September
24
/ 2022
The Maya Empire dominated large swaths of Mesoamerica for more than 3,000 years. But despite their impressive record of survival, the Maya civilization did not live completely in harmony with their environment, as a review article published by Frontiers in Environmental Science clearly reveals. Surprisingly, for the Maya mercury poisoning was a serious problem. It seems the Maya people faced a significant ecological and public health concern, one that would trigger a series of cleanup actions if uncovered by the United States Environmental Protection Agency or the Environment Agency in the United Kingdom. That problem was mercury contamination, which has been found to be at shockingly high levels in measurements taken of soil samples from multiple Maya sites in southern
