skip to main content

Explore Research Products in the NSF-PAR

Title: Lidar survey of ancient Maya settlement in the Puuc region of Yucatan, Mexico
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).  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1660503
NSF-PAR ID:
10239560
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ;
Editor(s):
Zerboni, A
Date Published:
Journal Name:
PloS one
Volume:
16
Issue:
4
ISSN:
1932-6203
Page Range / eLocation ID:
e0249314
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al ( , PLOS ONE)
    Hart, John P. (Ed.)
    Many humans live in large, complex political centers, composed of multi-scalar communities including neighborhoods and districts. Both today and in the past, neighborhoods form a fundamental part of cities and are defined by their spatial, architectural, and material elements. Neighborhoods existed in ancient centers of various scales, and multiple methods have been employed to identify ancient neighborhoods in archaeological contexts. However, the use of different methods for neighborhood identification within the same spatiotemporal setting results in challenges for comparisons within and between ancient societies. Here, we focus on using a single method—combining Average Nearest Neighbor (ANN) and Kernel Density (KD) analyses of household groups—to identify potential neighborhoods based on clusters of households at 23 ancient centers across the Maya Lowlands. While a one-size-fits all model does not work for neighborhood identification everywhere, the ANN/KD method provides quantifiable data on the clustering of ancient households, which can be linked to environmental zones and urban scale. We found that centers in river valleys exhibited greater household clustering compared to centers in upland and escarpment environments. Settlement patterns on flat plains were more dispersed, with little discrete spatial clustering of households. Furthermore, we categorized the ancient Maya centers into discrete urban scales, finding that larger centers had greater variation in household spacing compared to medium-sized and smaller centers. Many larger political centers possess heterogeneity in household clustering between their civic-ceremonial cores, immediate hinterlands, and far peripheries. Smaller centers exhibit greater household clustering compared to larger ones. This paper quantitatively assesses household clustering among nearly two dozen centers across the Maya Lowlands, linking environment and urban scale to settlement patterns. The findings are applicable to ancient societies and modern cities alike; understanding how humans form multi-scalar social groupings, such as neighborhoods, is fundamental to human experience and social organization. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ( , 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. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al ( , Science)
    Lowland Maya civilization flourished in the tropical region of the Yucatan peninsula and environs for more than 2500 years (~1000 BCE to 1500 CE). Known for its sophistication in writing, art, architecture, astronomy, and mathematics, Maya civilization still poses questions about the nature of its cities and surrounding populations because of its location in an inaccessible forest. In 2016, an aerial lidar survey across 2144 square kilometers of northern Guatemala mapped natural terrain and archaeological features over several distinct areas. We present results from these data, revealing interconnected urban settlement and landscapes with extensive infrastructural development. Studied through a joint international effort of interdisciplinary teams sharing protocols, this lidar survey compels a reevaluation of Maya demography, agriculture, and political economy and suggests future avenues of field research. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ( , Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment)

    Research in Southern Belize has produced a 1000-year record of coupled human and environmental relationships at the ancient Maya city Uxbenká. Located at the southeastern margin of the Maya Lowlands, this region has excellent agricultural land and some of the highest rainfall in the Maya region. Uxbenká was the founding political center in southern Belize after 100 BCE. After 850 years, Uxbenká experienced a long geopolitical disintegration ending in depopulation as part of broad regional collapse. We use kernel density and summed probability distributions of 167 high-precision AMS14C dates to reconstruct relative changes in population and investments in the built environment throughout the growth and decline of the polity. Those data are compared to an annually resolved speleothem paleoclimate record from Yok Balum cave, located less than 3 km from Uxbenká’s civic ceremonial core. With no Classic Period wetland fields or evidence for large-scale landscape investments in agricultural intensification, food production would have been rainfall dependent as was water availability for household use. Using a 30 m SRTM DEM, we compute flow accumulation and the upvalley extents of river networks while varying the input precipitation to reflect hypothesized changes in paleorainfall over time. Our data suggest that Uxbenká experienced rapid growth following a severe drought at 200 CE, as well as cycles of growth and contraction until just after 750 CE. We find that geopolitical disintegration in southern Belize was already underway when a severe drought began at 830 CE. That six-decade drought likely contributed to the abandonment of Uxbenká and limited geopolitical reorganization.

     
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ( , Frontiers in Political Science)
    Public goods are “non-excludable” and “non-rivalrous” resources, including roads, water management systems, and plazas, as well as “symbolic public goods,” such as religious architecture and social identity. Public goods occur in greater abundance in cities with more cooperative and inclusive forms of organization, which seems to undermine arguments that elites constructed them to augment their power. Such goods are major “pull” factors drawing migration to modern cities, but ancient cities also had public goods that likely attracted immigrants, increasing their population and diversity. We examine these ideas at Middle Preclassic-period (cal 800–300 BC) Nixtun-Ch'ich', in Petén, Guatemala. This city and other Preclassic metropoles in the Maya lowlands seem to have been on the more-cooperative end of a cooperative–competitive spectrum, compared to most cities of the Classic period (AD 200–900). We also speculate about how symbolic public goods were coopted to create a more exclusive social system in the Late Preclassic period (300 BC–AD 200). 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email