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1. Ancient Maya wetland fields revealed under tropical forest canopy from laser scanning and multiproxy evidence

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910553116  

   Beach, Timothy; Luzzadder-Beach, Sheryl; Krause, Samantha; Guderjan, Tom; Valdez, Fred; Fernandez-Diaz, Juan Carlos; Eshleman, Sara; Doyle, Colin (October 2019, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   We report on a large area of ancient Maya wetland field systems in Belize, Central America, based on airborne lidar survey coupled with multiple proxies and radiocarbon dates that reveal ancient field uses and chronology. The lidar survey indicated four main areas of wetland complexes, including the Birds of Paradise wetland field complex that is five times larger than earlier remote and ground survey had indicated, and revealed a previously unknown wetland field complex that is even larger. The field systems date mainly to the Maya Late and Terminal Classic (∼1,400–1,000 y ago), but with evidence from as early as the Late Preclassic (∼1,800 y ago) and as late as the Early Postclassic (∼900 y ago). Previous study showed that these were polycultural systems that grew typical ancient Maya crops including maize, arrowroot, squash, avocado, and other fruits and harvested fauna. The wetland fields were active at a time of population expansion, landscape alteration, and droughts and could have been adaptations to all of these major shifts in Maya civilization. These wetland-farming systems add to the evidence for early and extensive human impacts on the global tropics. Broader evidence suggests a wide distribution of wetland agroecosystems across the Maya Lowlands and Americas, and we hypothesize the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane from burning, preparing, and maintaining these field systems contributed to the Early Anthropocene. 

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2. Aventura in a Northern Belize Context: Challenging Traditional Narratives of Ancient Maya Civilization

   Robin, Cynthia; Kosakowsky, Laura; Grauer, Kacey; Nissen, Zachary; Fitzgerald, Kat (June 2019, Research reports in Belizean archaeology)

   null (Ed.)

   This paper draws upon the results of the 2017 field research at Aventura to illustrate how Aventura research challenges traditional narratives about ancient Maya civilization. The Maya site of Aventura, located in northern Belize, is a community with a five millennia history spanning forager-horticulturalist, PreColumbian Maya, historic, and contemporary periods. The Classic Maya city of Aventura had its heyday during the period of the Maya “collapse.” As a community with a five millennia history and a city that survives the period of the “collapse,” Aventura challenges traditional narratives about the trajectory of ancient Maya civilization. While Aventura lacks extensive trappings of Maya high culture (stelae, hieroglyphs, and tall temples) its long history belies its importance and prompts reassessment of traditional measures of high culture and reconsideration of terms such as collapse and decline. Aventura is not unique in northern Belize in terms of its ability to survive, and even thrive, during the “collapse.” Lamanai, Caye Coco, Nohmul, Santa Rita, and Sarteneja, among others, survive the “collapse.” Originally considered a peripheral part of the ancient Maya world, site longevity in northern Belize challenges the identification of this region as peripheral. 

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3. Detecting Classic Maya Settlements with Lidar-Derived Relief Visualizations

   https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12172838  

   Thompson, Amy E. (September 2020, Remote Sensing)

   null (Ed.)

   In the past decade, Light Detection and Ranging (lidar) has fundamentally changed our ability to remotely detect archaeological features and deepen our understanding of past human-environment interactions, settlement systems, agricultural practices, and monumental constructions. Across archaeological contexts, lidar relief visualization techniques test how local environments impact archaeological prospection. This study used a 132 km2 lidar dataset to assess three relief visualization techniques—sky-view factor (SVF), topographic position index (TPI), and simple local relief model (SLRM)—and object-based image analysis (OBIA) on a slope model for the non-automated visual detection of small hinterland Classic (250–800 CE) Maya settlements near the polities of Uxbenká and Ix Kuku’il in Southern Belize. Pedestrian survey in the study area identified 315 plazuelas across a 35 km2 area; the remaining 90 km2 in the lidar dataset is yet to be surveyed. The previously surveyed plazuelas were compared to the plazuelas visually identified on the TPI and SLRM. In total, an additional 563 new possible plazuelas were visually identified across the lidar dataset, using TPI and SLRM. Larger plazuelas, and especially plazuelas located in disturbed environments, are often more likely to be detected in a visual assessment of the TPI and SLRM. These findings emphasize the extent and density of Classic Maya settlements and highlight the continued need for pedestrian survey to ground-truth remotely identified archaeological features and the impact of modern anthropogenic behaviors for archaeological prospection. Remote sensing and lidar have deepened our understanding of past human settlement systems and low-density urbanism, processes that we experience today as humans residing in modern cities. 

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4. Northeast Yucatan hurricane activity during the Maya Classic and Postclassic periods

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-22756-2  

   Sullivan, Richard M; van_Hengstum, Peter J; Donnelly, Jeffrey P; Tamalavage, Anne E; Winkler, Tyler S; Little, Shawna N; Mejia-Ortiz, Luis; Reinhardt, Eduard G; Meacham, Sam; Schumacher, Courtney; et al (December 2022, Scientific Reports)

   Abstract The collapse of the Maya civilization in the late 1st/early 2nd millennium CE has been attributed to multiple internal and external causes including overpopulation, increased warfare, and environmental deterioration. Yet the role hurricanes may have played in the fracturing of Maya socio-political networks, site abandonment, and cultural reconfiguration remains unexplored. Here we present a 2200 yearlong hurricane record developed from sediment recovered from a flooded cenote on the northeastern Yucatan peninsula. The sediment archive contains fine grain autogenic carbonate interspersed with anomalous deposits of coarse carbonate material that we interpret as evidence of local hurricane activity. This interpretation is supported by the correlation between the multi-decadal distribution of recent coarse beds and the temporal distribution of modern regional landfalling storms. In total, this record allows us to reconstruct the variable hurricane conditions impacting the northern lowland Maya during the Late Preclassic, Classic, and Postclassic Periods. Strikingly, persistent above-average hurricane frequency between ~ 700 and 1450 CE encompasses the Maya Terminal Classic Phase, the declines of Chichén Itza, Cobá, and subsequent rise and fall of the Mayapán Confederacy. This suggests that hurricanes may have posed an additional environmental stressor necessary of consideration when examining the Postclassic transformation of northern Maya polities. 

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5. Lidar survey of ancient Maya settlement in the Puuc region of Yucatan, Mexico

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249314  

   Ringle, W.; Gallareta Negrón, T.; May Ciau, R.; Seligson, K.; Fernandez-Diaz, J.; Ortegón Zapata, D. (April 2021, PloS one)

   Zerboni, A (Ed.)

   The application of lidar remote-sensing technology has revolutionized the practice of settlement and landscape archaeology, perhaps nowhere more so than in the Maya lowlands. This contribution presents a substantial lidar dataset from the Puuc region of Yucatan, Mexico, a cultural subregion of the ancient Maya and a distinct physiographic zone within the Yucatan peninsula. Despite the high density of known sites, no large site has been fully surveyed, and little is known about intersite demography. Lidar technology allows determination of settlement distribution for the first time, showing that population was elevated but nucleated, although without any evidence of defensive features. Population estimates suggest a region among the most densely settled within the Maya lowlands, though hinterland levels are modest. Lacking natural bodies of surface water, the ancient Puuc inhabitants relied upon various storage technologies, primarily chultuns (cisterns) and aguadas (natural or modified reservoirs for potable water). Both are visible in the lidar imagery, allowing calculation of aguada capacities by means of GIS software. The imagery also demonstrates an intensive and widespread stone working industry. Ovens visible in the imagery were probably used for the production of lime, used for construction purposes and perhaps also as a softening agent for maize. Quarries can also be discerned, including in some cases substantial portions of entire hills. With respect to agriculture, terrain classification permits identification of patches of prime cultivable land and calculation of their extents. Lidar imagery also provides the first unequivocal evidence for terracing in the Puuc, indeed in all northern Yucatan. Finally, several types of civic architecture and architectural complexes are visible, including four large acropolises probably dating to the Middle Formative period (700–450 B. C.). Later instances of civic architecture include numerous Early Puuc Civic Complexes, suggesting a common form of civic organization at the beginning of the Late Classic demographic surge, (A.D. 600–750). 

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