Patterned Ground in Wetlands of the Maya Lowlands: Anthropogenic and Natural Causes
Abstract
We use geological and archaeological evidence to understand the formation of patterned ground in perennial and seasonal wetlands in the karst depressions of Belize and Guatemala. Some scholars have argued that these features are the remnants of ancient Maya wetland fields, chinampas, on which intensive cultivation produced food that could begin to nourish the extremely high population of the Late Classic (A.D. 550-850). Others have argued that these were natural features or that they represent landscape manipulation for rising sea level in the Preclassic (1000 B.C. -A.D. 250). We present the evidence for ancient intensive agriculture and natural landscape formation with multiple proxies: excavated field and canal features, artifacts, pollen, soil stratigraphy, and water chemistry. Evidence thus far suggests that many regional depressions have Preclassic (1200 BC to AD 200) or earlier paleosols, buried from 1-2 m by eroded soils induced by Maya land use practices. These paleosols were buried by eroded sediments from uplands and by precipitation of gypsum from rising groundwater. The sedimentation occurred largely between the Preclassic and Late Classic, when ancient Maya farmers built canals in pre-existing low spots to reclaim these wetlands. Thus, stable natural processes, environmental change, and human manipulation have acted together to form patterned wetland ground over the later Holocene.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2004
- Bibcode:
- 2004AGUFMGC51C1060B
- Keywords:
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- 1803 Anthropogenic effects;
- 1890 Wetlands;
- 1600 GLOBAL CHANGE (New category);
- 1625 Geomorphology and weathering (1824;
- 1886)