Infrastructures of Moving Water at a Terminal Classic Maya Site in Petén, Guatemala

Summary

What are the temporal dynamics of water infrastructures? Recent research at the Maya site of Ucanal in Petén, Guatemala, has identified several water management features, such as canals, dams, baffles, and roads, many of which drain water away from the site core and towards a nearby river, the Río Mopan. The heavy focus on water drainage rather than water storage is seemingly incongruous with paleoclimate data, which reveal evidence of droughts during the height of the site’s occupation. This paper considers the historical context of waterways at the site from different temporal scales: the longue durée in which infrastructure construction is placed within a broad temporal framework of the site’s development and paleoclimate data, the temporal fluctuations of dry and wet seasons, the temporality of monumental time, and the everyday of water infrastructure use and maintenance.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20861