The Pre-Hispanic Maya Reservoir System at Kinal, Peten, Guatemala

Scarborough, Vernon L.; Connolly, Robert P.; Ross, Steven P.

doi:10.1017/s0956536100001061

Cited by 26 publications

(40 citation statements)

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“…Given the steepness of the catchment gradient with its associated erosional rates and a reservoir use life of over 1,000 y, the amount of sedimentation into the depression was minimal, with little evidence of dredging-a condition unlike that apparent in the summit arroyo tanks. Although only the Temple Reservoir manifests a well-defined silting tank, negative evidence suggests that shallow silting tanks were located above the inflow gates of all reservoirs (25,26).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water and sustainable land use at the ancient tropical city of Tikal, Guatemala

Scarborough

Dunning

Tankersley

et al. 2012

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

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104

113

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The access to water and the engineered landscapes accommodating its collection and allocation are pivotal issues for assessing sustainability. Recent mapping, sediment coring, and formal excavation at Tikal, Guatemala, have markedly expanded our understanding of ancient Maya water and land use. Among the landscape and engineering feats identified are the largest ancient dam identified in the Maya area of Central America; the posited manner by which reservoir waters were released; construction of a cofferdam for dredging the largest reservoir at Tikal; the presence of ancient springs linked to the initial colonization of Tikal; the use of sand filtration to cleanse water entering reservoirs; a switching station that facilitated seasonal filling and release; and the deepest rock-cut canal segment in the Maya Lowlands. These engineering achievements were integrated into a system that sustained the urban complex through deep time, and they have implications for sustainable construction and use of water management systems in tropical forest settings worldwide.archaeology | resilience | intensification | tropics | paleoecology H ow human populations have used currently threatened environments in a sustainable and managed manner over time can be addressed through archeology and its multidisciplinary collaborations (1). Today, in the geographical core of Classic Maya civilization (A.D. 250-800)-the tropical forest of Petén, Guatemala (a subtropical moist forest in the Holdridge system) (2)-short-fallow slash-and-burn agriculture, logging, and cattle ranching have significantly affected portions of the ecosystem and limited access to potable water (3, 4). Nevertheless, within this biophysical context, one of the earliest and most long-lived tropical civilizations flourished. Maya water and land uses were significantly affected by highly seasonal precipitation and karst physiography, which accommodated little perennial surface water. In response, the ancient Maya developed a complex system of water management dependent on water collection and storage devices. The hydraulic system was cleverly tailored to the biophysical conditions and adaptively engineered to the evolving needs of a growing population for more than 1,000 y (5-7). By identifying how a tropical setting was altered using a Stone Age technology, methods and techniques associated with long-lived and sustainable landscape engineering are revealed. Establishing baseline assessments of human impact on an environment before the extraction and depletion of resources by recent technological advancements may allow an evaluation of current technology's effects and the origins of unintended ecological as well as social consequences.The ancient low-density urban community of Tikal, Guatemala, was recently examined by way of water and landscape assessments (8-10).* Our intent was to document the evolution of a tropical wet-dry engineered landscape (11) and the manner in which the site was altered from its initial colonization (Middle to Late Preclassic, 600 B.C. to A.D. ...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water and sustainable land use at the ancient tropical city of Tikal, Guatemala

Scarborough

Dunning

Tankersley

et al. 2012

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

Self Cite

104

113

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“…More recently, Scarborough (1992Scarborough ( , 1993Scarborough ( , 1994Scarborough ( , 1996Scarborough ( , 1998Scarborough and Gallopin, 1991;Scarborough et al, 1994) and others (Davis-Salazar, 2003;Lucero, 1999Lucero, , 2002 argue for some degree of elite management or control of reservoirs, canals, and associated subsistence resources in water-rich environments in the southern Maya lowlands. These arguments, however, do not explicitly see elites as resource managers in the traditional way that Service (1962Service ( , 1975 intended, where elites are needed to administer redistributive exchange systems that articulate locally specialized economies.…”

Section: Managerial Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Trends in Theorizing Prehispanic Mesoamerican Economies

Wells

2006

J Archaeol Res

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Theoretical frames for modeling prehispanic Mesoamerican economies have been informed mostly by political economy or agency approaches. Political economy models examine the ways in which power is constructed and exercised through the manipulation of material transfers, mainly production and distribution. Research along these lines emphasizes regional redistribution, wealth and staple finance, debt and reciprocity, and regional integration through core/periphery relations. Agency models, on the other hand, explore the social aspects of manufacture, circulation, and consumption to infer the processes by which power is negotiated and contested. Work using this framework focuses on the manner by which meaning and value are assigned to, and become fixed in, social valuables, as well as the moral and emotional dimensions of allocation and consumption. Political economy and agency approaches are converging in Mesoamerican research to forge a new, hybrid theoretical construct, "ritual economy," which strikes a balance between formalist and substantivist views by considering the ways that belief systems articulate with economic systems in the management of meanings and the shaping of interpretations.

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“…Scarborough (1991:101) defines water management as "the interruption and redirection of the natural movement or collection of water by soci-ety." By focusing on hydrology (rather than technology, as is common in irrigation studies [e.g., Hunt 1988]), Scarborough (1993aScarborough ( , 1993bScarborough ( , 1996Scarborough et al 1994) includes the reservoir systems of the Classic Maya, which relied on the natural, often unmodified, sloping terrain, as well as urban architecture, to collect rainfall. I define water management as the tasks (both ritual and functional) involved in the use of artificial and/or natural water sources.…”

Section: Water Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ethnographic examples discussed here illuminate the importance of religious and other ideational concepts for shaping water management and, more broadly, community organization. Vogt's (1969) research suggests that contemporary Maya community organization centered on waterhole management may not have been a post-conquest invention, but rather derived from prehispanic patterns associated with the reservoir/catchment systems identified by Scarborough (1993bScarborough ( , 1994Scarborough ( , 1996. As Scarborough (1993a) argues forTikal and other lowland sites, the physical characteristics of still-water management appear to create a basic organizational pattern geared toward cooperation.…”

Section: Political Implications Of Water At Copdnmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…R ecent studies of ancient Maya water management have found that the urban architecture of some Classic period cities (e.g., Tikal, Kinal, and La Milpa) was used to collect and divert rainfall runoff into gravity-fed systems of interconnected reservoirs (Scarborough 1993b(Scarborough , 1996Scarborough and Gallopin 1991;Scarborough et al 1994). In the porous, karstic terrain of the central and southern Maya Lowlands, this kind of water control was necessary to support large populations throughout the year due to the scarcity of perennial surface water and the seasonal availability of rainfall.…”

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From Stewards to Bureaucrats: Architecture and Information Flow at Chan Chan, Peru

Topic

2003

Latin Am. antiq.

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.Recent research on prehispanic water management throughout the Americas has made significant contributions to our understanding of the diversity of adaptive systems employed in regions where water is seasonally scarce, such as the Maya Lowlands. Since much of this workfocuses on large-scale technologies, the political and economic consequences of these systems for smaller social units remain poorly understood. Social dynamics associated with less-intensive forms of water use and control are investigated at Late Classic (A.D. 600-900) Copdn, in a water-rich setting of western Honduras. Ethnographic, iconographic, and archaeological datasets suggest that lagoons located in Copdn's urban residential sectors may have been conceptualized, utilized, and maintained as communal property with ancestral ties by the inhabitants of surrounding domestic groups. By shifting the scale of analysis from the polity to the community level, these lagoons can be viewed as forms of communal property that created an economic and ideological basis for local social integration but offered limited opportunity for the centralization of power through monopolistic control. Yet, toward the end of the Late Classic, the appropriation of water-related dynastic symbolism and possibly ritual seems to have provided nonroyal elites with a meansfor creating local social identities, which undercut and eroded royal authority.Las investigaciones recientes del manejo del agua en Mesoamerica prehispdnica han contribuido a nuestro entendimiento de la diversidad de sistemas adaptivos que se empleaban en regiones de poco agua, como las Tierras Bajas Mayas. Sin embargo, como mucho de este trabajo se enfoque en las tecnologias intensivas de escala grande, se quedan poco entendidas las consecuencias politicas y econdmicas de estos sistemas para unidades sociales pequenas. Se investiga la dindmica social relacionada con formas menos intensivas del uso y control del agua durante el periodo clasico tardio (600-900 d. C. en el sitio maya cladsico de Copdn, Honduras. Al cambiar la escala del andlisis de la ciudad a la comunidad, se sugiere que las lagunas de Copdn, ubicadas en los sectores residenciales urbanos del sitio, puedan haber sido conceptuadas, utilizadas, y mantenidas por los habitantes de los circundantes grupos domesticos como recursos comunales con vinculos ancestrales. De esta manera, las lagunas crearon una base economica e ideologica para la integracidn social local. Sin embargo, haciafinales del cldsico tardio, el uso del simbolismo dindstico, y posiblemente del ritual, relacionado con el agua did a los elites no royales una manera para aumentar su prestigio y posicicn social. Asi, el manejo del agua a la vez integro ...

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The Pre-Hispanic Maya Reservoir System at Kinal, Peten, Guatemala

Cited by 26 publications

References 12 publications

Water and sustainable land use at the ancient tropical city of Tikal, Guatemala

Water and sustainable land use at the ancient tropical city of Tikal, Guatemala

Recent Trends in Theorizing Prehispanic Mesoamerican Economies

From Stewards to Bureaucrats: Architecture and Information Flow at Chan Chan, Peru

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