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Comparisons of Maya forest gardens, the economic botany of the Maya forest, and identifications of plant remains in archaeological contexts converge on the value of the Maya forest as the reflection of the selective favoring of useful plants over time and across space. We have evaluated trees conserved in Maya milpas and present here an annotated list of significant categories of uses that transcend the ordinary, and highlight the extraordinary appreciation of plants and their role in the historical and cultural ecology of land use. Recognition of land cover significance, biodiversity, water conservation, erosion management, soil fertility principles, animal habitat essentials, and support for communities are all entangled with the role of plants. With an example of 160 confirmed trees favored in Maya milpa agricultural fields, we provide a window into economic values that dominate the Maya forest.
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Chapter 10. Intensification does not require modification: Tropical Swidden and the Maya
Abstract What is involved in finding fields? Agricultural intensification and its archaeological correlates are not always obvious. Archaeologists frequently equatecapital‐based investment andarablefarming as the sole path to intensified production. The presence of terraces to slow water flows across land, canals to bring water to drier lands, and raised and drained fields to reduce water, are methods to bringmarginallands into productive use. Labor‐based economies, especially those of the Americas before European conquest, present an entirely distinct pathway toward intensification based on tending the landscape. Tropical societies in general, and the Maya in particular, demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of the natural world, cultivating biological capital as a product of their culture with skill, hand tools, scheduling, and fire. Asynchronous and embedded fields transform into forests in a poly‐cultivation practice, emphasizing the diversity that prevails in tropical woodlands. As with most traditional land‐use systems around the world, the Mayamilpacycle reduces temperature and evapotranspiration, conserves water, maintains biodiversity, builds soil fertility, inhibits erosion, and nurtures people. Labor investmentsper sedo not leave direct evidence on the landscape, apart from the implicit density of settlement, yet the imprint of their management lies in the forest landscape itself.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2024213
- PAR ID:
- 10597899
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Anthropological Association
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association
- Volume:
- 35
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1551-823X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 106 to 119
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1111/apaa.12188
