Temple II at Tikal, Guatemala, Central America. New evidence suggests that the Mayan civilisation collapsed because of a lack of resources rather than other factors such as disease or warfare (Image: Doug Traverso / Robert Harding / Rex Features)

THE builders of the ancient Mayan temples at Tikal in Guatemala switched to inferior wood a few decades before they suddenly abandoned the city in the 9th century AD. The shift is the strongest evidence yet that Mayan civilisation collapsed because they ran out of resources, rather than, say, disease or warfare.

Researchers led by David Lentz, a palaeoethnobotanist at …