Urbanism and Anthropogenic Landscapes

The Classic Period Maya cities of Caracol and Tikal possessed unique urban morphologies of water management. In part, the built environment at each city reflects adaptations to the hydrology of their landscapes. Caracol exists in a rugged, hilly, and karst environment; its residents invested their landesque capital in constructing agricultural terraces and residential reservoirs. These features created Caracol's anthropogenic garden‐city landscape. This landscape was unified through a dendritic causeway system and the distributed nature of monumental nodes. The landscape of Tikal exhibits a lower slope, is generally smoother, and its residents invested in constructing a large and condensed site core along with their monumental reservoirs. Additionally, the people of Tikal invested in bajo margin agriculture. The differences in urban form and hydrology conditioned the resulting water management strategies employed by both cities; the resulting built environmental features are preserved in the archeological record. Because of its higher slopes, Caracol's landscape presents a greater hazard for soil erosion and faster rainfall runoff. Yet, the construction of distributed residential reservoirs and agricultural terraces acted to collect rainfall, increase soil saturation, and reduce this runoff. Tikal's landscape on the whole presents fewer hazards in terms of soil erosion but perhaps greater issues from torrential rainfall. Water management infrastructure at both cities reflects both their unique urban morphologies and environmental conditions. This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Planning Water Science of Water > Water and Environmental Change

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“…F. Chase & D. Z. Chase, , pp. 366–369), and these changes affect the structure of the forest present today (Hightower et al, , pp.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Chase & Weishampel, ; Murtha, , , ) and heavily modified its landscape (A. F. Chase & D. Z. Chase, ) to provide for its subsistence needs (Dahlin & A. F. Chase, , pp. 145–146, 146–147).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversity in ancient Maya water management strategies and landscapes at Caracol, Belize, and Tikal, Guatemala

Chase

Cesaretti

2018

WIREs Water

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“…it had been occupied for over 1500 years, with a maximum population of about 100,000 in 650 C.E. (Chase and Chase 2016).…”

Section: Upa As a Long-term Practice: The Pre-columbian Maya Lowlandsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture in the Global South

Drescher

Isendahl

Cruz³

et al. 2021

Cities and Nature

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In the contemporary world, modernist Western thought supports stereotypical perceptions of cities (innovative, dynamic, progressive) as fundamentally different from the countryside (traditional, static, conservative). This leads to the effect of making near-residential agriculture obsolete; made redundant by transport technologies and an agricultural industry that rapidly moves large quantities of foodstuff from one region to another. However, the reality of urban food production in most countries of the Global South tells another story. This chapter uses recent and Pre-Columbian Maya case studies from four different regions of the world (Africa, South-East Asia, Middle America, and the Caribbean) to illustrate the importance of urban and peri-urban agriculture and food and nutrition security as fundamental aspects of the social-ecological resilience of cities. The chapter elaborates the differences of urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global South and the Global North, including institutional support and regulations, gender roles, the importance for food and nutrition security (case studies on Cuba and Thailand), livelihoods, ecosystem services, urban ecology (case studies on Burkina Faso and Ghana), and the role of urban food commons (case study on Cuba). This demonstrates that food production is not "the antithesis of the city", but an urban activity that contributes to the resilience of cities.

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“…Increasingly, archaeologists are engaging in future‐orientated discourses that situate the study of long‐term, human‐environmental interactions and ancient management and mismanagement practices as critical for assessing future resource sustainability and conservation‐management practices (Barton et al. ; Chase and Chase ; Lambrides and Weisler ; Morrison ; Pikirayi et al. ; Rick et al.…”

Section: Environmental Management Resilience and Sustainable Futuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropological Archaeology in 2016: Cooperation and Collaborations in Archaeological Research and Practice

Halperin

2017

American Anthropologist

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Ideas of collaboration and cooperation are often implicit, taken-for-granted elements in archaeological models and theorizing. Overshadowed by a growing archaeological preoccupation with warfare, violence, conflict, and crisis, cooperative acts and collaborative dispositions appear to lack the same emotional resonance and changestimulating properties that attract archaeological attention. Nonetheless, many archaeological publications in 2016 directly take on notions of collaboration in thinking about the past and our roles as archaeologists and as citizens of the future. This review underscores the significance of thinking about collaboration and cooperation as ambiguous, ambivalent, multiscalar, and dynamic. At issue is not just the creation of community but also of getting things done and, of course, celebrating, revising, or reworking the intended or unintended consequences of those actions over the generations. [archaeology, collaboration, cooperation] RESUMEN Las ideas de colaboración y cooperación son a menudo elementos implícitos, que se dan por sentados en los modelos y teorización arqueológicos. Opacados por una creciente preocupación arqueológica por la guerra, la violencia, el conflicto, y la crisis, a los actos cooperativos y disposiciones colaborativas parecen faltarles la misma resonancia emocional y propiedades estimulantes de cambio que atraen la atención arqueológica. No obstante, muchas publicaciones arqueológicas en 2016 empiezan directamente a tratar las nociones de colaboración, reflexionando acerca del pasado y nuestros roles como arqueólogos y como ciudadanos del futuro. Esta revisión enfatiza la importancia de considerar la colaboración y cooperación como ambiguas, ambivalentes, de múltiples escalas, y dinámicas. En cuestión no sólo está la creación de comunidad, sino también el lograr que se hagan las cosas, y por supuesto, celebrar, revisar, o rehacer las consecuencias planeadas o no planeadas de esas acciones sobre generaciones. [arqueología, colaboración, cooperación]

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Urbanism and Anthropogenic Landscapes

Cited by 37 publications

References 99 publications

Diversity in ancient Maya water management strategies and landscapes at Caracol, Belize, and Tikal, Guatemala

Diversity in ancient Maya water management strategies and landscapes at Caracol, Belize, and Tikal, Guatemala

Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture in the Global South

Anthropological Archaeology in 2016: Cooperation and Collaborations in Archaeological Research and Practice

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