Both computerized agricultural simulations and settlement demographic reconstructions indicate that increased levels of agricultural intensification necessary to meet the subsistence needs of Copan's growing population would have led to large-scale erosion in upland areas and a significant reduction of soil fertility in all regions of the valley at that time. Abandonment risk rises sharply in all regions at the end of the seventh century a.d. Late Classic households in ecologically vulnerable sections of the Copan Valley-as measured by slope, soil type, and natural vegetation-had significantly higher risk of abandonment than households in more ecologically stable settings. The relationship between local ecological setting and residential group abandonment is examined by applying event-history analysis to the known occupation spans of 140 residential mound groups, dated by obsidian hydration. The Late Classic Maya abandonment of the Copan Valley, Honduras, began in the ninth century a.d.
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