Extreme climate changes, both wet and dry, corresponded with the population decline of a Maya settlement in central America according to new research out of McGill University that looked at indicators left behind by ancient human waste. Benjamin Keenan, a PhD candidate in McGill's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the study's first author, says human remains don't last very long in tropical rainforest environments — but the molecules present in human waste do. "The lake is so small, and it's kind of like a waste bin for everything produced around it," he said. Keenan says mass migration might have been behind the population decline his lake samples revealed. Previous studies have suggested drought might have led to the collapse of the Maya civilization's population.

Source: CBC News July 21, 2021 07:52 UTC