Understanding the paleogeography and Maya ditched fields along the Rio Hondo, Belize and Mexico

Summary

In recent years, we have identified numerous sets of ditched agricultural fields along the Rio Hondo floodplain. In this paper we examine the paleogeographic and archaeological contexts of these fields. The commonalities of their settings offer perspective on their social functions and insight into who controlled them and how this control was manifest into settlement patterns. We discuss the geography of the riverine zone, the settings in which ditched fields are found and known related archaeological data, which in some respects is still too limited. Finally, we turn to our work in identifying and confirming intensive agricultural systems, their extent and importance in the political economy of the ancient Maya.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Advances in Wetland Archaeology in the Americas

Keywords

Spatial Coverage