T. Patrick Culbert

Arising from the Bajos: The Evolution of a Neotropical Landscape and the Rise of Maya Civilization

The conjunctive use of paleoecological and archaeological data to document past human-environment relationships has become a theoretical imperative in the study of ancient cultures. Geographers are playing leading roles in this scholarly effort. Synthesizing both types of data, we argue that large karst depressions known as bajos in the Maya Lowlands region were anthropogenically transformed from perennial wetlands and shallow lakes to seasonal swamps between 400 bc and ad 250. This environmental transformation helps answer several questions that have long puzzled scholars of Maya civilization: (1) why many of the earliest Maya cities were built on the margins of bajos, (2) why some of these early centers were abandoned between 100 bc and ad 250, and (3) why other centers constructed elaborate water storage systems and survived into the Classic period (ad 250 –900). The transformation of the bajos represents one of the most significant and long-lasting anthropogenic environmental changes documented in the pre-Columbian New World.

Radar mapping, archeology, and ancient maya land use.

A severe incongruity has long existed between the well-known complexity of ancient Maya civilization and the relatively feeble economic base that could be reconstructed for it. Recent fieldwork has ihdicated that much more intensive cultivation patterns were used than was previously thought. Data from the use of synthetic aperture radar in aerial surveys of the southern Maya lowlands suggest that large areas were drained by ancient canals that may have been used for intensive cultivation. Ground checks in several limited areas have confirmed the existence of canals, and excavations and ground surveys have provided valuable comparative information. Taken together, the new data suggest that Late Class period Maya civilization was firmly grounded in large-scale and intensive cultivation of swampy zones.

Commentary: Rebuttal to Pope and Dahlin

AbstractExamination of the synthetic aperture radar imagery and of the hydraulic characteristics of Maya lowland swamps has led Kevin O. Pope and Bruce H. Dahlin (“AncientMaya Wetland Agriculture: New Insights from Ecological and Remote Sensing Research,” Journal of Field Archaeology 16 [1989] 87–106) to conclude that there is no connection between lattice patterns in the imagery and raised fields in the swamps. They further conclude that there are no significant numbers of raised fields in periodic swamps. We examine the arguments and points raised and find them tenuous at best, and disingenuous at worst. We conclude that the SAR imagery does indeed indicate raised field and canal systems and that they exist in the large periodic swamps of the Maya lowlands.

Classic Maya Political History: Hieroglyphic and Archaeological Evidence@@@Scribes, Warriors and Kings: The City of Copan and the Ancient Maya

Traces the history of the city of Copan, and describes how new discoveries are shedding light on the citys collapse.