The Medieval Warm Period from A.D. 800 to 1300 contributed to the megadrought epoch in North America, which for the Sierra region -- in what is now California -- resulted in the most severe droughts of the last 4-7,000 years, writes anthropologist Brian Fagan in 'The Great Warming.' The climate evidence for these megadroughts exists in tree rings, ice cores and growth layers in coral. A 50-year drought in the 1100s forced the Anasazi Indians to abandon Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. Later droughts in the 1200s caused the Anasazi to leave Mesa Verde and the Moctezuma Valley. Parched conditions also hit the Maya in Central America. Deep sediment cores from off of the Venezuelan coast and from a Yucatan lake bed show that droughts affected the Maya about every 50 years; the one from 910 to 916 proved to be the final straw, leading to the downfall of the parts of Maya civilization in the southern and central lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula by the end of the 900s. On the other side of the world, in what is now Cambodia, the Khmer ruler King Suryavarman II started building the elaborate temple of Angkor Wat in 1117. The Angkorian empire was in decline by the 1400s and the city of Angkor abandoned by the end of the 1500s. The most likely causes: Drought and declining rice crop yields.
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