Maya Wetland Fields from 2014 and Earlier Coring Evidence

Summary

This paper has two main goals: first to present our latest findings for wetland field formation from a series of 2014 palustrine, floodplain, and lacustrine cores, and second to consider the relative strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches to coring: piston-, soil-, and vibra-coring compared with excavation in these environments. We first present how the new cores from 2014 at Akab Muclil and Laguna Verde compare with previous coring and excavation data toward understanding ancient Maya wetland field uses and formation. The paper will use extensive, multiple proxies, including AMS dating, stratigraphy, magnetic susceptibility, XRD-XRF, micropaleontology, general chemistry, stable isotopes, elemental analysis, pollen, phytoliths, micromorphology, and charcoal from dated strata. Second, we discuss which coring methods work best in a variety of wetland environments of Mesoamerica for understanding the differences in the timing, use, and crop types of wetlands over the Late Holocene. Maize agriculture appeared in this region by at least 4,000 years ago, wetland fields were a Late Preclassic and dominantly Classic Period phenomenon, and ongoing work is providing a better chronology of when and how wetlands formed and how humans used these environments, which are being destroyed so rapidly in this region today.

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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