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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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Living on the Edge: Fifty Years of Belize Wetland Archaeology
In the early years of Maya archaeology, Belize was considered a “periphery” and the wetlands were at the far edge of this pseudo-backwater. It was not until the 1970s with Turner and Harrison’s seminal study of Pulltrouser Swamp that Belize and its wetlands moved from the periphery to center stage in Maya archaeology. Northern Belize contains some of the largest tracts of wetlands throughout the Maya Lowlands, providing rich repositories of well-preserved pollen, phytoliths, and macrobotanical remains, which have yielded some of the earliest evidence of Maya cultivation. Geomorphological studies have greatly advanced our understanding of the construction, use, and abandonment of Maya ditched and drained fields in Belize. And in more recent years, LiDAR and other geospatial technologies used as mapping tools have shown that wetland modifications in Belize were much more expansive than previously thought. Our own work in Belize’s Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary reveals wetland enhancements were vast but also more varied, with some being used primarily as large-scale fish-trapping facilities, rather than as agricultural fields. In tracing the last fifty years of archaeological investigations, we show how Belize has moved the field forward and remains at the cutting edge of wetland research across the Maya Lowlands.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2120534
- PAR ID:
- 10533304
- Publisher / Repository:
- Society for American Archaeology
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- brea-project.org
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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