Meeting Needs in the Ancient Maya Forest: A Model of Food and Shelter at El Pilar

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Maya land-use strategies, based on traditional agricultural methods documented by the Spanish conquerors and oppressed during the colonial period, have demonstrated a staunch resilience into the modern age. The milpa forest garden cycle demonstrates dynamic regeneration via an asynchronous cycling of open fields with annual crops, perennial succession providing domestic products, and mature forests for fruits and construction materials such as thatch and wood framing. This poster outlines our method of using spatial analysis techniques, remote-sensing data, and traditional ecological knowledge from living Maya forest gardeners to identify areas suitable for traditional practices. Using settlement data and Lidar to quantify slope thresholds for milpa cycle agriculture, and identifying mature and managed forests, we examine the landscape of El Pilar under a lens of product fulfillment. We estimate the food and shelter needs of an ancient Maya population using agricultural productivity data and required materials for house construction as outlined by Maya forest gardeners. In turn, we investigate the potential of the land at El Pilar to provide the necessary resources for life in this tropical environment. The results guide a discussion of the sustainability and sufficiency of the milpa forest garden cycle within the Maya forest.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38366.0