Who were the ancient Maya

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Who were the ancient Maya How did they get
their food?
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The Maya (also known as the Mayan) are the
indigenous people of Meso-America. The territory
enveloped by the ancient Mayas included Mexico,
northern Belize, Guatemala, and western Honduras.
http//www.crystalinks.com/mayan.html
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B.C.1200-1000 Olmec 1800-900
Early Preclassic Maya 900-300
Middle Preclassic Maya 300 B.C. -
A.D. 250 Late Preclassic Maya A.D.250-600
Early Classic Maya 600-900
Late Classic Maya 900-1500
Post Classic Maya 1521-1821
Colonial period 1821- today
Independent Mexico http//www.mexconnect.com/mex_
/travel/ldumois/maya/ldmayatimeline.html
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• What I found in regards to food production
  systems of the ancient Maya
• No dearth of literature
• Various theories abound
• Many uncertainties

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• Swidden Cultivation, also known as
• slash and burn
• shifting agriculture
• roza y tumba
• agricultura nomada
• milpa
• Has been most frequently associated with the
  ancient Maya

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• Why? We may ask
• the prevalence of swidden cultivation in the
  Maya lowlands during the European occupation
• the absence of evidence that indicates intensive
  agriculture employed by the pre-Hispanic Maya

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• Why is this pertinent?
• The prevalence to associate the ancient Maya with
  an exclusively swidden agricultural system
  assumed
• essentially low density in Mayan settlements
• limitations of Mayan technologies/ lack of
  capacity
• the limitations to the swidden agricultural
  system and thus created a foundation for
  collapse theories based on an inefficient
  system (swidden agriculture)

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• Some findings that indicate the utilizations of
  other forms of agriculture
• a mapped site in Belize gave a projected average
  population density of 1,036 people per km2 in
  certain settled areas
• tools that would likely be used in a more
  intensive agricultural system
• that no other high culture in America has relied
  completely on a single farming system
• extensive use of terraces, may implicate the use
  of terraces in an intensive agricultural
  system

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There is a fair amount of evidence that
indicates the use of terraces by the ancient
Maya. This intensive form of agricultural
cultivation tends to be more productive than
surrounding un-terraced hillsides due to
rejuvenation of soil through alluvial deposition.
According to Wilken (1971) terraces require
considerable investments of time and effort to
build and seem to be much more likely to be
carefully cultivated, weeded, fertilized, and
irrigated compared to un-terraced plots. Lundell
(1933) suggests that the terraces are evidence of
intensive cultivation versus Sanders (1962)
assertion that the terraces may have been used
for swidden cultivation
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• The most prevalent and varied terrace is the
  check dams (also known as weir terraces or
  cross-channel terraces, atajadizos, presas,
  teceras, terrazas, trincheras)
• Check dams were constructed in intermittent
  stream ways (arroyos) in semiarid or arid regions
  that see sudden storms and where there is sparse
  vegetation, a landscape that tends to produce
  heavy erosion. The check dams reduce the speed of
  the flowing water and impede the waters ability
  to carry eroded materials and as the flow of
  water slows, the debris is deposited which forms
  flat, flood irrigated and sub irrigated fields
  behind the check-dam.

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Sloping terraces essentially are a change in the
original gradient of a slope and there are many
variations of the structure of sloping terraces
Slope terraces act to accumulate moisture and
control soil erosion. (Wilken, 1987) Beach et al
(2002) points out that the fill stabilized the
walls and the walls trapped sediment that
resulted in rich planting beds
kwww.mayaexpeditions.com/archaeology/
piedrasnegras.html
www.mayaexpeditions.com/archaeology/
piedrasnegras.html
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Tablones are distinctly Guatemalan and are
essentially irrigated terraces that are generally
carefully designed planting beds separated by
deep irrigation trenches, that vary in size which
generally has do with the hill slope
configuration. They are thought to have been used
by the ancient Maya.
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• There is additional conjecture that the ancient
  Maya employed
• chinampa or chinampa-type system was employed by
  the ancient Maya. (Wilken, 1971) A Chinampa is
  characterized by intensive hand labor, small
  plots which are separated by a network of water
  channels which replenish the soil with organic
  debris, mud, and aquatic plants and provide a
  source of accessible water for irrigation
• fertilizers, such as bird or human manure, leaf
  litter
• tree culture

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• In summary
• There are various indications that the ancient
  Maya did not rely solely on a swidden
  agricultural system
• This presentation has definite limitations,
  please indicate if I have incorrectly stated
  something or you have something to add
• It is hard to ascertain the agricultural
  techniques employed by the ancient Maya by
  analyzing the pollen of maize
• It is hard to determine why the Mayan
  civilization collapsed analyzing deer bone, to
  assess the availability of corn to the foraging
  herbivores