Population collapse was severe across many parts of the Maya world, as in other regions of the Americas.

Some estimates suggest that the Indigenous population of Mesoamerica declined by 80 percent or more in the century following contact, due to a combination of disease, violence, and social disruption.

This demographic catastrophe has raised questions in population genetics research about whether the modern descendants of ancient Mesoamerican populations represent genuine genetic continuity with those ancient populations, or whether the severity of the population collapse introduced major shifts in the genetic composition of the surviving communities.

In simple terms: after losing the vast majority of a population to epidemic disease, do the survivors genetically represent the pre-contact population, or does the bottleneck effect of catastrophic population decline change the genetic profile in significant ways?