Ancient Water Collection and Storage in the Elevated Interior Region of the Maya Lowlands

Summary

The Elevated Interior Region (EIR) of the Maya Lowlands posed especially difficult challenges for year-round ancient human occupation and urbanization. Accessible surface and groundwater sources are rare and a 5-month dry season necessitated the annual collection and storage of rainwater in order to concentrate human population. Here we review ancient Maya water storage adaptation in the EIR including urban and hinterland reservoirs as well as residential scale tanks and cisterns. Large reservoirs were devised as early as the Middle Preclassic period and continued to be an important adaptation for urban centers in the EIR throughout their occupation. Residential scale tanks and cisterns may also have early origins, though these have been less investigated. Considerable inter-regional variation existed in water management strategies.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• The Contributions of Vernon Scarborough in Water Management and Sustainability, Part 2: The Classic Maya

Keywords

Spatial Coverage