrs (SST) 0031 hrs (GMT) Last modified : 14 March 2003 0831 hrs (SST) 0031 hrs (GMT)

World oil prices slumped on Thursday as the twisted road to war in Iraq appeared to lengthen, warm weather approached and Venezuela pumped more crude.

In New York, the reference light sweet crude contract for April delivery skidded US$1.82 to US$36.01 a barrel.Advertisement

In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for April delivery slid US$1.44 to US$32.47 a barrel.

Traders said wrangling at the United Nations had further delayed a vote on a new resolution that could pave the way to war with Iraq.

They added that US President George W Bush had run in a diplomatic tangle in the UN Security Council.

The US, looking for a way around French, Russian or Chinese vetoes, said it could allow a UN Security Council vote on war against Iraq to slip into next week or even forgo the vote altogether.

Expectations of lower fuel demand as spring approached in the northern hemisphere also weighed on prices.

News that Venezuela had recovered from strike action to push production up to 2.95 million barrels a day depressed prices.

On Tuesday, oil ministers of members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to maintain current production quotas but pledged to avert shortfalls in the event of war.

news.independent.co.uk By Steve Connor Science Editor 14 March 2003

The Maya disappeared more than 1,000 years ago, leaving pyramids, a unique form of writing and a network of lost cities in the deserts and jungles of Central and South America.

For two centuries archaeologists have speculated why their civilisation collapsed, with theories ranging from civil war to overpopulation and environmental degradation.

Today, an international team of scientists publishes powerful evidence pointing to a series of devastating droughts over a period of 150 years, which played a pivotal role in ending one of the most intriguing cultures in human history.

Cores drilled into the muddy sediments of the Cariaco Basin of the southern Caribbean Sea have identified three intense droughts around AD810, AD860 and AD910, which correspond to the periods where the Maya are thought to have abandoned some of their cities.

The scientists, led by Gerald Haug, professor of geology at the GeoForschungSzentrum institute in Potsdam, Germany, conclude in the journal Science that a change in the climate pushed the Maya civilisation into terminal decline. "These data suggest that a century-scale decline in rainfall put a general strain on resources in the region, which was then exacerbated by the abrupt drought events," they say.

The Mayan civilisation, which existed for about 2,000 years, disappeared around AD900. The Mayans mastered a system of counting, were able to chart the movements of the stars and planets and established a rich commercial trade and ritual tradition based on bloodletting and human sacrifice.

Their disappearance went unnoticed until the early 19th century when an American explorer, John Lloyd Stephens, discovered the lost Maya city of Copan deep in the South American jungle.

The civilisation stretched across much of what is now southern Mexico, Belize and Guatemala. Its history extends over a period of two millenniums, with the culture blossoming and the population growing to between 3 million and 13 million people in the "classic" period between about AD250 and AD750.

But Professor Haug said the civilisation experienced a "demographic disaster" between AD750 and AD950. Many of the densely populated cities were suddenly emptied. Eventually the civilisation collapsed, with only a fraction of the Maya population surviving.

Some archaeologists suggested that the demise was caused by civil war between competing Maya groups. Others suggested migration, disease, over-farming, or a combination of these factors.

The sediments from the Cariaco Basin off the coast of Venezuela contained seasonal layers of titanium deposited into the basin by local rivers – making the amount of the titanium an accurate indicator of regional rainfall.

Previously, archaeologists estimated the years when Maya cities were abandoned by analysing the last dates carved into the local monuments. Professor Haug found a remarkable match between this archaeological evidence and the dates of the worst periods of drought estimated from the lowest levels of titanium in the Carioca Basin.

Water was an important natural resource for the Mayan people– they went to great effort to collect rainwater in cisterns and to build an extensive network of canals and irrigation channels.

For small villages, a relatively short drought of even a few years would not perhaps have caused mass deaths but for a large urban centre with a dense population such droughts could easily prove terminal, Professor Haug said.

Decline and fall - end of great empires

Lost civilisations and abandoned cities are the stuff of historical fiction but there are many true-life examples. The monument of Great Zimbabwe, right, is the most famous stone building in southern Africa. It is thought to have been built over a period beginning in 1200 and ending around 1450 but not everybody agrees on who was responsible. The most likely are the Karanga people.

For hundreds of years the lost city of Angkor Wat, left, in present-day Cambodia, was legendary. Peasants told French colonists of "temples built by gods or by giants". Stories told of a lost civilisation but archaeologists realised the city was the centre of a Cambodian civilisation, built more than 2,000 years ago but abandoned after invasion by the Thais.

The mystery of the huge statues on the Easter Islands, right (now called Rapa Nui), can also be explained by the rise and fall of a "lost" civilisation. When people first arrived on Rapa Nui, they quickly exploited the palm forests and planted banana trees and taro root. The population flourished until the 17th century but the depletion of natural resources led to a severe fall in numbers, raising questions over who was responsible for the statues and how they were moved to these remote islands.   14 March 2003 23:09

www.japantoday.com Friday, March 14, 2003 at 09:20 JST

CARACAS — Venezuela's polarized political crisis does not need a binding mediation by the OAS secretary general, the Chavez administration said Thursday.

"We consider him (OAS chief Cesar Gaviria) a facilitator, not a mediator. Mediation introduces a binding element which we believe Venezuela's situation does not warrant," said Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel.

Rangel told journalists that an eventual change in Gaviria's functions - which the opposition proposed during the last meeting of the Friends of Venezuela group - would introduce "an element of binding international mediation," that is it would obligate the parties to accept the Organization of American States' head's decisions.

Gaviria has been sponsoring a dialogue between President Hugo Chavez's administration and the opposition since Nov 8 to seek an electoral, democratic, constitutional and peaceful solution to the ongoing political conflict between government supporters and opponents.

Rangel said that the opposition's efforts during the second Friends of Venezuela meeting that took place in Brasilia last Monday failed because its proposal to have Gaviria mediate in the conflict, instead of merely facilitating the talks, was rejected.

Administration and opposition representatives at the negotiating table are presently discussing two proposals tendered last January by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

Carter's first proposal calls for a constitutional amendment to reduce the presidential term from six to four years, the institution of a runoff presidential election and a number of other changes.

The second proposal calls for a referendum to be held on Aug 19 - which is the midway point in Chavez's presidential term - to determine whether the Venezuelan leader should step down. Although the opposition prefers the constitutional amendment, the administration reiterated Tuesday in a written document its desire that a referendum be called on Aug 19 as the Constitution currently establishes.

If the administration's option wins out, the opposition would need only to file a formal request to set the referendum process into motion.

Rangel noted that any electoral option would be the exclusive concern of the National Electoral Council, "which is an autonomous and independent power." But "in order for any electoral process to take place in Venezuela, the National Electoral Council must first be formed," Rangel said. (EFE News)