The problem was cinnabar, a vivid-red mercury-sulfide mineral that can be used as the pigment vermilion in red paint. The run-off from the paint can enter waterways, where anaerobic bacteria then transform cinnabar into highly toxic methylmercury in the sediments of lakes. Over time, the methylmercury accumulates to higher levels in the food chain.
But the Maya passion for the color red — which to them represented the sun, blood and life — caused an environmental disaster when the nearby waters were poisoned by the cinnabar runoff, said study first author Matthew Waters, a paleolimnologist (a scientist who studies ancient waterways) at Auburn University in Alabama.
Previous studies had already found evidence for high levels of mercury in the Maya's southern highlands and south-central lowlands, but no one had fully examined levels of the toxic mineral in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.
"We did not suspect [the Maya] used it in the quantities that we were seeing," he said.
The sediment cores chronicle the composition of earth and water over more than 2,000 years, and the times of mercury poisoning coincide with several periods during the Preclassic and Classic periods of the Maya civilization from about A.D. 40 to 820.
Severe poisoning occurs when the mercury levels in human blood exceed about 100 parts per billion, from drinking contaminated water or eating contaminated marine animals, such as fish. In humans, mercury poisoning can cause severe symptoms, including permanent lung damage, brain damage and death.
The reddish hue of the Maya sun god Kinich Ahau, made between the sixth and ninth centuries, now housed in Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology, shows the Maya's love for mercury. (Image credit: DeAgostini/Getty Images)The researchers then examined the sediment cores for signs of environmental damage caused by the mercury poisoning. They found that the cores lacked tiny fossils of freshwater shellfish, indicating that the high mercury levels were killing marine life. The team also noticed that the sediment cores had hardly any traces of algal blooms, which should have happened frequently, Waters said. That's likely because algae could not survive in the poisoned water nutrients.
Maya collapse
Related storiesScholars debate why the Maya civilization collapsed in the eighth and ninth centuries, but a leading suspect is the disruption of food supplies caused by drought.
Cinnabar does not occur naturally in the Yucatán, so it must have been imported there, probably from what's now Honduras, the researchers said. It seems these cinnabar imports eventually stopped at Cobá Lake, and the poisoning there fell to a background level of about 20 parts per billion by A.D. 520. However, the sediment cores showed that the mercury poisoning continued at Cenote Xcach until the collapse, they said.
What do you know about the civilization that built pyramids across Mesoamerica? Find out with our ancient Maya quiz.
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