If the ancient Mayan culture was so advanced in the world, why did they vanish???

Answer 1

Climate change. They had many years of drought and could no longer sustain their society in cities. (There's no groundwater; it's all rain down there.) Therefore they left their cities and went back into the jungle or into smaller towns, where millions still live today. (Yes, there are LOTS of Mayans still around--it's a myth that they are all gone.)
Beside the climate change, they were a warring people, and that is also hard to sustain.
BTW most of the cities had been abandoned long before the Europeans came over and killed some of the remaining population with disease and war and religious fervor.

Answer 2

1st two answers are wrong so far, the Mayans were gone long before the europeans happened on the scene....the Aztecs were in power. Most historians think that a prolonged drought or invasion by other tribes, are the most likely reasons the Mayan civilization collapsed. Its true the mayan indians are still around, we're talking about the civilization.....

Answer 3

No culture can survive the invasion of another culture that is technologicaly advanced by centuries or more. Between the innovation of gunpowder, the utterly barbaric Spanish Inquisition, slavery and the diseases introduced by the Old World, it is a wonder that any of them survived at all....but they did. There are numerous descendants of Toltecs, Mayans and Incas alive in South America today.

Answer 4

who said they vanished? they are still around. there are many mayan languages and dialects still spoken today, most notably in guatamala and in chiapas, mexico. a number of these speakers only speak mayan and not spanish.

Answer 5

when the western eupeans ventured to the yucatan penninsula in search of gold, they killed them. the diseases the europeans had did the same thing to the mayans as it did to the american indians. the mayans that didn't die from disease were later killed in the conquest for gold.