Maya Paleoethnobotany and La Milpa: Evidences from Northwest Belize

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part I" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Widespread terrace construction in the Lowland Maya region is often viewed as a response to increasing demands for food during the Late Classic. Such was the demand that terraces became integrated into the architectural arrangements of large urban entities, going so far as to be built right up to the edge of a settlement center. Despite their ubiquity, very little is known about what was grown on these terraces and how they relate to the adjacent ceremonial core. This paper discusses the paleoethnobotanical contents of terraces that abut the ceremonial core of the third largest Maya urban center in Belize, La Milpa. An analysis of the terrace sediments collected from the 2017 excavation season of the Programme for Belize Archaeological Project revealed macrobotanical and phytolith indicators of mulching and fertilization activities. This presentation examines some of the preliminary results from these analyses, and provides a discussion on the role of terraces in both Maya ceremonial activities as well as Late Classic agricultural intensification and extensification practices.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part I   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23651