The multiscale heterogeneous environment of the Maya Lowlands of the present

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Sessions in Honor of Dr. Fred Valdez Jr. and His Contributions to Archaeology, Part 1" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The book Heterarchy, Political Economy, and the Ancient Maya, edited by Scarborough, Valdez, and Dunning, argued that local natural resources shaped distinctive local communities of the ancient Maya, which, in combination, could have produced different regional political economies. Thus to understand the ancient Maya one must understand types and scales of variation in their natural environment. We describe variation in modern vegetation and flora ranging in scale from the whole Maya Lowlands, to regional environments and landscapes, to hilltop versus valley bottom on the topographic catena. From north to south in the Lowlands, rainfall decreases, while soil depth and species richness increases. Water in the north of the Lowlands is only available year-round in cenotes, while there are perennial lakes and marshes in the south. Within regions and landscapes comprising the Lowlands there are major differences in soil type and thus vegetation type and flora (e.g., savanna vegetation on sand versus tall forest on limestone parent material). Along catenas within landscapes numerous tree species are indicators of either hilltop or valley, indicating different land used potentials. We characterize in some detail environmental variation at landscape and catena scales in northwest Belize, which may help characterize ancient political economy.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Sessions in Honor of Dr. Fred Valdez Jr. and His Contributions to Archaeology, Part 1   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53958