Ancient Maya Wetland Agriculture

Author : Mary Deland Pohl
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429712146
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ancient Maya Wetland Agriculture written by Mary Deland Pohl and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-08-27 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Changes in the orientation of archaeological research in the post-World War n period affected Maya studies. The cultural ecological perspective, which was rising to prominence, put an old debate in bold relief: How had this prehistoric civilization adapted to the tropical forest environment? How could swidden cultivation have sustained the unexpectedly high population densities that settlement pattern studies appeared to be revealing? Had the ancient Maya practiced some from of intensive agriculture? Archaeologist Dennis E. Puleston went to the Maya Lowlands to investigate geographer Alfred H. Siemens's reports of possible intensive agriculture ("ridged fields") seen from the air and to study prehistoric Maya cultivation and civilization from a cultural ecological perspective. This volume presents the results of the Rio Hondo Project field research on Albion Island in northern Belize from 1973 to 1980 with the addition of selected results from Pohl's continuing work in northern Belize.

Author : Taylor & Francis Group
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780367160470
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.71/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ancient Maya Wetland Agriculture written by Taylor & Francis Group and published by . This book was released on 2021-02-28 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : B. L. Turner
Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 1477303286
Total Pages : 311 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Pulltrouser Swamp written by B. L. Turner and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-09-10 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among Mesoamericanists, the agricultural basis of the ancient Maya civilization of the Yucatan Peninsula has been an important topic of research—and controversy. Interest in the agricultural system of the Maya greatly increased as new discoveries showed that the lowland Maya were not limited to slash-and-burn technology, as had been previously believed, but used a variety of more sophisticated agricultural techniques and practices, including terracing, raised fields, and, perhaps, irrigation. Because of the nature of the data and because this form of agricultural technology had been key to explanations of state formation elsewhere in Mesoamerica, raised-field agriculture became a particular focus of investigation. Pulltrouser Swamp conclusively demonstrates the existence of hydraulic, raised-field agriculture in the Maya lowlands between 150 B.C. and A.D. 850. It presents the findings of the University of Oklahoma's Pulltrouser SwampProject, an NSF-supported interdisciplinary study that combined the talents of archaeologists, anthropologists, geographers, paleobotanists, biologists, and zoologists to investigate the remains of the Maya agricultural system in the swampy region of northern Belize. By examining soils, fossil pollen and other plant remains, gastropods, relic settlements, ceramics, lithics, and other important evidence, the Pulltrouser Swamp team has clearly demonstrated that the features under investigation are relics of Maya-made raised and channelized fields and associated canals. Other data suggest the nature of the swamps in which the fields were constructed, the tools used for construction and cultivation, the possible crops cultivated, and at least one type of settlement near the fields, with its chronology. This verification of raised fields provides dramatic evidence of a large and probably organized workforce engaged in sophisticated and complex agricultural technology. As record of this evidence, Pulltrouser Swamp is a work of seminal importance for all students and scholars of New World prehistory.

Author : Scott L. Fedick
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 448 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Managed Mosaic written by Scott L. Fedick and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection draws on the most up-to-date investigations of Maya practices to show that the lowland Maya utilized a highly flexible regional and local approach in their management of agricultural, mineral, game, and water resources.

Author : Anabel Ford
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1315417928
Total Pages : 261 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Maya Forest Garden written by Anabel Ford and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The conventional wisdom says that the devolution of Classic Maya civilization occurred because its population grew too large and dense to be supported by primitive neotropical farming methods, resulting in debilitating famines and internecine struggles. Using research on contemporary Maya farming techniques and important new archaeological research, Ford and Nigh refute this Malthusian explanation of events in ancient Central America and posit a radical alternative theory. The authors-show that ancient Maya farmers developed ingenious, sustainable woodland techniques to cultivate numerous food plants (including the staple maize);-examine both contemporary tropical farming techniques and the archaeological record (particularly regarding climate) to reach their conclusions;-make the argument that these ancient techniques, still in use today, can support significant populations over long periods of time.

Author : Julie L. Kunen
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
ISBN 13 : 0816549400
Total Pages : 187 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ancient Maya Life in the Far West Bajo written by Julie L. Kunen and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2022-05-10 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human activity during centuries of occupation significantly altered the landscape inhabited by the ancient Maya of northwestern Belize. In response, the Maya developed new techniques to harvest the natural resources of their surroundings, investing increased labor and raw materials into maintaining and even improving their ways of life. In this lively story of life in the wetlands on the outskirts of the major site of La Milpa, Julie Kunen documents a hitherto unrecognized form of intensive agriculture in the Maya lowlands—one that relied on the construction of terraces and berms to trap soil and moisture around the margins of low-lying depressions called bajos. She traces the intertwined histories of residential settlements on nearby hills and ridges and agricultural terraces and other farming-related features around the margins of the bajo as they developed from the Late Preclassic perios (400 BC-AD 250) until the area's abandonment in the Terminal Classic period (about AD 850). Kunen examines the organization of three bajo communities with respect to the use and management of resources critical to agricultural production. She argues that differences in access to spatially variable natural resources resulted in highly patterned settlement remains and that community founders and their descendents who had acquired the best quality and most diverse set of resources maintained an elevated status in the society. The thorough integration of three lines of evidence—the settlement system, the agricultural system, and the ancient environment—breaks new ground in landscape research and in the study of Maya non-elite domestic organization. Kunen reports on the history of settlement and farming in a small corner of the Maya world but demonstrates that for any study of human-environment interactions, landscape history consists equally of ecological and cultural strands of influence.

Author : Helga Geovannini Acuña
Publisher : BAR International Series
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 168 pages
Book Rating : 4.32/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rain Harvesting in the Rainforest written by Helga Geovannini Acuña and published by BAR International Series. This book was released on 2008 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The main subject discussed in this study is the way in which the ancient Maya of Calakmul (modern Mexico), who thrived between 900 B.C. to A.D. 1000, managed their landscape in order to survive in the tropical rainforest. Their lithic technology, the hot, humid climate with a prolonged dry season, the lack of permanent surface sources of fresh water, and thin soils, considered insufficient for sustained agricultural production, are factors that were addressed successfully by the Maya in developing their complex civilization. The author's research begins with landscape, archaeological, and edaphological analyses, after which she explores the areas most advantageous to permanent habitation, suitable agricultural zones, land potential of the region and the capability of the area for supporting population. In addition, a complex agricultural channel irrigation system is explored as a critical factor for managing productive terrain for agriculture in karstic depressions (bajos). Similarly, an impressive rain harvesting system is exposed as an option to optimize hydrological resources for canalizing excessive rain during the wet season and storing water during the dry period. Finally, a reconstruction of the agricultural landscape is proposed.

Author : Peter D. Harrison
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 436 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Pre-Hispanic Maya Agriculture written by Peter D. Harrison and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Bethany Morrison
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 460 pages
Book Rating : 4.60/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ancient Maya Settlement of the Yalahau Region written by Bethany Morrison and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : David L. Lentz
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107027934
Total Pages : 373 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Tikal written by David L. Lentz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-23 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The primary question addressed in this book focuses on how the ancient Maya in the northern Petén Basin sustained large populations during the Late Classic period.