The Nazca civilization had started to decline…

The Nazca civilization had started to decline from 500 CE due to El Niño which triggered widespread and destructive flooding.

Evidence also suggests that the Nazca people may have exacerbated the effects of these floods by gradually cutting down Prosopis pallida trees to make room for maize and cotton agriculture.

These trees play an extremely important role as the ecological keystone of this landscape: in particular preventing river and wind erosion.

Gradual removal of trees would have exposed the landscape to the effects of climate perturbations such as El Niño, leading to erosion and leaving irrigation systems high and dry (see Beresford-Jones et al.

2009).

The Nazca civilization declines rapidly after 600.