[pjmlp]

The worse part of it, compared with other lost civilizations is that we Europeans were responsible for it, in the process to make them "civilized".

How it could have turned much differently if there was a pacific coexistence with the conquistadores.

[hypertele-Xii]

Wikipedia disagrees with you:

> The Classic Maya collapse is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in archaeology. [...] Over 80 different theories or variations of theories attempting to explain the Classic Maya collapse have been identified. From climate change to deforestation to lack of action by Maya kings, there is no universally accepted collapse theory, [...]

What's your source or authority for claiming it was definitively the conquistadores?

[makomk]

If the dating estimates in the article are right, I think this might even have been caused by the prior Preclassic Collapse a few centuries before that. Remember, the dates given are a full two millenia before colonialism and a lot can happen to cause societies to change and history and knowledge to be lost over that timescale; our historical knowledge of much of Europe during this time period isn't exactly great either.

[wageslave99]

I know it is not an excuse but the European conquerors did the same other cultures have been doing to them for centuries. The "barbaric way of doing things" was common and was pretty extended for much part of the history.

European nations had been plagued by poverty, wars, killing, totalitarianism, witch hunting... For centuries, so when they reach the New World they continue to behave the same way they have been behaving until that point.

The only good part is that some countries were conquered and dominated by cultures that did not exterminated them. There was some mixing between peoples and the culture was enriched by that exchange.