Ethnobotanical surveys were conducted to locate culturally important, regionally scarce, and disappearing medicinal plants via a novel participatory methodology which involves healer-expert knowledge in interactive spatial modeling to prioritize conservation efforts and thus facilitate health promotion via medicinal plant resource sustained availability. These surveys, conducted in the Maya Mountains, Belize, generate ethnobotanical, ecological, and geospatial data on species which are used by Q'eqchi' Maya healers in practice. Several of these mountainous species are regionally scarce and the healers are expressing difficulties in finding them for use in promotion of community health and wellness. Based on healers' input, zones of highest probability for locating regionally scarce, disappearing, and culturally important plants in their ecosystem niches can be facilitated by interactive modeling. In the present study, this is begun by choosing three representative species to train an interactive predictive model. Model accuracy was then assessed statistically by testing for independence between predicted occurrence and actual occurrence of medicinal plants. A high level of accuracy was achieved using a small set of exemplar data. This work demonstrates the potential of combining ethnobotany and botanical spatial information with indigenous ecosystems concepts and Q'eqchi' Maya healing knowledge via predictive modeling. Through this approach, we may identify regions where species are located and accordingly promote for prioritization and application of in situ and ex situ conservation strategies to protect them. This represents a significant step toward facilitating sustained culturally relative health promotion as well as overall enhanced ecological integrity to the region and the earth.

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An empirically supported proposal for synthesizing multiple approaches to the study of the mind in the past. In The Foundations of Cognitive Archaeology, Marc Abramiuk proposes a multidisciplinary basis for the study of the mind in the past, arguing that archaeology and the cognitive sciences have much to offer one another. Abramiuk draws on relevant topics from philosophy, biological anthropology, cognitive psychology, cognitive anthropology, and archaeology to establish theoretically founded and empirically substantiated principles of a discipline that integrates different approaches to mind-related archaeological research. Abramiuk discusses the two ways that archaeologists have traditionally viewed the human mind: as a universal or as a relative interface with the environment. He argues that neither view by itself can satisfactorily serve as a basis for gleaning insight into all aspects of the mind in the past and, therefore, the mind is more appropriately studied using multiple approaches. He explains the rationale for using these approaches in mind-related archaeological research, reviewing the literature in both cognitive psychology and cognitive anthropology on human memory, perception, and reasoning. Drawing on archaeological and genetic evidence, Abramiuk investigates the evolution of the mind through the Upper Paleolithic era—when the ancient mind became functionally comparable to the modern human mind. Finally, Abramiuk offers a model for the establishment of a discipline dealing with the study of the mind in the past that integrates all the approaches discussed.

Paleoethnobotanical analysis of anthropogenic soils sampled from archaeological features dating to the Classic Maya Period (A.D. 250-900) reveal diagnostic phytoliths that help the authors bring to light evidence of a novel sustainable agricultural strategy and a variety of nutritional and medicinal plants that were utilized by the Classic Maya of the Maya Mountains, Belize, Central America. Given the archaeological context of these phytoliths, the authors infer that the plants from which they were derived were exploited by the Classic Maya of the region. These discoveries have the potential for improving health and wellness regionally in the present since the agricultural strategy that is reconstructed demonstrates an intensive means of cultivation that has the potential of sustaining large, dense populations. The nutritional and medicinal plants alluded to, in turn, provide further evidence in support of the utilization of traditional knowledge in sustaining community health and wellness. IntroductionIn recent years, the view of the ancient Maya, as imprudent exploiters of their environment with little regard for sustainability (e.g., Diamond 2005), has begun to change (Ford & Nigh 2009). Research has shown that the Maya lowlands during the Classic period (A.D. 250-900) were one of the most densely populated areas in the world (Fagan 2004:284). In some regions in the Maya lowlands, such as the southern Maya Mountains, population density estimates near 300 persons per squared kilometer (Abramiuk 1998). This estimate is quite staggering, especially if we consider that the people of this particular region had no efficient means for importing foodstuffs and therefore Published: June 30, 2011 Ethnobotany Research & Applications 258www.ethnobotanyjournal.org/vol9/i1547-3465-09-257.pdf

This ethnobotanical study in the spirit of transdisciplinarity, and in collaboration with Q'eqchi' Maya traditional healers, compares traditional Q'eqchi' Maya ecosystem constructs or environmental zones with scientific ecosystems. To determine which categorization method better accommodates Q'eqchi' Maya medicinal plant diversity, we analized 26 transects representing 160 medicinal plant occurrences. Our transect array encompasses a representative sampling of Q'eqchi' Maya medicinal plant repertoire with use values broadly distributed over 17 usage categories. With a cumulative frequency of 2,235 medicinal plants through ecological zones, we conducted one-way ANOVA on the mean number of medicinal plant species identified in transects of the two conceptual schemes being contested. Our analysis reveals the Q'eqchi Maya environmental zones are the most salient. That is, knowledge of the Q'eqchi' Maya environmental zones improves one's ability to predict whether there will be a high or low abundance of Q'eqchi' Maya medicinal plant species in a particular region, whereas knowledge of scientific ecosystems does not accomplish this feat as well. This is a notable finding as it suggests that if indeed Q'eqchi' Maya medicinal plant diversity is better accounted for by the zones as envisioned by the Q'eqchi' Maya, then it should be this mode of conceptualization that should be adopted by scientists and conservationists when trying to locate and protect regional Q'eqchi' Maya medicinal plant diversity. These efforts serve as a model internationally in the conservation of medicinal plant biodiversity supportive of culturally relative holistic health promotion.