The Role of Climate in the Collapse of the Maya Civilization: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Scientific Discourse

Abstract

This bibliometric analysis deals with research on the collapse of the Maya civilization-a research topic with a long-lasting history, which has been boosted significantly by recent paleoclimatic research. The study is based on a publication set of 433 papers published between 1923 and 2016. The publications covered by the Web of Science (WoS) show a significant increase since 1990, reaching about 30 papers per year at present. The results show that the current discourse on the collapse of the Maya civilization is focused on the role of climate as a major factor for the demise of this ancient civilization. The bibliometric analyses also reveal that (1) paleoclimatic records become numerous and are increasingly better dated; (2) the explanatory power of the records has been significantly increased by analyzing samples from regions closer to the relevant Maya sites; and (3) interdisciplinary cooperation of the humanities (archeology, anthropology, history) with natural sciences disciplines (geoscience, ecology, paleoclimatology, meteorology) seems to be highly promising. The collapse of the Maya civilization is a good example of how natural sciences entered research in the humanities and social sciences (anthropology, archeology, history) and boosted research (and solutions) around long-discussed, but unsolved questions.

Application of bibliometrics in medicine: a historical bibliometrics analysis

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Bibliometric Analysis in the Field of Quantum Technology

“…The present study provides a bibliometric analysis of QT 2.0, methodologically following previous studies dealing with research fields such as climate change [6], specific aspects thereof [7][8][9], and density functional theory (DFT) [10]. The dataset used in this study has been analyzed in the white paper by Bornmann et al [11], but only for the time period 2000-2016 and with a focus on Germany.…”

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Identifying historical roots of knowledge development in cardiovascular nursing using bibliometrics

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