Bajo Sediments and the Hydraulic System of Calakmul, Campeche, 
Mexico

Gunn, Joel D.; Foss, J. E.; Folan, William J.; Carrasco, Maria del Rosario Domínguez; Faust, Betty Bernice

doi:10.1017/s0956536102132184

Cited by 55 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 18 publications

(20 reference statements)

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“…Some of the evidence is direct, such as the evidence for settlements and monumental architecture, terraces, and wetland fields. Other evidence is indirect, including orchard gardens, managed forests, and possible cultivation along modified edges of seasonal wetlands (66). The evidence for orchard gardens is based on the archaeological record of vegetative remains in middens, suggesting a long history of a strong reliance on fruits and nuts (84)(85)(86)(87), and walled spaces around house sites, indicating orchard gardens as described by the Spaniards (83, 88).…”

Section: Human-environment Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite managed forests, wood fuel and construction timber became increasingly scarce as did, perhaps, large mammals (meat sources). To maintain a sufficient water supply, small aquadas (ponds) and major reservoirs were constructed, and the edges of seasonal wetlands were manipulated to hold water (65,66,69,71).…”

Section: Environmental Stress Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Maintaining the infrastructure in place and combating the drawdown in environmental conditions (e.g., loss of P) required † The identification and interpretation of wetland fields on the peripheries of the Maya heartland have been contentious not in terms of the presence and past Maya use of the fields but rather, in regard to their morphology, construction, and somewhat less so, dating (61,66,72,81). It is noteworthy that these systems adjacent to the CMLs in Belize, even those systems in perennial wetlands, ceased with onset of collapse (79).…”

Section: Environmental Stress Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Classic Period collapse of the Central Maya Lowlands: Insights about human–environment relationships for sustainability

Turner

Sabloff

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

228

150

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The ninth century collapse and abandonment of the Central Maya Lowlands in the Yucatán peninsular region were the result of complex human-environment interactions. Large-scale Maya landscape alterations and demands placed on resources and ecosystem services generated high-stress environmental conditions that were amplified by increasing climatic aridity. Coincident with this stress, the flow of commerce shifted from land transit across the peninsula to sea-borne transit around it. These changing socioeconomic and environmental conditions generated increasing societal conflicts, diminished control by the Maya elite, and led to decisions to move elsewhere in the peninsular region rather than incur the high costs of maintaining the human-environment systems in place. After abandonment, the environment of the Central Maya Lowlands largely recovered, although altered from its state before Maya occupation; the population never recovered. This history and the spatial and temporal variability in the pattern of collapse and abandonment throughout the Maya lowlands support the case for different conditions, opportunities, and constraints in the prevailing human-environment systems and the decisions to confront them. The Maya case lends insights for the use of paleo-and historical analogs to inform contemporary global environmental change and sustainability.Mesoamerica | complex systems | land management

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Section: Human-environment Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Environmental Stress Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Environmental Stress Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Classic Period collapse of the Central Maya Lowlands: Insights about human–environment relationships for sustainability

Turner

Sabloff

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

228

150

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“…Scholars began to suspect the role of drought in Maya history by associating Mesoamerican with European trends (21,22), but the first regional evidence came in the 1990s based on retrodicting the discharge of the Rio Candelaria, Mexico, with models of global insolation, atmospheric patterns, and volcanic emissions that indicated higher rainfall in the Classic Period and dryer conditions in the Terminal Classic (23,24). Lake core studies at Chichancanab and Punta Laguna, also in the 1990s, indicated climate change in the Yucatán based on the relative abundance of sulfur (S) to calcite (CaCO 3 ) in sediments and oxygen isotope ratios (δ 18 O) in benthic shells (25)(26)(27)(28).…”

Section: Climate and Evidence For Droughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wetland fields as mirrors of drought and the Maya abandonment

Luzzadder–Beach

Beach

Dunning

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Getting at the Maya Collapse has both temporal and geographic dimensions, because it occurred over centuries and great distances. This requires a wide range of research sites and proxy records, ranging from lake cores to geomorphic evidence, such as stratigraphy and speleothems. This article synthesizes these lines of evidence, together with previously undescribed findings on Maya wetland formation and use in a key region near the heart of the central Maya Lowlands. Growing lines of evidence point to dryer periods in Maya history, which correlate to major periods of transition. The main line of evidence in this paper comes from wetland use and formation studies, which show evidence for both largescale environmental change and human adaptation or response. Based on multiproxy studies, Maya wetland fields had a long and varied history, but most evidence indicates the start of disuse during or shortly after the Maya Terminal Classic. Hence, the pervasiveness of collapse extended into a range of wetlands, including perennial wetlands, which should have been less responsive to drought as a driver of disuse. A synthesis of the lines of evidence for canal infilling shows no attempts to reclaim them after the Classic Period.Mesoamerica | proxies | wetland agriculture S cholars have explored many proxy lines of evidence to understand the environmental change and timing of societal transitions in the Maya Lowlands of Mesoamerica. These proxies include lake and ocean cores; speleothems; geomorphic evidence; architecture; modeling; and, recently for Mesoamerica, tree rings. One repository of evidence we examine here comes from ancient Maya wetland field systems and their canals. Over the past decade, we have studied more than 50 of these systems, which can provide unique insights into site abandonment because their canals started to fill with sediment and proxy evidence after the Maya ceased maintaining them. We can thus date the infill of sediment and use multiple proxies to study ecological change from near the time of abandonment forward. These canals also provide

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“…Thanks to inexpensive transportation costs, they were not using their forest cover, but rather building on it through the use of arboriculture during their long ascent to power. This efficient use of coastal area forests has been observed ethnographically on both the east and west coasts (Gunn et al 2002, Ford and Nigh 2009, 2015. So, the covariables are marine technology, arboriculture, and perhaps international trade as opposed to trade internal to the peninsula.…”

Section: Discussion Of Principal Components Scores Trajectoriesmentioning

confidence: 90%

A distribution analysis of the central Maya lowlands ecoinformation network: its rises, falls, and changes

Gunn¹,

Scarborough²,

Folan³

et al. 2017

E&S

Self Cite

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ABSTRACT. We report a study of central Maya lowland dynastic information networks, i.e., six cities' external elite ceramic influences, and how they reflect the decision-making practices of Maya elites over 3000 years. Forest cover, i.e., Moraceae family pollen, was added to the network analysis to provide ecological boundary conditions, thus ecologically moderated information networks. Principal components analysis revealed three dominant patterns. First, the networking of interior cities into powerful polities in the Late Preclassic and Classic periods (400 BCE-800 CE). In a second pattern, coastal cities emerged as key entrepôts based on marine navigation (Terminal and Postclassic periods, 800-1500 CE). Climate dynamics and sustainability considerations facilitated the transition. Forest cover, a measure of ecosystem health, shows interior forests diminished as interior cities networked but rebounded as their networks declined. By contrast, coastal forests flourished with networks implying that the marine-based economy was sustainable. Third, in the Classic, the network-dominant coast, west or east, changed with interior polities' political struggles, the critical transition occurring after 695 CE as Tikal gained dominance over the Calakmul-Caracol alliance. Beginning with the Late Preclassic about 2000 years ago, it is possible to assign names to the decision makers by referencing the growing literature on written Maya records. Although the detectable decision sequence evident in this analysis is very basic, we believe it does open possible avenues to much deeper understanding as the study proceeds into the future. The Integrated History and Future of People on Earth-Maya working group that sponsored the analysis anticipates that it will provide actionable social science intelligence for future decision making at the global scale. Key Words: central Maya lowlands; ceramics; complex-adaptive systems; distribution analysis; forest cover; principal components analysis INTRODUCTIONA network analysis of elite pottery types associated with the archaeological records of multiple sites in the central Maya lowlands can be used to illustrate changing degrees of connectedness between these sites over time. We assume that tracking degrees and duration of connectedness are a means to understand the sustainability of systems that operated at these sites. The method that was utilized collected a uniform data set on information exchange among a sample of communities across the region. Principal components analysis (PCA) was then used to determine changing patterns of network cooperation across space and time as mirrored in material culture. This quantitative analysis is further amplified through the use of Maya historical records that provide information relative to decision making over the same temporal span. Based on the patterns observed in these data sets, it is possible to (1) clarify the kind and strength of relations among communities in the central Maya lowlands and communities outside the region; (2) understand how...

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Bajo Sediments and the Hydraulic System of Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico

Cited by 55 publications

References 18 publications

Classic Period collapse of the Central Maya Lowlands: Insights about human–environment relationships for sustainability

Classic Period collapse of the Central Maya Lowlands: Insights about human–environment relationships for sustainability

Wetland fields as mirrors of drought and the Maya abandonment

A distribution analysis of the central Maya lowlands ecoinformation network: its rises, falls, and changes

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