Problematizing Past Human-Landscape Interactions in the Lower Belize River Watershed: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Summary

This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

There are many persistent issues that hamper archaeological interpretations of human-landscape interactions, from modern-day disturbances to more distant postdepositional processes and changing environmental conditions. These circumstances often make it a challenge to tease out cultural behaviors and the resulting material correlates of past human activity. Geoarchaeological inputs—utilizing a variety of interdisciplinary bodies of knowledge, technologies, and applications—are playing a key role in alleviating some of these issues. Ongoing research collaboration between archaeologists and geoarchaeologists in the Lower Belize River Watershed is following an interdisciplinary path blazed by Tim Beach. Our research has revealed a complex mosaic of diverse microenvironments—from wetlands to pine savanna—that show evidence of intensive management from Preceramic times onward. Here, we discuss how soil studies and the collection of paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic proxy data are enhancing our archaeological reconstructions and our understanding of the paleolandscape. We outline some of the key issues facing archaeological research in Belize and how integrated archaeological and geological research design and project implementation can lead to broader and richer understandings of past human-environment interactions. These findings are critical as we continue to investigate this area of Mesoamerica from multiple temporal and spatial scales.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)   •
• 2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part I

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36919.0