Seeds, Shells, and Sites - Research in Northwest Belize: Report of Investigations from the 2006 Field Season (original) (raw)
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Ethnobotanical and Paleoethnobotanical Research at the Programme for Belize Archaeological Project
Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology, 2023
In addition to understanding humanity through material culture, the archaeological record also has the capacity to provide botanical data which provides insight to ancient environmental landscapes, climate patterns, and provides a baseline for agroeconomic systems and foodways. Studying archaeobotanical records is vital to a holistic interpretation of material culture and contributes to understanding degrees of variation between ecological and cultural areas. Together with archaeobotany, ethnobotanical survey can also offer valuable contextual evidence when studying past environments. Despite spatial and temporal discontinuities in plant-use and knowledge systems, ethnobotanical data viewed with a critical lens can also provide data missing from the archaeological record which is inherently not exhaustive and relies heavily on interpretation. Ethnobotanical and paleoethnobotanical research at the Programme for Belize Archaeological Project (PfBAP) includes ethnobotanical interviews conducted in the nearby town of San Felipe and archaeobotanical investigations at Structure 3 at the site of La Milpa. By combining a modern analogue of plant practices and knowledge systems via ethnobotanical survey, collecting plant specimens for an archaeobotanical reference library, collecting soil samples from new projects, and sampling artifacts for residues, archaeobotanical research at PfBAP continues to expand what we know about the ancient Maya in northwestern Belize.
Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology, 2023
We review research on ancient and modern environments in the Programme for Belize Archaeology Project (PfBAP), focusing on studies of the vegetation. A goal is to show how these studies complement each other. To describe the ancient environment, paleobotany uses fossil pollen, phytoliths, starch grains, and geochemical signatures. In recent research, phytoliths and starch grains are collected from surface samples and paired with geochemical signatures, floral inventories, and contemporary pollen signatures to construct environmental analogues of ancient environments. To study the modern environment, forest ecology uses repeated inventories of tree species in forest stands. These studies have shown how variable the old-growth forests of the area are in in space and in time. Forests range greatly in composition of tree species, tree stem density, number of tree species, and in rates of tree mortality, recruitment, and growth. This variation can be related to underlying variation in soil and slope, and patterns resulting from natural disturbance by flooding and wind. We give examples of synergy between the study of ancient and modern environments in the Maya region that demonstrate fruitful interactions between these disciplines for paleobotanists, ecologists, and archaeologists.
Paleoethnobotanical research conducted during the 2013 field season at the Classic Maya archaeological site Joya de Cerén in El Salvador focused on the analysis of plant remains found on the surface and associated features of a Late Classic period sacbe (causeway) that were well protected beneath tephra deposited by the volcanic eruption of Loma Caldera around AD 650. Plant remains were retrieved from the sacbe surface, adjacent drainage canals, and agricultural fields on either side of the sacbe. Because the plant remains found in association with this sacbe were well preserved, a rare occurrence in Mesoamerica, the data recovered from Cerén are quite significant to the study of Maya plant use activities as well as Maya causeways. The project systematically collected 62 macrobotanical samples and 160 flotation samples processed in a water flotation tank. Through careful paleoethnobotanical analysis, more than 140,000 carbonized seeds, achenes, charcoal specimens, and other plant parts that were present on the cultural activity surfaces at Cerén when Loma Caldera erupted were recovered. Three main categories of plant remains emerged from the data: annual crops, weedy species, and tree species. Prominently represented in these samples are Spilanthes cf. acmella achenes, Zea mays cob fragments, Phaseolus sp. cotyledons, Amaranthaceae seeds, Fimbristylis dichotoma achenes, Mollugo verticillata seeds, Portulaca oleracea seeds, Crotalaria cf. sagittalis seeds, Physalis angulata seeds, and abundant charcoal remains. Recovered plant remains reveal trends associated with each cultural context as well as distance from the site center, and offer an essentially economic perspective of Maya sacbeob. The study reveals that the ancient sacbe supplied an easy, dry, and efficient mode of transportation of goods among Cerén’s agricultural fields.
Life on the Edge: Investigating Maya Hinterland Settlements in Northwestern Belize- M.A. Thesis
2011
The Three Rivers Region of Northwestern Belize was an important area for Classic Maya development. Archaeological sites became known to archaeologists in the 1970s and gained much attention in the early 1990s with the creation of the Programme for Belize Archaeological Project (PfBAP). The PfBAP operates on a 250,000-acre nature preserve, known as the Programme for Belize (PfB). Most of this acreage is covered in semi-deciduous, rugged forest, resulting in unexplored terrain. This precludes exploration of the PfBAP and hinders the understanding of ancient Maya settlement. Thus, settlement studies are particularly difficult to conduct and the relationships between settlements and their environment are not well understood. Though, the Dos Hombres to Gran Cacao Archaeological Project (DH2GC), created by Dr. Marisol Cortes-Rincon of Humboldt State University, is creating a detailed picture of a portion of the PfBAP area by way of interdisciplinary inquiry including archaeology, ecology, and geoarchaeology. The DH2GC is conducting a settlement study along a 12-km transect to map settlement and ecological features between the cities of Dos Hombres and Gran Cacao. This thesis is a complementary project alongside the DH2GC. The ultimate goal of the thesis project is to understand the nature of settlement patterning between large site centers. The main focus is on small courtyard groups that appear within the Dos Hombres suburban area. Analysis of these courtyard groups are through settlement patterning via environmental context and consideration of site-planning planning principles.