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Hydraulic Agriculture in the American Tropics: Forms, Measures, and Recent Research

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This chapter discusses the hydraulic agriculture in the American tropics. The known indigenous alternatives to rain-fed swidden agriculture in tropical America are orchards, house gardens, mounding, terracing, playa and levee cultivation, irrigation, ditching, and raised fields. Hydraulic agriculture, in the broadest sense, can refer to any intentional manipulation of water to improve growing conditions for cultivated crops. Mounds and narrow ridges may serve to minimize upper-soil waterlogging. They also serve other functions, including soil aeration, weed control, and fertility addition. They do not survive well in the tropics, and a little is known about them, but they probably were not swidden fields. However, there are no environmental limitations to the development of agriculture, only cultural limitations. Agricultural potential is a cultural phenomenon; it is not something inherent in nature that can be measured, that exists independent of culture. At present, with available technology, agriculture can be carried out anywhere on earth. Whether it is or not in any given habitat is dependent on whether the culture involved has the necessary technology and whether or not there is a perceived need in relation to the costs involved. The current technology makes it possible to control temperature, move water, and make soil.

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... ""Material didáctico para la enseñanza del Patrimonio Biocultural en México" (CLAVE PE404318) Dirección General Asuntos del Personal Académico (DGAPA), a través del programa de Apoyo a Proyectos para la Innovación y Mejoramiento de la Enseñanza (PAPIME) de la UNAM CONTENIDO Nota de autores (6) Introducción (7) La aparición del concepto de bioculturalidad (7) La diversificación como proceso evolutivo (9) La primera ola: la diversificación biológica (10) La segunda ola: la diversificación del ser humano (11) La tercera ola: la creación humana de nuevas especies (15) La cuarta ola: la creación humana de nuevos paisajes (16) La diversidad biocultural (18) Los centro de diversidad biológica (20) Los centro de diversidad lingüística (22) La agrobiodiversidad: los centros de origen de plantas y animales domesticados (27) Definiendo la agrobiodiversidad (30) La diversidad biocultural a escala global (32) Geopolítica y bioculturalidad (36) La diversidad biocultural de México (39) Zonas ecológicas y regiones indígenas (42) Las regiones bioculturales de México (45) La gestión, conservación y defensa de los espacio bioculturales (50) El concepto de patrimonio biocultural (51) Territorio y bioculturalidad (53) Conclusiones (56) Referencias (57) ...
... Por ejemplo, en las tierras bajas del Golfo de México y en la Península de Yucatán existen evidencias de terrazas establecidas en las zonas húmedas (Siemens, 1989(Siemens, y 1998. Sistemas similares han sido encontrados en Guatemala, Belice, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia y Perú (Denevan, 1982). Estos sistemas conocidos en general como «campos elevados», constituyen una red de canales y plataformas construidos en los márgenes de lagos, ríos o de llanuras inundables. ...
... Del mismo modo, en el Valle de México sus antiguos habitantes crearon las chinampas, que representan quizás los más sofisticados sistemas hidráulicos bajo tecnología tradicional. Las chinampas abarcaban alrededor de 12.000 hectáreas y funcionaron entre otras cosas para suplir las necesidades alimenticias (maíz, fríjol, amaranto) de una población estimada en más de 228,000 personas (Denevan, 1982). ...
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La presente publicación intenta ser un libro de texto accesible, pero al mismo tiempo riguroso y actualizado, de un novedoso campo de conocimiento que se ha convertido en tema prioritario en innumerables discusiones nacionales e internacionales, así como de debate y controversia en los medios académicos, políticos y diplomáticos. El libro ha sido escrito pensando en que sus mayores lectores serán jóvenes estudiantes provenientes de las culturas originarias, así como público en general interesado en estos temas. Para su confección los autores hemos recurrido a algunas de nuestras propias publicaciones anteriores, de tal suerte que algunos capítulos han sido reproducidos, no sin adecuaciones y actualizaciones, en el presente volumen. Si el lector se interesa en profundizar sobre algunos aspectos de este campo de estudio, recomendamos consultar nuestras obras anteriores: “La Memoria Biocultural” (Toledo y Barrera-Bassols, 2008) y “El Patrimonio Biocultural de los Pueblos Indígenas de México” (Boege, 2008); así como artículos científicos localizables en la literatura y citados en este libro. Víctor M. Toledo, Narciso Barrera Bassols y Eckart Boege
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... Los canales de las tierras cercanas a Pich no han sido fechados; sin embargo en Edzná la mayor parte de la construcción hidráulica y arquitectónica se hizo durante el Preclásico Tardío, entre el año 0 y 200 d.C. (Maheny et al., 1983, p. 195). En muchas áreas de las tierras bajas mayas hay evidencia de campos elevados del Preclásico, así como de terrazas en laderas cercanas a ellos (véase Puleston, 1978;Turner, 1978Turner, , 1979Turner, y 1983Donkin, 1979;Matheny y Gurr, 1979;Denevan, 1982). Es posible que algunas de las elevaciones que se observan en el Valle de Edzná sean restos de terrazas. ...
... Se puede suponer que en el periodo Clásico existía una organización social compleja, con base en la arquitectura ceremonial (Webster y Kirker, 1995), en las prácticas de agricultura intensiva (Siemens, 1978;Turner, 1978Turner, y 1983Denevan, 1982;Siemen, Hebda y Heimo, 1996;Culbert 1996) y en los sistemas de manejo del agua (Matheny y Gurr, 1979;Matheny et al., 1983;Domínguez, 1993). La complejidad y sofisticación de esos sistemas requería especialización, planeación y coordinación. ...
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This book is about changes to the socio-ecological system embedded in the rural community of Pich, Campeche where elders recalled the spirit of the natural world symbolized by the plumed serpent of Maya tradition. Beliefs, agricultural practices, gardening, family nutrition and political organization have all been affected by the introduction of electricity, drilled wells, piped water, tractors, trucks, fertilizers, herbicides and new plant varieties.
... Multiple pieces of evidence about the sophistication of these cultivated landscapes confirm the industrious sculpting of the highlands and lowlands of the region. The Mesoamerican space based on the milpa is shaped by sophisticated hydraulic and irrigation systems (Rojas Rabiela et al. 2009;Sandstrom 2019), such as terraced (Donkin, 1979) and promontory agriculture, both in the highlands (Rojas Rabiela 1995;Sanders 1957;Palerm 1973;West and Armillas 1950;Sluyter 1994), and in the tropical lowlands (Denevan 1970;Denevan 1982;Puleston 1978;Siemens 1983;Turner and Harrison 1983;Fisher 2005;Wilken 1987;Sluyter 1994), as well as rainfed or slash and burn agricultural systems (Sluyter 2021;Withmore and Turner 2001), agroforestry systems or forest gardens (Ford and Nigh 2015), and backyard or family gardens (Gonzalez Jácome 2021;Gómez Pompa et al. 1987;Killion 1992). A thousandyears shaping of landscapes that was far from an empty territory or "Terra Nullius" (Gómez Pompa and Kaus 1992;Denevan 1992), as it was described to justify its ap-propriation, and that offered sustenance to the more than 25-30 million people at the time of the encounter. ...
... Multiple pieces of evidence about the sophistication of these cultivated landscapes confirm the industrious sculpting of the highlands and lowlands of the region. The Mesoamerican space based on the milpa is shaped by sophisticated hydraulic and irrigation systems (Rojas Rabiela et al. 2009;Sandstrom 2019), such as terraced (Donkin, 1979) and promontory agriculture, both in the highlands (Rojas Rabiela 1995;Sanders 1957;Palerm 1973;West and Armillas 1950;Sluyter 1994), and in the tropical lowlands (Denevan 1970;Denevan 1982;Puleston 1978;Siemens 1983;Turner and Harrison 1983;Fisher 2005;Wilken 1987;Sluyter 1994), as well as rainfed or slash and burn agricultural systems (Sluyter 2021;Withmore and Turner 2001), agroforestry systems or forest gardens (Ford and Nigh 2015), and backyard or family gardens (Gonzalez Jácome 2021;Gómez Pompa et al. 1987;Killion 1992). A thousandyears shaping of landscapes that was far from an empty territory or "Terra Nullius" (Gómez Pompa and Kaus 1992;Denevan 1992), as it was described to justify its ap-propriation, and that offered sustenance to the more than 25-30 million people at the time of the encounter. ...
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Socio-ecological conflicts about land use in Latin America are complex: they involve various actors and flare up due to the dynamics of colonization, spatial appropriation, and the commodification of land. This volume of the Handbook »The Anthropocene as Multiple Crisis« focuses on land use in the main macro-regions of Latin America from the colonial regime to the contemporary era of the Anthropocene. The contributions touch upon numerous aspects, from the transformations of material to the social practices, their political and legal regulations as well as the imaginaries of virgin territories. Consequently, far from limiting themselves to a static cartography of land use, the contributors investigate the appropriations of borders and historic transformations in land use.
... En su especialización y sus objetivos, Walker sigue la línea de estudios trazada por William Denevan (1970Denevan ( , 1982Denevan ( , 2001 y Clark Erickson (Balée and Erickson 2006 y otros), orientada hacia los patrones agrícolas, los sistemas de subsistencia y la ecología prehispánica. El punto de interés de Walker son los campos de camellones en las cercanías del Omi y el Iruyáñez y los sitios de ocupación vinculados a ellos. ...
... En otras zonas de Mojos, mayormente en la parte sur que ha sido mejor investigada, se ha encontrado cerámica con decoración pintada (Nordenskiöld 1913, Denevan 1980:44-45, Dougherty y Calandra 1981Dougherty y Calandra 1981-1982, pero los pocos ejemplos publicados no muestran mucha semejanza en el estilo gráfico con nuestro material, excepto, tal vez, algunos fragmentos de La Avenida. Su distribución cronológica y geográfica también queda en cuestión. ...
... There has been much mapping and physical description of these systems, particularly in the American tropics, but there has not been much investigation of crop-nutrient relations. Efforts at comparison and classification or synthesis (Denevan, 1970(Denevan, , 1982Denevan & Turner, 1974;Gorecki, 1981 ;Mathewson, 1981) have concentrated on morphology. Most of the fieldwork has been done in the last 15 years, often in remote areas and usually with archaeological objectives. ...
... There has been much mapping and physical description of these systems, particularly in the American tropics, but there has not been much investigation of crop-nutrient relations. Efforts at comparison and classification or synthesis (Denevan, 1970(Denevan, , 1982Denevan & Turner, 1974;Gorecki, 1981 ;Mathewson, 1981) have concentrated on morphology. Most of the fieldwork has been done in the last 15 years, often in remote areas and usually with archaeological objectives. ...
... Other figures include 600 kg/ ha (PIWA, 1994, p. 286, recalculated). g Kolata (1986) and Denevan (1982). h Graffam (1990, p. 29). ...
... Potatoes produce more calories per hectare, but require a much higher labor investment, and are consequently less efficient than quinua in purely energetic terms. Therefore, as the pota- (Tapia and Banegas, 1990, p. 97), and 200-1000 (Erickson, 1985;Erickson and Candler, 1989; also Denevan, 1982, Garaycochea, 1987. For dryland agriculture R = 0, since no infrastructure exists to be reconstructed, assuming, of course, that irrigation is not practiced. ...
Article
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Vast tracts of prehistoric raised fields are present in the Titicaca Basin of Bolivia and Peru. Archaeologists at present consider raised field agriculture to have been much more productive and efficient than the rain-fed dryland agriculture currently practiced in the region. However, the recent failure of a number of long-term raised field rehabilitation projects has called this understanding into question. In this paper, I review the production, labor requirements, and energetic efficiency of raised field agriculture. Contrary to the existing literature, I conclude that raised field agriculture was always somewhat less efficient than traditional rain-fed dryland agriculture. Finally, I propose a new model of the political economic role of raised field agriculture. In order to appreciate the role played by raised fields in ancient Andean complex polities it is necessary to abandon the unrealistic model of raised field agriculture currently dominant in the archaeological literature.
... Quaternary International xxx (2018) xxx-xxx (Mueller et al., 2010). We consider the multiple paths that ancient anthropogenic agents exerted and still exert over the system including a growing corpus of studies to map and understand ancient Maya canals and raised fields, as well as terraces, dams, and reservoirs (Turner, 1974;Siemens and Puleston, 1972;Denevan, 1980;Pope and Dahlin, 1989;Turner and Harrison, 1981;Pohl et al., 1996;Dunning et al., 1999Dunning et al., , 2002Baker, 2003Baker, , 2007Beach et al., 2009). Early wetland field studies were based on the chinampas model from central Mexico (Coe, 1964), and we have growing evidence that Maya wetland engineering and morphology had different expressions based on geography, water chemistry, soils, and cultural periods. ...
Article
We compare the geomorphology and soil of two ancient Maya wetland agricultural complexes in modern day Belize. This paper focuses on 3,000 years of soil geomorphology and paleoecological change to determine the chronology of wetland formation and human use in this region. We also characterize Maya manipulation of the environment over time, especially considering times of ecological or climactic change in the late Holocene. This paper adds to our ongoing research in northwestern Belize, specifically within two recently explored wetland agricultural systems, Neuendorf and Sierra de Agua. Although they are 40 km from one another and in different watersheds, they have similar water chemistry and comparable soil, as well as comparable ancient Maya agricultural field and canal stratigraphy. The Neuendorf wetland fields and associated Maya house mounds and platforms are 1.5 km northeast of the well-studied Chan Cahal residential group/wetland agricultural fields. This ancient Maya settlement zone sits on a small limestone escarpment, about 7-24 m above sea level on the Belizean coastal plain. New trenches and vibracores from this wetland complex support our previous models of wetland formation and human use from the Late Preclassic to the end of the Classic. The Sierra de Agua wetland fields, 40km to the southwest, are associated with a Maya urban center of the same name. This complex is part of the Irish Creek Wetlands within the New River watershed. In this system, the water table rose around 3,000 years before present, which resulted in a different type of field building and agricultural modification, similar to the chinampas models of central Mexico. This new and ongoing research contributes new pollen records, soils and geoarchaeology to the growing regional picture of wetland use and change throughout Maya history.
... A salvage operation later allowed for limited ground confirmation of this extensive canal and island field system via a cursory examination of modern drainage ditches that bisected some canals and fields (Gliessman et al., 1983); no controlled excavations have taken place in this system. The areal extent of wetland fields in this system has been reported as 2460 km 2 (Harrison, 1978:251), a figure that is still sometimes erroneously cited, but is actually the result of a misplaced decimal point; the actual area covered by field pattering is 246 km 2 (Denevan, 1982, Table I, note g), still the second largest area of wetland fields in the Maya Lowlands. The system includes several large linear canals up to 20 m wide with an array of attached smaller channels (8-12 m wide) and a multitude of narrow channels (2-4 m wide) separating island fields (8-15 m wide). ...
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Scholars have long puzzled over the ancient human use of swampy depressions (bajos) in the interior part of the Maya Lowlands. Part of this debate has centered on the reputed, but undocumented, existence of canals in the bajos of the northeastern Peten District of Guatemala. We report on the use of satellite imagery along with fieldwork to reveal numerous linear features in the Bajo de Azúcar, the largest bajo in the northeast Peten. We conducted ground-truthing and excavation at three linear features in two separate trips into the bajo. We also calculated sinuosity of channel segments using IKONOS and QuickBird satellite images. Our investigations indicate that the linear features are partly natural in origin, but some segments were either modified or are solely the product of human activity. We surmise that the canals most likely functioned principally to facilitate transportation across the bajo, though other uses are also possible, including drainage, water storage, and aquaculture. These uses were likely devised as responses to environmental change, population growth, and associated rising economic demands.
... Isotopic evidence suggests bajo soil was also used as an amendment in the Maya lowlands (Dunning et al., 2002;Hansen et al., 2002). Although highly labor intensive (Denevan, 1982;Webb, 1993), these practices (which often include multicropping) require less burning and have the potential to increase productivity per hectare by many fold (see Johnston, 2003, for an extensive review and discussion of this model). (Pohl et al., 1996) is shown as an orange diamond. ...
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Although fire was arguably the primary tool used by the Maya to alter the landscape and extract resources, little attention has been paid to biomass burning in paleoenvironmental reconstructions from the Maya lowlands. Here we report two new well-dated, high-resolution records of biomass burning based on analysis of macroscopic fossil charcoal recovered from lacustrine sediment cores. The records extend from the early Holocene, through the full arc of Maya prehistory, the Colonial, and post-Colonial periods (~. 9000. cal. yr. BP to the present). (Hereafter BP) The study sites, Lago Paixban and Lago Puerto Arturo, are located in northern Peten, Guatemala. Results provide the first quantitative analysis from the region demonstrating that frequent fires have occurred in the closed canopy forests since at least the early Holocene (~. 9000. BP), prior to occupation by sedentary agriculturalists. Following the arrival of agriculture around 4600. BP, the system transitioned from climate controlled to anthropogenic control. During the Maya period, changes in fire regime are muted and do not appear to be driven by changes in climate conditions. Low charcoal influx and fire frequency in the Earliest Preclassic period suggest that land use strategies may have included intensive agriculture much earlier than previously thought. Preliminary results showing concentrations of soot/black-carbon during the middle and late Preclassic periods are lower than modern background values, providing intriguing implications regarding the efficiency of Maya fuel consumption.
... There is nothing controversial about this conclusion, and, indeed, as Doolittle's comments make clear, this point has been made from a variety of different anthropological perspectives throughout the discipline's history. However, since the original focus of the discussion concerned archaeological engagement with developmental initiatives and debates, it nevertheless seemed important to highlight one further implication of the above conclusions-namely, that previous attempts to employ archaeological data to extend or restore historic resource exploitation strategies (e.g., Erickson 1998Erickson [1992; Kendall 2005;Spriggs 1981, and current comments; see also Denevan 1982;Gó mez-Pompa et al. 1982;cf. Evenari, Shanan, and Tadmor 1971) are methodologically distinct from historical research that seeks to engage with contemporary issues by challenging or refining the historical preconceptions behind specific developmental narratives and models. ...
... Since the pioneering work of Seimens and Puleston (1972), Maya \vetland fields have been the subject of numerous investigations (e.g., Bloom et al. 1983;Denevan 1982;Lambert, Siemens, and Arnason 1984;Pohl, Bloom, and Pope 1990;Pope and Dahlin 1989;Siemens 1982;Turner and Harrison 1983a). These studies have established beyond doubt the existence of significant wetland field systems in the Maya lowlands, but controversy persists regarding several fundamental questions: when and how were the fields constructed, what was their ecological niche, how extensive were they, and what may have been their function and productive capability. ...
Article
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A series of channel/island features at the archaeological site of Colha on the margins of Cobweb Swamp in northern Belize were determined to be relics of ancient wetland agricultural fields. Conformation of the stratigraphy in both mounded and nonmounded areas, as examined in pits and trenches, revealed definite human modification of the buried Cobweb Paleosol. Radiocarbon assays of sediment and charcoal suggest the Maya dug ditches in the Cobweb surface by at least A. C. 600 and possibly much earlier, in the Late Preclassic or Middle Preclassic, probably in an attempt to manage water levels and enable crop production on the fertile swamp-margin soils. The wetland fields were buried by the Maya Clay, apparently the result of erosion of the adjacent upland soils. The Maya Clay probably began to accumulate on the swamp margin as soon as the Maya began cropping the adjacent uplands, but the bulk of it was deposited after about A. C. 850. The Maya may have continued to crop the fertile wetland fields even after massive deposition of the Maya Clay.
... Were they modifying the landscape through channeling water or building up land areas? Elsewhere, evidence that the Late Classic Maya employed sophisticated water management strategies is well documented Culbert and Rice 1990;Denevan 1982;Dunning and Beach 1994;Harrison and Turner 1978). Additionally, the deposition of household debris elsewhere in the southern Belize coast allowed Late Classic Maya to stay dry despite rising sea level (McKillop 2002:167). ...
... Based on the sheer extent of raised fields in some areas, archaeologists have argued that they must have supported sizable human populations. Denevan (1982) estimated the total surface of raised fields known at that time in Latin America to be 1000 km 2 (100,000 ha), representing more than a billion cubic meters of earth moved. However, this is surely an underestimate, as Erickson (1992a) estimated 80,000 ha of raised fields in the Lake Titicaca basin alone. ...
... Yet during the Late Gavan phase (A.D. 550-1000) the population totaled between 924 and l,379,sup- ported in part by the drained-field system (Spencer 2000). These observations have convinced me that archaeological and anthropological data on traditional agriculture can be put to good practical use by contemporary planners who are trying to find ways to increase agricultural production in the developing world, a position that agrees not only with the views of Gomez-Pompa and his colleagues but also with the positions taken by a number of other researchers (e.g., Denevan 1982; Erickson 1988 Erickson , 1992 Erickson , 1998; Erickson and Candler 1989; Fedick 1996; Garaycochea 1987; Guillet 1987; Puleston 1977; Treacy 1989). I should also note that my three prehistoric cases contain a cautionary note for those bureaucrats fond of large-scale, centralized—and expensive—approaches to agricultural intensification . ...
... Isotopic evidence suggests bajo soil was also used as an amendment in the Maya lowlands (Dunning et al., 2002;Hansen et al., 2002). Although highly labor intensive (Denevan, 1982;Webb, 1993), these practices (which often include multicropping) require less burning and have the potential to increase productivity per hectare by many fold (see Johnston, 2003, for an extensive review and discussion of this model). (Pohl et al., 1996) is shown as an orange diamond. ...
Article
Understanding the relationship between the prehistoric Maya and their environment continues to be a primary research focus, particularly with respect to discerning the role of humans versus climate in driving environmental change. Fire was fundamental to prehistoric Maya architectural and agricultural land use practices. Burning was used to open forest for cultivation as well as for the construction of site centers and settlements. The production of lime plaster, and important building material, was dependent on significant amounts of green wood for kiln fuel. Large populations employing land use strategies dependent on burning would have put tremendous demands on forest resources. Despite the significance of fire in Maya pre-history, there has been no focused effort to produce records of biomass burning and its impacts. Here we present preliminary high-resolution fossil charcoal data that span the Holocene from a network of lacustrine and paludal sites across Peten, Guatemala. Charcoal influx data from the early to mid Holocene, prior to the arrival of sedentary agriculturalists, provides a baseline to infer natural fire regimes under specific climatic conditions, increasing our understanding of tropical fire ecology. Charcoal deposition that co-varies with evidence of agriculture and human activity can be attributed to anthropogenic burning. Results are synthesized with existing data (pollen, δ18O and δ13C, magnetic susceptibility, and physical properties) in an effort to understand the processes driving the location, timing, and extent of fires across the region. Placed in the context of changes in vegetation, sedimentation regime, and hydrology, these data provide new insight into topical fire ecology before the period of human occupation, as well as the dynamic relationship between the prehistoric Maya and their environment.
... As a form of raised field agriculture chinampas share similarities with comparable systems in highland and lowland regions of the New World. Raised field have been documented elsewhere in highland Mexico as well as in the lowlands of the Mexican Gulf Coast, northern Belize, and Guatemala (e.g., Denevan, 1970Denevan, , 1982Doolittle, 1990;Farrington, 1985;Fisher, 2005;Pohl, 1990;Pohl et al., 1996;Puleston, 1978;Puleston and Siemens, 1972;Scarborough, 2003;Siemens, 1983;Turner and Harrison, 1983;Whitmore and Turner, 2001;Wilken, 1987). In South America, raised fields characterize landscapes in the Andean highlands and the Amazonian lowlands (e.g., Bandy, 2005;Darch, 1983;Denevan, 2001;Erickson, 1993Erickson, , 1994Erickson, , 2006Janusek and Kolata, 2004;Kolata, 1991;Stanish, 1994Stanish, , 2006Walker, 2011;Zimmerer, 1991). ...
... To overcome poor drainage conditions in seasonally flooded savanna environments, pre-Columbian farmers constructed raised planting surfaces of varying shape and size that remained above the wet season water-level, protecting their crops from flooding (Rostain, 1994;Erickson, 2000;Denevan, 2001). In South America, the total area covered by pre-Columbian raised fields has been estimated to be at least 100,000 ha, representing more than one billion cubic meters of earth moved (Denevan, 1982). Our work focuses on abandoned raised fields in seasonally flooded coastal savannas of French Guiana. ...
... She (1988) also commented on the parallels between past and present systems of "drained" field farming. Denevan (1982) put the entire subject of ancient hydraulic agriculture in the American tropics in analytic perspective with a comparative review of morphologies and measurements. ...
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At the two previous decadal meetings of CLAG, the Benchmark sessions on indigenous peoples and peasants in Latin America were organized topically. Various aspects of these marginalized groups' settlement and subsistence practices, past and present, were explored. This paper examines similar themes, but following the session's regional orientation, focuses specifically on the Yucatán and Central America. In addition, the literature is reviewed within a historical-development framework. Advance in our knowledge of prehispanic agriculture and settlement is considered first, followed by historical demographic work on colonial period Indians and peasants. The relative lack of work on nineteenth and early twentieth century populations is contrasted with that on earlier periods. Research on the contemporary period since the 1940s demonstrates that traditional topics such as: subsistence ecology and economy; location, settlement and migration; material culture and cultural landscape formation, continue to be vital concerns. In addition, new directions are being explored: the impact of regional war; the promise of sustainable farming practices; local conservation initiatives
... Therefore, the question is: How did the ancient Maya produce enough food to sustain a thriving civilization for centuries in an agricultural environment of erodible soils and severe wet and dry seasons? In the quest to find answers to this question, archaeologists and agricultural scientists have devoted their time and resources to understand the means of food production employed in ancient times, especially during the Late Classic (550-830 CE), when population was at its maximum (Beach and Dunning, 1995;Bloom et aI., 1983;Coultas et aI., 1993;Culbert et aI., 1990;Denevan, 1982;Dunning and Beach, 1994;Gomez-Pompa, 1991;Gomez-Pompa et aI., 1982;Harrison, 1996Harrison, , 1978Jacob, 1995a;Lambert and Amason, 1983;Neff, 1997;Pohl, 1985;Pohl and Bloom, 1996;Pope and Dahlin, 1989;Pope et aI., 1996;Siemens, 1982;Turner, 1974aTurner, , 1974b. ...
Article
The ancient Maya thrived for centuries in the Peten rain forest of Guatemala. Their impressive architecture and the evidence of highly populated centers attest that the Maya farmers were capable of producing food surpluses. In the eighth to ninth centuries CE the Classic Maya civilization collapsed. The processes leading to its decline are still debated, but unsustainable agricultural practices and exhaustion of natural resources may have contributed. This paper reports on soil formation rates, soil taxonomy, phytolith analysis, and delta(13)C values of soil organic matter in a rural area near the ancient city of Piedras Negras. Our objective was to understand ancient Maya rural life by linking soil characteristics to ancient agricultural resources and anthropogenic activities. We found that these soils formed at a rate of approximately 0.09 mm yr(-1). All 15 soil profiles belonged to the order Mollisols. The soils of the back-slope locations were shallow (<25 cm) and were probably severely eroded at the time of abandonment (ninth century CE). The soils located at the valley's floor were deep, well developed, and potentially good for sustainable agriculture. Phytolith analysis indicated that in ancient times panacoid grasses were dominant in these soils and provided evidence that the forest was cleared for maize (Zea mays L.) agriculture. Stable C isotopes provided evidence that the vegetation shifted from forest (C,) to C, vegetation during the time of Maya occupation. The toe-slope soils were observed to be less enriched in C-13 in profiles closer to Piedras Negras than in those farther away.
... However, recent research suggests that Mayan subsistence was based largely on intensive agriculture, especially raised fields, (see Turner, and Harrison, 1981;Flannery, 1982). (Denevan, 1982), and (3) aquacultural systems in which plants and animals are cultivated in ponds or submerged cages (Bardach, Ryther, and McLarney, 1972). All three of these systems can be highly productive in terms of the ratio of total outputs to total inputs, and in terms of production per unit area. ...
Article
Shifting cultivation has traditionally been characterized as a highly productive system in terms of the ratio of energy outputs to inputs. This characterization, however, does not take into account the energy contribution of the natural vegetation cleared in preparing the field for cultivation. As a result, the central feature of shifting cultivation, the exploitation of the natural vegetationsoil complex as a substitute for human labor, has been ignored. The omission of the biomass contribution can be attributed to both a focus on the practices involved rather than the underlying strategy of the shifting cultivator, and an excessive preoccupation with the renewability of the energy sources involved in different agricultural systems. A definition of shifting cultivation is proposed that focuses attention on the relationship between the natural vegetationsoil complex and the shifting cultivator. Two methods of including the energy contribution of forest biomass in calculating the productivity of shifting cultivation systems are compared. When the biomass contribution is included, shifting cultivation appears to be an extremely unproductive system of agriculture.
Chapter
In the preceding chapters, we described the concept of social metabolism in detail and synthesized it in a basic model. We also distinguished three major historical social metabolic regimes, and presented a visual, theoretical framework based on the concepts of entropy, evolution, sustainability, and cooperation.
Chapter
All the evidence points to the fact that about five thousand years ago, a complex combination of factors gave way to a qualitatively different relationship between human societies and their environments. These factors include a leap in humans’ mental capacity, a generalized temperature increase (at the end of the Ice age), and in particular, the management of landscapes and plant and animal species.
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The Barotse Floodplain is endowed with ecosystem services that support livelihoods although it is vulnerable to land use change caused by drivers of land use change leading to wetland degradation. Barotse Floodplain was listed as Ramsar Cultural Heritage Site number 1662 in 2007 although it is not protected against degradation by the Zambian Government and other stakeholders in accordance to Ramsar guidelines of 1971 (Ramsar Convention Secretariat, 1971). The studies done have not shown the links between the environment and human systems in the form of cause and associated consequences. The Environmental Management Act No. 12 of 2011 on wetlands which led to recognition of wetlands as deserving of special protection is not yet being implemented in Zambia. The Act provides for the declaration of identified wetlands as protected areas but very little has been achieved since this legal provision The aim of the study was to assess land use change, its effects on the ecosystem services and on dependent local communities in the wetlands of Barotse Floodplain. The objectives of the study were: (i) to identify and assess drivers of land use change; (ii) determine the extent of land use change in the selected years between 1980 to 2020; (iii) assess the ecosystem services that were affected by land use change; and (iv) assess livelihoods of the dependent local communities that have been affected by land use change in the wetland of Barotse Floodplain. The study used study used DAPSIR framework and integrated integrated research approach that involved using combined methods of data collection and analysis. Simple random sampling was used to select proportional respondents from 9 district that are found in and around BFP using Raosoft Random Sample Calculator. Therefore, the sample size was 383 for this study. Both secondary and primary data sources were utilized. Secondary data was obtained through extensive review of literature ranging from published scientific journal articles and grey literature on drivers, land use change, effects on ecosystem and livelihoods. Scenes of landsat images of 1984, 1986, 2004 and 2015 of Landsat 5 TM and Landsat 8 OLI-TIRS were downloaded from https://glovis.usgs.gov/ and the imagery data was processed using ENVI 5.1 software. Primary data was collected using interview schedule, key informant’s interviews, participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and field observations. Quantitative data from Questionnaireswas analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Product moment (Pearson) correlations coefficient was used to measure the degree of association between variables. Hyper Research Tool was used to analyze qualitative data collected from key informants and participatory rural appraisal. The study found that land use change was caused by many driving forces namely: climate variability (48.5%), infrastructure development (20.7%), technological (7.8%), population increase (18.5%), and agriculture (4.4%). The study further found that there was total land use change of 24.3% and 0.78 annual change rate. The classes annual change rates between 1984 and 2015 were: forest/woody/vegetation (0.32), grassland (0.07), water (0.02), annually flooded land (0.11) and bare land (0.26). The delineated land cover area classes (forest/woody vegetation, grassland, water, annually flooded land and bare land) have been reducing except for bare land, that was increasing in areal coverage. Water class had the greatest negative percentage change (decrease) of 0.04 between 1984 and 2015. While the class of bare land class had greatest positive change (increase) of 8.3% in the same period. The study also revealed that drivers of land use change led to land use change and a chi-square relation between these variables was significant, X2 (2, N = 383) = 15.99, p = <.05. The results of the study therefore, denotes that continuous land use change in Barotse Floodplain is caused by divers of land use change also due non enforcement and implementation of 2011 National Policy on Wetlands. The wetland ecosystem services that were identified in BFP are: Provisioning (water, fish, wild game, birds, insects, fruits, edible plants, reeds, sedge, pasture, thatching grass, sand and clay soil, and medicinal plants). Regulation (climate regulation, ground water discharge, floods control and river flow regulation). Cultural (traditional ceremonies, aesthetic, sacred places, educational and recreation). Support services (soil formation, rich soil nutrients, alluvial and organic matter). The study also found that the ecosystem services were affected by land use change in the BFP. Pearson chi-square relationship between these variables (land use change and declined ecosystem services) was significant, X2 (2, N = 383) = 25.70, p = <,05 in BFP. This implies that land use change has affected the ecosystem services in the BFP. The study further, revealed that local people’s livelihoods have been negatively affected in BFP due to land use change that consequently degraded ecosystem services. Pearson chi-square relationship between these variables (declined ecosystem services and affected local people’s livelihoods) was significant, X2 (2, N = 383) = 20.97, p = < .05, mmeaning that the degradation of ecosystem services in BFP have in turn affected dependent local communities’ livelihood. This implies that the degradation of ecosystem services in BFP have in turn affected the livelihood of dependent local communities. Local people (14.0%) now have to walk long distances of over 2 kilometers to find wetland resources products such as reeds, thatching grass, sedge, fish, fruits, edible lants, medicinal plants and pasture for livestock. Others who can’t endure walking (86.0%) long distances in search of these products have to spend more money to procure them. The income raised from the sale of the wetland resources products has also reduced. Some cattle farmers also have to drive their cattle long distances in search of pasture. There has been decline in fish catches in the study area and the trend has been negatively declining from 2008 onwards. Due to declining fish production the income from fish sales, just like from other wetland resources, has been declining too. Therefore, the study found linkages between drivers of land use change and land use change, land use change and declined ecosystem services change, and declined ecosystem services and affected local people’s livelihoods in BFP. The relationship between these variables was significant, The study recommended strategies such as the Ministry of Green Economy of Republic of Zambia, Barotse Royal Establishment (Western Province Traditional Leadership) and all other stakeholders should fully enforcing and implementing 2011 National Policy on Wetlands; The local people in BFP must use and exploit ecosystem services equitably and sustainably so as to ensure good health of Barotse Floodplain for the current beneficiaries and future generation; and Water Resources Management Authority (WARMA) must form water users committee for water resources management at all levels, thus, provincial, district, ward and village levels that should promote full participation of all stakeholders involved.
Article
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Ancestral Maya engineered wetland fields and canals in floodplains for plant cultivation and water management. Canals and reservoirs, however, also provide aquatic resources to supplement agriculture. Maya created multi-trophic ecological aquaculture by modifying the waterscape to increase the amounts of foods and useful materials, such as fish, turtles, waterfowl, and reeds. While archaeological and ethnographic investigations across the Maya area explore aquatic constructions, technology, and foodstuffs, they have not focused on aquaculture. In the western Maya lowlands, including the site of Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico, ancestral Maya modified floodplains around lakes and rivers for farming fish and aquatic resources near their settlements and fields. These extensive modifications for ecological aquaculture enhanced the productivity and resiliency of natural ecosystems. The domesticated waterscapes near the ritually important Mirador Mountain at Mensabak also followed pan-Mesoamerican beliefs in origin mountains that generated water, plants, and fish for humans. Importantly, Maya integrated subsistence is illuminated by research on domesticated landscapes and ecological aquaculture that examines a range of resources rather than just plants. Certainly across Mesoamerica, ecological aquaculture allowed people to intensify production of “farms” of aquatic species, particularly fish.
Chapter
Indigenous agriculture of the Americas has a long history as a research topic in cultural geography, cultural anthropology, and archaeology. Native peoples developed a vast range of strategies from intensive agriculture (raised fields, terracing, irrigation) to agroforestry. Over time, human activities transformed much of the environment into highly productive anthropogenic landscapes. William Denevan dedicated his career to understanding indigenous knowledge through research on the complex agricultural landforms. Two early publications explore agricultural intensification, conversion of marginal wetlands and slopes into productive spaces, role of social organization in farming, human response to climate change, and abandonment of fields. In the process, Denevan presents methodological approaches to record, classify, date, and analyze field systems that continue to be relevant.
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New approaches to pre-­‐Columbian raised-­‐field agriculture: ecology of seasonally flooded savannas, and living raised fields in Africa, as windows on the past and the future.
Article
Archaeological research, conducted intermittently at Kichpanha, Belize, from 1973 to 1983 was primarily limited to surveying and mapping. During the 1985 season, test excavations initiated in the 1983 season were continued (Gibson 1985a). House mounds and plazuela groups yielded further evidence of extensive use of the site from the Xe and early facet Mamom phases (relatively dated to approximately 900-700 B.C.), until its near total abandonment in the Early Postclassic (ca. A.D. 900-1000). In this paper we present some preliminary results of the 1985 season at Kichpanha in the context of our research foci which included economic relationships with the lithic industrial site of Colha to the south and identifying the subsistence base of Kichpanha.
Article
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The Lowland Maya region has seen an enormous increase of new data over the last decade, but our progress is hampered by a tendency for cyclic return to previous theoretical positions. This results from several factors: too short a view of the discipline's history; a lack of familiarity with the rest of Mesoamerica; a lack of collaboration among archaeologists, ethnohistorians, and epigraphers; and a tendency to view alternative methodologies as competing rather than complementary. This paper synthesizes some of the major new discoveries and suggests where progress might be made if differing approaches were used in concert rather than in isolation.
Chapter
For years Andean archaeologists have realized that the ceramic and temporal chronology for Tiwanaku is inadequate, but researchers continue to use the poor chronology, and in the process they may be promoting erroneous visions of Tiwanaku’s past. This paper reports the first season of excavations at the Iwawi mound, only 23 km from the site of Tiwanaku. They are revealing stratified ceramic samples for a new chronology, and a material basis for reevaluating traditional assertions about Tiwanaku. Employing these data we offer a preliminary description of the new ceramic chronology and critique currently popular ideas about Tiwanaku’s past. This critique suggests that many orthodox interpretations corresponded more with evolutionary expectations than they do with archaeological data. Furthermore, at least some of what has been offered as evidence for Tiwanaku’s state administrative organization seems to have been seriously misinterpreted. The ceramic analysis and chronology being developed at Iwawi, as well as theoretical and methodological approaches to the past that are advocated in this chapter offer an approach to the study of Tiwanaku’s past that is already challenging long-accepted ideas, and producing important new understandings.
Chapter
In the preceding chapters we made a detailed description of the concept of social metabolism which we synthesized in a basic model, we distinguished three main types of social metabolism along history, and we visualized a conceptual framework having as theoretical axis the concepts of entropy, evolution, sustainability, and cooperation (Chap. 12). What follows is to build a theory of transformations, which based on what we have said, should be classified as socioecological, given that the transformations derive from the interplay of social and natural mutations. The task is quite ambitious and even premature because, until the present, and due to the novelty of the approach, there is no full depth analysis of the empirical data available, nor enough field studies of metabolic transformations have been made—either for time periods or eras, or for regions and countries—to be compared in order to discover patterns or regularities.
Chapter
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All evidence points to that about 5,000 years ago a complex combination of factors—including a leap in mental capacity of humans, a generalized increase in temperatures (end of the Glacial age), and particularly, the management of landscapes and plant and animal species—gave place to a qualitatively different relation between human societies and their environments.
Chapter
Recent studies have advanced our understanding of the prehistoric culture-history, socio-political dynamics, and economic systems of the Middle Horizon Tiwanaku civilization (Kolata, i.p.; Kolata and Rivera 1989; Kolata, Stanish, and Rivera 1987). During the past two decades, three major models have been developed to explain Tiwanaku’s evolution from incipient complex society to expansionist state in the southern Andean region (Figure 1). Two of these, John Murra’s “vertical archipelago” (Murra 1975, 1980) and David Browman’s “altiplano mode of production” are based on the premise that the Andean altiplano cannot support large, dense populations and complex societies. The third, Alan Kolata’s agricultural production model, holds that using an indigenous agricultural technology, the altiplano near Lake Titicaca can be exploited in such a way as to sustain large populations.
Article
This chapter focuses on subsistence and complex societies with reference to the case of the Maya. In the past decade, there has been a substantial revision of the way in which one views the adaptation of complex societies to the humid tropics. A major focus of this revision has been the Maya Lowlands, where anthropologists and scholars in the natural sciences have discovered increasingly abundant and bewildering evidence of sophisticated agricultural techniques. The Lowlands may have charted a distinctive but equally precocious cultural-ecological course. The humid tropical lowlands of Mesoamerica are characterized by an environment that is deleterious to the preservation of archaeological materials. The high humidity of both air and soil under the forest canopy encourages decay organisms that quickly destroy most organic remains. Such an environment has somewhat limited the range of study that can be done in the Lowlands. Until recently, a series of more or less independent major subdisciplines were pursued there by scholars, including studies in iconography, calendrics, writing, and architecture, but ecology was more or less ignored.
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Guatemala - where the culture of coffee became relevant - was the target of intense idealization of its nature, at the same time that it was exalted as an essentially agricultural nation. Such images were built upon natural bases as well as upon social and historical representations. Many studies point to the existence of two homogeneous macroregions in the territory. However, each one of them presents an ecological composition much more varied than is traditionally supposed, which is one of the main factors for understanding the historical constitution of coffee plantation regions in that country
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Several recent discussions within archaeology refocus attention on the relationship between western knowledge and “indigenous knowledge”: one arising from the question of local ownership of land, technologies, and archaeological materials; another responding to the continued interest within development, conservation, and ecology in the potential efficacy and sustainability of local resource-use strategies; and a third that explores the possibility of producing archaeological interpretations that incorporate local conceptions of the past. In addition to an interest in indigenous knowledge (whether technical or conceptual), these various lines of inquiry are related by the desire to give due respect to local beliefs, practices, and property, and by the ambition to define ways in which archaeological research can provide benefits to society in general or, more specifically, to the communities that play host to archaeological field projects. These shared goals account for the fact that these discussions are sometimes conflated, but they can nevertheless be separated into distinct projects by examining the criteria by which their proponents are likely to judge success. Doing so permits an assessment of the feasibility of these approaches, referred to here as applied archaeology, hybrid archaeologies, and the production of a “usable past.”
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Rising pressures of population and resource use in the humid tropics make the establishment and maintenance of more productive yet sustainable agricultural systems ever more necessary. This is particularly so for the small-scale farmers who form the majority of the poor population in many countries. A range of agricultural practices that can improve output on a sustained basis are already well recognized. These include more effective fallow-management, fertilization and manuring, improving tillage practices, intercropping and agroforestry.While the scientific community has achieved much in the humid tropics, the potential contribution of indigenous cultivators is increasingly recognized and progress will demand their integration into the research and development process.The search for sustainable production must confront not only many ecological constraints but also many of an economic, social and political character. The wider development process discriminates against the strengthening of sustainable agriculture and tends to generate more exploitative forms of production. This is evident, for instance, with the spread of poor, inexperienced farmers into humid tropical colonization zones. Effective diffusion of ecologically sound agriculture in the humid tropics requires the inclusion of a full socioeconomic perspective as part of an interdisciplinary approach to this crucial problem of land management.
Article
Ridged fields and wetland agriculture are a key element in the culture and ecology of pre-Hispanic societies, and their role often survived well beyond the immediate aftermath of the Spanish conquest. Their importance was highlighted in a series of groundbreaking publications which have appeared from the mid-twentieth century onwards. In marked contrast to Mexico, however, there is much less historical data on this type of native agriculture in South America. Was this silence caused by these techniques falling into centuries of disuse on the arrival of the European colonisers? Or, despite ongoing use, did they fail to attract enough attention to surface in the literature? In the absence of descriptions written by the Spanish chroniclers, what other types of historical sources provide significant information on native traditions of land use? Native voices are recorded in legal texts that Indians dictated to satisfy Colonial bureaucratic requirements: wills, declarations during land litigation, and judicial ceremonies associated with land possession. In this paper, I have identified a range of archival sources which provide evidence of the nature, functions and ecology of these agricultural techniques in the northern Ecuadorian highlands.
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Extensive earthworks in the form of fields, canals, mounds, and causeways have been reported for the tropical savannas in many areas of South America, but few such earthworks are known from the tropical forest habitat outside of thesegrasslands. This paper reports on the ditch-like earthworks at a remote site in the tropical forest of extreme NE Bolivia. In contrast to most earthworks reported elsewhere in South America, those described here are identified, based on ethnographic parallels, as canals and moats and lie on the edge of the active floodplain on the Beni River in a tropical forest environment. While such earthworks occur in the forested “islands”,of the Llanos de Mojos further south, earthworks of this size and extent are unusual in the tropical forest of South America because much of this environment cannot support sedentary populations of the size and density necessary for their construction.
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Raised field systems of agriculture in seasonally or perennially inundated landscapes have received increasing attention from scholars involved in the analysis of prehistoric agricultural intensification in the New World. This paper discusses the morphology and function of raised fields associated with the Tiwanaku civilization on the southern rim of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. The thermal properties, and specifically, the heat storage capacity of raised fields in this high altitude environment are analysed by means of an ANSYS finite element computer model. The analysis concludes that enhanced heat storage capacity was an essential design element of raised field agriculture in the Andean altiplano, and that this thermal effect served to mitigate the chronic hazard of frost damage to maturing crops in this rigorous environment. An experimental verification of this conclusion based on the performance of reconstructed raised fields subjected to severe sub-freezing conditions is briefly described.
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For a decade or so after World War II, human geographers working in the American tropics found socio‐political conditions and resultant research topics little changed from those before the war. This was in contrast to the Old World tropics where decolonization processes and the demands of economic development and new nation building produced divergent research currents, For the first half of the period under review, the American tropics continued to be the province largely of geographers with culturalhistorical questions grounded in natural historical bases. The legacy is Humboldt's; the practitioners most notably students of Carl Sauer or German counterparts such as Carl Troll. French and British regionalist approaches, strong in the region before World War II, survived less successfully. By the 1980s, however, broad pan‐tropical currents of geographic discourse and debate had become established. New practices and theories were formulated and tested as North Atlantic geographers borrowed from antipodean innovators and others working in the Asian and African tropics. Since the 1980s, there have been greater efforts at dialogue and collaboration with host country colleagues. As might be expected in this era of ‘globalization’, national research styles and agendas have become less evident. This paper offers a highly selective map of research nodes within tropical Americanist geography since the early 1950s. The selection of examples includes qualitative criteria, but more importantly, research that signify stasis or intensification as well as turning points and departures in the overall development of this literature. The contours of this history suggest some highly evolved, even idiosyncratic enterprises, but in the main, it is an unfolding that suggests broad congruencies with human geographic work elsewhere in the tropics.
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The terrain within the Lake Titicaca Basin in the Andean highlands of Peru and Bolivia is a highly human-modified landscape. Archaeological investigations document that massive landscape modifications were undertaken throughout prehistory in order to intensively cultivate marginal lands. The paper focuses on raised fields, large earthen platforms which prevent waterlogging and flooding, increase soil fertility, conserve moisture, insure nutrient production and recycling, and improve crop microclimates. The environmental implications of the construction of over 82,000 hectares of raised fields for local vegetation, microclimate, soils, sedimentation, and hydrology are examined. The reuse of raised field agricultural technology to solve some problems of current land management is also discussed.
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Through a review of recent research in tropical ecology, soils science, and agronomy, this paper develops a model of tropical agricultural intensification through cultivation lengthening that applies to non-industrial cereal production in moist-to-wet tropical lowlands under conditions of high population density. Contrary to the predictions of many archaeological models, in tropical agricultural societies lacking plows, draft animals, or chemical fertilizers, or in which irrigation or intensive wetland agriculture are not practiced, progressive reduction and eventual elimination of the fallow period is not the only ecologically feasible means of intensifying agricultural production. More productive and sustainable under certain circumstances is intensification through cultivation lengthening, wherein farmers increase per hectare crop outputs through intensive weeding and mulching. To demonstrate the model’s analytical utility I apply it to the case of population growth and agricultural intensification in the Classic-period southern Maya lowlands of Mesoamerica. I propose that prior to the ninth-century Maya “collapse,” some but not all high-density southern lowland populations included cultivation lengthening in their repertoire of intensification strategies. Adoption of the practice helps explain how high-density populations sustained themselves agriculturally for decades after surpassing the productive limitations of alternative intensification strategies. My model of cultivation lengthening is an elaboration of a largely overlooked proposal made several decades ago by Ester Boserup.
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Efforts are under way to revive an ancient agricultural system, in which crops are cultivated on raised surfaces surrounded by standing water. Our experiments try to clarify the nitrogen flow in traditional and experimental systems of this type. Total N reached much higher levels in artificial ponds exposed to sunlight than in completely shaded ponds, and yet Pará grass, planted in pots that allowed the roots to extend through to the ponds, made significantly more growth in the shaded ponds than in the sunny ponds. It is concluded that the test crop could not compete effectively for N with algae, and that N in surrounding eutrophic bodies of water is readily available to crops on islands beds only if the crop roots reach channel sediments, or organic matter is transferred from the channels to the beds. Implications are discussed for traditional and experimental systems.
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Water management techniques in the Southern Maya Lowlands are both regionally diverse and site specific. This thesis examines the water management strategies of the Classic Period Maya at the site of Caracol, Belize. While it is likely that elites at Caracol controlled the redistribution of resources, i.e. craft and agricultural products, it is probable that the production of agricultural resources and the maintenance of water resource acquisition took place on a more local level. In order to test this hypothesis, a sample of five reservoirs were examined through original research and situated in conjunction with past settlement studies - to determine the water storage capacity and likely function of different water management features throughout the built environment of Caracol. As a result, this thesis argues that the placement and construction of water management features - i.e., reservoirs - at the site of Caracol, Belize are indicative of specific landscape patterns which are expressed by a distinct vernacular construction style and are also a reflection of the socio-political organization present within the site during the Late Classic Period.
Article
Useful plants and techniques of their cultivation were studied in and around dwelling clearings of Choco Indians in tropical rain forests of Darien, Panama. The population sampled consisted of 115 adult Chocos living at 26 sites along the banks of the Rio Chucunaque and two of its tributaries, the Rio Tuquesa and Rio Chico. The Rio Chico had a higher population density per linear mite of river bank, but less dwelling area per person was kept clear of vegetation. A map of each clearing allowed comparison of the frequency and spatial distributions of useful plants. These data are statistically treated elsewhere. A decrease in both numbers and variety of native plants occurred as commercially important plants were established on a larger scale. Creation of open niches by means of trash heaps became more definite as distance from the riverbank increased; edible plants were often growing in such locations. Present-day agricultural techniques among the Choco may illustrate their agricultural history. A comparison is made with several extant theories of early agriculture. Small-scale, more intensive gardening was noted in village clearings; groups of dwellings may thus have been a cause rather than a result of field agriculture.