New Frontiers in Wetland Archaeology: Mapping Maya Agricultural Systems with Lidar

Summary

Lidar has exponentially increased our knowledge of ancient agricultural systems and land use, especially within the Maya world. This paper explores a new Lidar dataset for the Maya Lowlands in Northwestern Belize where archaeological and geoarchaeological teams have studied ditched and raised field systems for over 25 years. Through surveys and excavations, researchers in Northwestern Belize have shed light upon the importance of Maya wetland agriculture, but questions of spatial scale still remain. We are currently using increasingly advanced remote sensing techniques to better understand how intensive and expansive modification of lowland wet environments was within this region. This new dataset demonstrates the complexity of ancient Maya wetland agriculture in regards to spatial distribution as well as regional hydrology and topography. This imagery, considered alongside previous remote sensing data and both aerial and pedestrian survey, provides a robust dataset by which we can quantitatively consider the extent of wetland agriculture throughout in Northwestern Belize and throughout the Maya world. Further, this dataset provides insight into natural and anthropogenic wetlands in Belize, and provides a baseline for ongoing and future research for archaeology within tropical wetland systems.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17171