Agriculture in the Ancient Maya Lowlands (Part 2): Landesque Capital and Long-term Resource Management Strategies

Abstract

Pre-Columbian food production in the Maya Lowlands was long characterized as reliant on extensive, slash-and-burn agriculture as the sole cultivation system possible in the region, given environmental limitations, with maize as the dominant crop. While aspects of this “swidden thesis” of Maya agriculture have been chipped away in recent years, there has been an underappreciation of the many forms of long-term capital investments in agriculture made by ancient Maya people. Here, we review the last three decades of research that has overturned the swidden thesis, focusing on long-term strategies. We demonstrate long-lasting agricultural investments by Maya people, in social capital including multigenerational land tenure, in cultivated capital including long-lived trees, and in landesque capital including soil amendments and landscape engineering projects, such as terracing and wetland modification.

In Search of the Ancient Maya Foods. A Paleoethnobotany Study From a Non-elite Context in Sihó, Yucatán

“…The ancient Maya people made extensive use of a wide range of plants and agricultural techniques to sustain themselves and to create diverse dishes (Fedick et al 2023;Morell-Hart et al 2022). Early ethnohistorical records documented by friars, encomenderos, and other agents of Spanish colonialism provide valuable insights into Maya people's dietary habits and emphasize the variety of plant foods they consumed.…”

“…These different sources of data have demonstrated the presence of staple plants such as maize, beans, squash, and chile peppers, indicating their continuous utilization over time. Paleoethnobotanical research has also brought to light the exploitation of a more diverse range of vegetables, fruits, seeds, roots, and other plant tissues by the ancient Maya (Fedick et al 2023;Morell-Hart et al 2022).…”

“…Despite the available information on a wide variety of plants and their potential use in Maya cuisine, our knowledge of the common daily practices associated with food in non-elite domestic groups is still limited. Recently, there has been a growing number of paleoethnobotanical investigations that examine food practices and ingredients utilized within domestic contexts (Fedick et al 2023;Novelo-Pérez et al 2019;Watson et al 2022;Zimmermann 2019). This paper aims to contribute to the existing body of knowledge by exploring the diverse spectrum of Maya food practices among nonelites.…”

Soil toposequences, soil erosion, and ancient Maya land use adaptations to pedodiversity in the tropical karstic landscapes of southern Mexico

“…Regrowth is then carefully managed to promote rapid restoration of a secondary forest garden that contains an increased representation of economically useful tree species (Ford and Nigh, 2016;Morell-Hart et al, 2022). This cycle is repeated after approximately 20 years, creating a managed mosaic of productive homegardens, milpas, forest gardens, and landesque improvements of various types (Fedick et al, 2023).…”

“…We speculate that these soils were used by ancient inhabitants for planting home gardens and cultivating orchards or forest gardens dominated by useful trees (that could also protect the soil from further erosion). These gardens surrounded the settlement areas, and are thought to be an important part of Maya agricultural landscapes (Ford and Nigh, 2016;Morell-Hart et al, 2022;Fedick et al, 2023).…”