Anabel Ford

Origins of the Maya Forest Garden: Maya Resource Management

Abstract There is growing interest in the ecology of the Maya Forest past, present, and future, as well as in the role of humans in the transformation of this ecosystem. In this paper, we bring together and re-evaluate paleoenvironmental, ethnobiological, and archaeological data to reconstruct the related effects of climatic shifts and human adaptations to and alterations of the lowland Maya Forest. In particular, we consider the paleoenvironmental data from the Maya Forest area in light of interpretations of the precipitation record from the Cariaco Basin. During the Archaic period, a time of stable climatic conditions 8,000–4,000 years ago, we propose that the ancestral Maya established an intimate relationship with an expanding tropical forest, modifying the landscape to meet their subsistence needs. We propose that the succeeding period of climatic chaos during the Preclassic period, 4,000–1,750 years ago, provoked the adaptation to settled agrarian life. This new adaptation, we suggest, was based on a resource management strategy that grew out of earlier landscape modification practices. Eventually, this resulted in a highly managed landscape that we call the Maya Forest Garden. This highly productive and sustainable system of resource management formed the foundation for the development of the Maya civilization, from 3,000 to 1,000 years ago, and was intensified during the latter millennia of a stable climatic regime as population grew and the civilization developed. These strategies of living in the forest evolved into the milpa cycle—the axis of the Maya Forest garden resource management system that created the extraordinary economic value recognized in the Maya Forest today.

The prehistoric agricultural landscape of the central Maya lowlands: An examination of local variability in a regional context

Abstract Data on land resources and the locations of prehistoric residential sites are integrated to explain differential agricultural development and settlement pattern across the varied landscape of the central Maya lowlands. It is concluded that intensive dryfield cultivation within well‐drained uplands was the basis of food production at the regional scale. The significance of cultivation practices in other land resources varied according to the extent and availability of well‐drained uplands within local areas. Wetland cultivation, utilizing raised and drained fields, was significant in limited areas at the periphery of the region, where perennial swamps of karstic riverine floodplains and associated depressions were present and well‐drained uplands were scarce. Soil distributions provide a valuable instrument for predicting and explaining prehistoric Maya settlement pattern and land use.

Prehistoric Maya Settlement Patterns in the Upper Belize River Area: Initial Results of the Belize River Archaeological Settlement Survey

The Classic Period Maya (ca. AC, 250-900) have been defined largely on the basis of shared stylist complexes of material remain that indicate widespread and regular interaction across the vast expanse of the tropical Maya lowlands.(Fig.1.) recent research, however has revealed a great deal of variability in lowlands Maya Social, political and economic organization Numerous studies have demonstrated variability in settlement patterns for residential zones around administrative centers, as well among those sub-regional division of the Maya lowlands currently recognized (Ashmore 1981; Graham 1987;Sabloff 1983). Much of this observed variability in residential settlement appear to be related to basis differences in adaptive strategies adn spatial organization of farmers dealing with the mosaic pattern of environmental diversity that characterizes the Maya lowlands. It is increasingly apparent that the analysis of lowland Maya social complexity must include, as an integral part, an appreciation of local processes of development at the rural household level before the regional system can be elucidated (Rathje 1983). To this end Belize River Archaeological Settlement Survey (BRASS) was initiated in the upper Belize River area of Belize, about 60 km from Tikal in the eastern periphery of the Maya lowlands.

Dominant Plants Of The Maya Forest And Gardens Of El Pilar: Implications For Paleoenvironmental Reconstructions

Abstract The ancient Maya have been accused of destroying their forests yet the Maya forest today is replete with economic value, and contemporary traditional Maya forest gardeners manage and maintain the dominant plants of the forest for their economic values. Paleoenvironmental reconstructions of the Maya area have relied on the distribution of primarily wind borne pollen in ancient soil deposits, but the majority of these plants are pollinated biotically. An examination of the pollen syndromes of the dominant species of the Maya forest and the forest gardens demonstrates that only one of the dominant plants of the forest today appears in the pollen record of paleoenvironmental soil cores. In contrast, all the herbs and grasses of the high performance milpa, although dominated by maize, are in the pollen record. Rather than deforested, I suggest that the ancient Maya created a mosaic of field to forest, very little of which can be effectively defined in the palynological record.

Volcanic ash in ancient Maya ceramics of the limestone lowlands: implications for prehistoric volcanic activity in the Guatemala highlands

Abstract In the spirit of collaborative research, Glicken and Ford embarked on the problem of identifying the source of volcanic ash used as temper in prehistoric Maya ceramics. Verification of the presence of glass shards and associated volcanic mineralogy in thin sections of Maya ceramics was straightforward and pointed to the Guatemala Highland volcanic chain. Considering seasonal wind rose patterns, target volcanoes include those from the area west of and including Guatemala City. Joint field research conducted in 1983 by Glicken and Ford in the limestone lowlands of Belize and neighboring Guatemala, 300 km north of the volcanic zone and 150 km from the nearest identified ash deposits, was unsuccessful in discovering local volcanic ash deposits. The abundance of the ash in common Maya ceramic vessels coupled with the difficulties of long-distance procurement without draft animals lead Glicken to suggest that ashfall into the lowlands would most parsimoniously explain prehistoric procurement; it literally dropped into their hands. A major archaeological problem with this explanation is that the use of volcanic ash occurring over several centuries of the Late Classic Period (ca. 600–900 AD). To accept the ashfall hypothesis for ancient Maya volcanic ash procurement, one would have to demonstrate a long span of consistent volcanic activity in the Guatemala Highlands for the last half of the first millennium AD. Should this be documented through careful petrographic, microprobe and tephrachronological studies, a number of related archaeological phenomena would be explained. In addition, the proposed model of volcanic activity has implications for understanding volcanism and potential volcanic hazards in Central America over a significantly longer time span than the historic period. These avenues are explored and a call for further collaborative research of this interdisciplinary problem is extended in this paper.

Modeling Settlement Patterns of the Late Classic Maya Civilization with Bayesian Methods and Geographic Information Systems

The ancient Maya occupied tropical lowland Mesoamerica and farmed successfully to support an elaborate settlement pattern that developed over many centuries. There has been debate as to the foundation of the settlement patterns. We show that Maya settlement locations were strongly influenced by environmental factors, primarily topographic slope, soil fertility, and soil drainage properties. Maps of these characteristics were created at the local scale and combined using Bayesian weights-of-evidence methods to develop probabilistic maps of settlement distributions based on the known, but incomplete, distribution of Maya archaeological sites, both domestic and monumental. The predictive model was validated with independently collected point-sampled field data for both presence and absence, predicting 82 percent of undiscovered Maya sites and 94 percent of site absence. This information should be of use in conservation planning for the region, which is under threat from contemporary agricultural expansion.

Economic Variation of Ancient Maya Residential Settlement in the Upper Belize River Area

Regional settlement studies in the Maya area have provided a basis for understanding the importance of subsistence strategies, but have not addressed the issue of how the settlements themselves are differentiated. This article examines Maya settlement patterns of the Belize River area and uses data from residential-unit midden tests to identify aspects of settlement variation. These variations are examined with respect to general landform characteristics. Much of the variation appears to relate to the productive capacity of agricultural resources in the area. This is no surprise, since the ancient Maya were an agrarian society.

Exploring The Legacy Of The Maya Forest

Abstract The legacy of the Maya forest is entwined with the Maya people who have lived and worked across this landscape over the past five millennia or more. The signatures of their land use, the complexity of their strategies, and the diversity of their adaptation is only recently being investigated, let alone understood. This special issue of the Journal of Ethnobiology takes a close look at the region and brings into focus the intricacies that must be considered in the explanations of the rise and fall of the Maya as well as the conservation of the Maya forest today. The papers herein combine archaeological and ethnographic data on the Maya and the long history of their relationship with the forest. Underscoring all the papers is the evidence that the Maya tropics are resilient as a result of the land use strategies that have become a part of its essence.

Obsidian Procurement and Distribution in the Tikal-Yaxha Intersite Area of the Central Maya Lowlands

Obsidian from known outcrops in the Mesoamerican highlands has been recovered from lowland Maya sites, providing significant evidence for long-distance procurement and local redistribution of obsidian by the ancient Maya. Prior chemical-characterization studies of obsidian from the lowland Maya area provide a foundation for the study of Tikal-Yaxha obsidian presented here. The samples used in this analysis came from middens associated with 12 residential units located between Tikal and Yaxha and dating from the Preclassic through Terminal Classic periods. The results of chemical sourcing of the Tikal-Yaxha samples generally lend support to current interpretations of changes in obsidian distribution and procurement in the central Maya lowlands. During the Preclassic period, most obsidian was imported from the San Martin Jilotepeque-Rio Pixcaya source area. Obsidian from the El Chayal source predominated throughout the Classic period, although some Mexican Pachuca obsidian appeared in Early Classic contexts, and Ixtepepque obsidian was apparently restricted to the Terminal Classic period.

Bonemapping: a LiDAR processing and visualization technique in support of archaeology under the canopy

For the past decade, archaeologists have been using LiDAR or Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS)-based methods to uncover trace signatures of human civilization in the landscape. A new technique called bonemapping involves processing the ALS data to create a map-like representation of the landscape, which aids in the detection and interpretation of traces of human settlement. The technique is a combination of two methods – the Simple Morphological Filter (SMRF) for ALS processing and the Perceptually Shaded Slope Map (PSSM) for ALS representation – and is used to represent subtle changes in the terrain that are often indicative of previous human settlement. The SMRF algorithm adds value by retaining more “feature” cells than comparable terrain-finding algorithms, and is easy to tune through the use of two intuitive parameters – a slope threshold and a window size. The PSSM visualization is then used to apply a vertical exaggeration-based slope shading, which has proven useful as an aid to rapid feature detection, identification, and interpretation. The findings of two years of field use of bonemapping by archaeologists at El Pilar demonstrate the ways in which the bonemap offers a value-added perspective to archaeology under the canopy.