Dr. Betty B . Faust | Centro de Investigacion Cientifica de Yucatan (original) (raw)

Papers by Dr. Betty B . Faust

A detailed rock-magnetic investigation was carried out on the four most common agricultural soils... more A detailed rock-magnetic investigation was carried out on the four most common agricultural soils in Pich, Campeche: Lithic Leptosol (LPli), Chromic Stagnosol (STch), Antrosol (AT) y Humic Rendzic Leptosol (LPhurz). These soil samples were heated from 250° C to 650° C using 50° C increments. We used different soil samples by each temperature level. The magnetic properties at each temperature have been measured using a Variable Field Translation Balance. Variation of rock magnetic parameters as a function of temperature allows the determination of the main magnetic minerals (primary and secondary) and their thermomagnetic stability. Changes in magnetism were correlated with temperature, but varied by soil group. It was detected a firm relationship between the magnetic parameters and temperature by each soil group.

Maya, agricultural hamlets that existed in Pich, Campeche, Mexico, until the 1980s.

The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 2009

Books by Dr. Betty B . Faust

This is an edited volume with 13 chapters dealing with conservation and environmental practices a... more This is an edited volume with 13 chapters dealing with conservation and environmental practices among the Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula and neighboring Chiapas. The authors are from various perspectives: applied anthropologists, ethnographers, one historrian, a wildlife biologist, and a conservation policy practitioner.

Rights, resources, culture, and conservation in the land of Maya, 2004

... Land Use: An Essential Link for Conservation in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve 95 Jenny Erics... more ... Land Use: An Essential Link for Conservation in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve 95 Jenny Ericson 6. Valuing the Maya Forests 117 EN Anderson 7. The End of Innocence in a ModernizingMaya Community: " There Is No More Timber; Let's Sell the Land!" 131 Betty B. Faust 8 ...

American Anthropologist, 1999

Fondo de Cultura Economica, México, 2010

This is the Spanish translation of the book I published in English in 1998, entitled Mexican Rura... more This is the Spanish translation of the book I published in English in 1998, entitled Mexican Rural Development and the Plumed Serpent: Technology and Maya Cosmology in the Tropical Forest of Campeche, Mexico.
ISBN 9786071601094

Pasos largos al futuro: la resiliencia socio-ecologico de los mayas de Campeche en relacion a los cambios climaticos, 2017

This is a Spanish publication focused on ancient and modern Maya Indians' development of resilien... more This is a Spanish publication focused on ancient and modern Maya Indians' development of resiliency in their responses to climate change during two thousand years. This resiliency has been grounded in detailed local environmental knowledge motivated by use for local consumption, marketing and trade and includes the development of hydrological engineering to both protect from flooding and to harvest rainwater. Potential combinations of experience-based wisdom with modern technologies are discussed with relevance to present-day responses to climate change.
and over

Journal articles by Dr. Betty B . Faust

W. Lutz, L. Prieto, and W. Sanderson, eds., Population-Environment Interactions on the Yucatan Peninsula from Ancient Maya to 2030, 2000

ISBN 3-7045-0138-7. This is the first chapter in a book about the interactions between populati... more ISBN 3-7045-0138-7. This is the first chapter in a book about the interactions between population and environment in the Yucatan peninsula, edited by Lutz, Prieto and Sanderson of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis of Austria. It describes the social and environmental factors involved in the Maya Collapse of centuries 9-13 of our era. This is a rather notorious collapse in the history of human civilization as there has been no return of the Maya people to the region that was most densely populated during the Classic Period. Refugees found their way to coastal plains and southern mountains, where existing cities grew in size, but the overall population numbers declined and the quality of archaeology and art also are considered to be less than during the Classic.

Sex Roles: A Journal for Research, 1998

..Maya symbols associate cultural interpretation s of biological reprodu ction with This article ... more ..Maya symbols associate cultural interpretation s of biological reprodu ction with
This article analyzes gender roles within a cosmological model of the natural world. Traditional symbols were used in a ceremony performed to cure the pubescent
daughter of a modernizing family. She was suffering “ataques de nervios”
(nervous attacks, including muscle spasms and loss of consciousness) believed
to be caused by a delay in the onset of menarche. Analysis of the symbols
relied on multiple approaches that allowed decoding of ceremonial symbols as
references to (1) the gendered pairing of marriage, (2) the social reproduction
of gender through the generations, (3) the reproductive aspects of human
bodies as symbols of interdependency, and (4) maleness and femaleness as
primary forces of the Maya cosmos. The traditional symbols, combined with
the teachings of the healer, provided an interpretation of the biological
differences between male an d female bodies within an overarching
cosmological system. The primary symbols referred explicitly to male and
female genitalia and menstrual blood as symbols for the reproduction of gender
through generations of mothers and daughters, fathers and sons.

Ancient Mesoamerica, 2002

Maya Lowlands climate researchers have set aside earlier beliefs that Maya civilization flourishe... more Maya Lowlands climate researchers have set aside earlier beliefs that Maya civilization flourished in an unchanging environment. Analyses of river discharge, weather patterns, lake-bottom sediments, and settlement patterns reveal a highly variable climate, considerable diversity in local geology and soils, and a wide range of cultural adaptations tailored to distinctive subregional settings. Significant knowledge gaps remain. Among the unanswered questions is how cities in the elevated interior were maintained without natural, permanent bodies of water even during equitable climatic conditions, much less through the episodes of severe drought that have become apparent in studies of past climates. The research reported in this article lays the groundwork for climate studies in the southwestern Yucatan Peninsula.

Environmental Science & Policy, 2001

This special issue of En6ironmental Science & Policy presents various approaches for assessing lo... more This special issue of En6ironmental Science & Policy presents various approaches for assessing local environmental knowledge and perceptions. Many environmental management problems are caused by a mismatch between environmental decision-makers and locally affected communities. Our objective with this special issue is to present a range of environmental decision-making approaches to be matched with a range of community types. On one end of this range are traditional, indigenous communities where careful co-management is needed. On the other end are mixed residential/transient communities, where a regional survey of awareness of an environmental issue can provide adequate information for a practitioner to design an appropriate solution from the office. We may also have a wide range of environmental knowledge from the traditional community's elders to the transients. It may be encoded in folkloric symbols or verbal references to Internet WebPages, or a combination of these and other codes, signifying membership in social groups. Such diversity requires skill in assessing levels of environmental knowledge and appropriate strategies for engaging local knowledge as a basis for building culturally and environmentally appropriate projects.

Landscape and Urban Planning, 2006

This introduction describes the evolution of biosphere reserve policy as an international effort ... more This introduction describes the evolution of biosphere reserve policy as an international effort to protect areas representative of each type of natural ecosystem, with zoning to integrate neighboring human communities. The integration of local communities in conservation was originally proposed by a Mexican conservationist based on recognition by some of his country's political leaders of national dependency on "ecosystem services": forests, watersheds, soils, and rainfall cycles . Conveniencia de estudiar todas las circunstancias en que se distribuye el agua pluvial que cae en la varias cuencas del territorio, de coordinar las observaciones pluviométricas con las de hidrometría en las mismas cuencas, así como también de que se expidan las leyes conducentes a la conservación y repoblación de los bosques. 161 lands and marine areas in use by communities of Yucatec Mayas and mestizos for livelihood. This article provides context for subsequent ones that analyze case studies and specific processes.

Estudios de la Cultura Maya, UNAM, 2011

Resumen: Durante 2006, en Pich, Campeche, se recuperaron 31 historias orales enfocadas en los pat... more Resumen: Durante 2006, en Pich, Campeche, se recuperaron 31 historias orales enfocadas en los patrones de movilidad entre familias agricultoras que viven en rancherías establecidas cerca de fuentes permanentes de agua. Se identificaron dos patrones: 1) el movimiento de una ranchería a otra cada 14 años, en promedio, con reocupación en un ciclo generacional; y 2) movimientos repetidos durante el año entre la casa en la ranchería y otra en el pueblo (bilocalidad). Así, en un ciclo doméstico de aproximadamente 35 años, la típica familia agri-cultora ocupaba por lo menos tres casas. Esto sugiere que las estimaciones del tamaño de las poblaciones agrícolas que suministraban alimentos a las ciudades-estado mayas en las Tierras Bajas del Norte deberían ser revisadas y ajustadas. Hasta ahora dichos cálculos no han incluido una tasa de reducción basada en información etnográfica detallada como la que presentamos ahora sobre las familias agricultoras de Pich. PalabRas cl ave: mayas yucatecos, agroecología, arqueología demográfica, agricultura nómada, familias milperas. abstRact: During 2006, thirty-one oral histories were collected in Pich, Campeche, to research patterns of mobility among agricultural families living in hamlets (rancherías) located near permanent water sources. Two patterns were found: (1) movement from one hamlet to another on average every fourteen years with reoccupation in a generational cycle; and (2) repeated movements throughout the year between the hamlet home and a permanent house in town (dual-residence). Thus, over a domestic cycle of approximately thirty-five years, the typical agricultural family occupied at least three houses. These data suggest a need to revise existing Pre-Columbian population estimates for the agricultural population providing food to the city-states of the Northern Maya Lowlands. In general, estimates based on house mounds have not included rates of reduction due to mobility or dual residency for lack of detailed ethnographic information such as we here provide for the agricultural families of Pich.

Conservation and Society (www.conservationandsociety.org. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License 2.5. , 2007

A protected area near Cancún was the first in Mexico initiated by local communities. In 1994, thr... more A protected area near Cancún was the first in Mexico initiated by local communities. In 1994, three communities placed their lands in the federal category of an Area for the Protection of Flora and Fauna. Ethnographic research in one of the communities (2003-2004), documented local perceptions that the director of the protected area was not allowing local residents to participate in decision making concerning the major tourist attraction, a nesting colony of seabirds. Previously, an advisory council ceased to function, and a local conservation organisation of young people was disbanded. The latter had built observation facilities, provided services to nature tourists and protected the colony. The director was perceived as undermining this organisation and refusing to heed community requests for reforestation of the nesting habitats. Cumulative damage to vegetation from hurricanes eventually resulted in the complete disappearance of these birds (2005-2006). This created a decline in small-scale tourism, reduction of local livelihoods, and increased pressure on the reserve's director to allow the community to sell its

Laguna de Terminos/Rio Candelaria Delta Core Conditions of Sustainable Urban Occupation in the Interior of the Yucatan Peninsula, 2012

We focus on the conditions that enabled sustained urban populations in the elevated interior of t... more We focus on the conditions that enabled sustained urban populations in the elevated interior of the Yucatan peninsula, central to Ancient Maya Civilization. Changes in these conditions were deciphered from sediments deposited in the delta of the Rio Candelaria (Laguna de Terminos, Campeche). The growth of these cities has been seen as problematic due to the lack of reliable sources of groundwater, an aquifer that is more than 100 m below the ground surface, a six-month dry season, and a porous subsoil of limestone. The erosion of soils associated with early agricultural settlements was later managed and settlements located according to the geographic potentials for agriculture and water management, which changed with the intense fluctuations of climate that ocurred from the 9th to the 13th centuries, when the interior city states were abandoned. .

Chapters by Dr. Betty B . Faust

Great attention has been focused on the southern trade routes across the Yucatan Peninsula throug... more Great attention has been focused on the southern trade routes across the Yucatan Peninsula through Tikal but little to the potential for crossing through Calakmul further to the north. This chapter shows that a combination of topography and politics make the Calakmul corridor the more efficient transit route. The political turmoil generated by Teotihuacan's involvement in Lowland trade following C.E. 378 cascaded into centuries of conflict between cities along the Tikal corridor and inhabitants of alternative routes. We trace the evolution of this conflict as influenced by landscape and climate, and decisions of the ambulatory Kaan Dynasty of El Mirador, Dzibanche, Calakmul and finally Calkini. The conflict seems to have played out in the elevated interior of the peninsula, the bone of contention perhaps being control of the Calakmul corridor through the Candelaria River. We suggest there are sufficient parallels between the Calakmul and European Rhône River corridors to draw a productive analogy between two, including that they both fall under the same synoptic climate system. Because the post-Columbian world economic system rose indirectly from the Rhône corridor, the two systems make a good test bed for thinking about the future evolution of the world system. The scale of comparison is rendered feasible by viewing the systems in terms of the scale of information transfer in which they were embedded. We offer three brief examples of how rise and decline of the Calakmul hegemony suggests ways of thinking about the future of the world economic system: warfare, sustainable design, and climate engineering. [Maya, economic world system, trade routes, climate, agency, landscape]

Climate Change and Threatened Communities: Vulnerability, Capacity, and Action, eds. A.P.Castro, D.Taylor, and D.W. Brokensha, 2012

This chapter examines how archaeological research into past Mayan land use practices in Campeche,... more This chapter examines how archaeological research into past Mayan land use practices in Campeche, Mexico may contribute to increase farm productivity and food security for the region's smallholders. The area's rural communities are threatened by climate change, with the area's rainfall decreasing and less reliable in recent years. Harvests are diminished in both the traditional Maya practice of shifting cultivation (swidden) and the tractor cultivation introduced in the 1980s. Policies introduced as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement also place increasing economic pressures on local maize growers. Recent archaeological research in this area suggests that Pre-Hispanic, Maya canal systems with raised fields once drained floodwaters for later irrigation and household uses during dry periods. The authors call for collab-orative efforts with local farmers to reconstruct this irrigation system on an experimental basis to determine if it can increase food production and complementary cash-cropping that forms part of family livelihoods today.

Maya, agricultural hamlets that existed in Pich, Campeche, Mexico, until the 1980s.

The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 2009

Rights, resources, culture, and conservation in the land of Maya, 2004

American Anthropologist, 1999

Fondo de Cultura Economica, México, 2010

Pasos largos al futuro: la resiliencia socio-ecologico de los mayas de Campeche en relacion a los cambios climaticos, 2017

W. Lutz, L. Prieto, and W. Sanderson, eds., Population-Environment Interactions on the Yucatan Peninsula from Ancient Maya to 2030, 2000

Sex Roles: A Journal for Research, 1998

Ancient Mesoamerica, 2002

Environmental Science & Policy, 2001

Landscape and Urban Planning, 2006

Estudios de la Cultura Maya, UNAM, 2011

Conservation and Society (www.conservationandsociety.org. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License 2.5. , 2007

Laguna de Terminos/Rio Candelaria Delta Core Conditions of Sustainable Urban Occupation in the Interior of the Yucatan Peninsula, 2012

Climate Change and Threatened Communities: Vulnerability, Capacity, and Action, eds. A.P.Castro, D.Taylor, and D.W. Brokensha, 2012

Pasos largos al futuro: La resiliencia socio-ecológica de los mayas de Campeche en relación a los cambios climáticos, 2017

Los saberes ambientales de varios grupos indígenas, o naciones primeras, incluyen experiencias co... more Los saberes ambientales de varios grupos indígenas, o naciones primeras, incluyen experiencias con cambios climáticos anteriores al que estamos sufriendo hoy en día, aquellos causados por volcanes y los ciclos largos de nuestro planeta rodeando el sol en elipses con axis acantilado y también posiblemente por deforestación.

This is a 2018 curriculum vitae in Spanish for Faust

This is the English version of the Curriculum Vitae of Betty Bernice Faust (Wammack)