ResumenComo parte integral del área central de Tikal se encuentra un amplio conjunto arquitectónico conocido como Mundo Perdido. Entre 1979 y 1984 se llevaron a cabo trabajos de exploración arqueológica en las estructuras que le conforman, las cuales son un claro indicio de que se trató del Complejo de Conmemoración Astronómica o de Ritual Público de Tikal, en donde se condujeron actividades de conducción ritual, calendárica y, en algunos momentos, también politica. Su largo proceso evolutivo dio inicio desde el preclásico medio y continuó en forma ininterumpida hasta el clásico terminal. Este largo espectro cronológico, aunado a la importancia que este conjunto tuvo en la estructura política de Tikal, permite observar una parte de la historia del sitio a través de 1500 años. Se obtuvo una serie de elementos que permiten referir procesos históricos, preferencias cerámicas en la tradición funeraria, estilos arquitectónicos particulars y otros desarrollos, con lo cual se trata de ampliar el criterio con el cuai se ha planteado por lo general el panorama de Tikal en las tierras bajas centrales.

A vital task facing scholars concerned with the structure of ancient Maya society is reconstructing the relationships among subsistence, population, and social organization. Particularly in the southern Maya lowlands, where extremely dense populations were found by Late Classic times, substantial modifications of the landscape through a variety of land management techniques were necessary. The nature of these modifications, the range of innovations, and the degree of intensification are still, however, poorly understood. This article explores the significance of one form of landscape modification entailed by the occupation and use of seasonal wetlands (bajos). Below, we examine the debate over the significance of intensive wetland agriculture in the Maya lowlands, then discuss the preliminary findings of a case study designed to investigate the duration and intensity of use of a major central Peten bajo. Culture & AgricultureVol. 22, ,\i. ; Fd

Archaeologists have begun to understand that many of the challenges facing our technologically sophisticated, resource dependent, urban systems were also destabilizing factors in ancient complex societies. The focus of IHOPE‐Maya is to identify how humans living in the tropical Maya Lowlands in present‐day Central America responded to and impacted their environments over the past three millennia, and to relate knowledge of those processes to modern and future coupled human–environment systems. To better frame variability in ancient lowland Maya development and decline, the area that they once occupied may be subdivided into a series of geographical regions in which the collected archaeological data can be correlated with environmental differences. Although beginning as small agricultural communities occupying a variety of ecological niches in the humid tropics of Mesoamerica, the ancient Maya became an increasingly complex set of societies involved in intensive and extensive resource exploitation. Their development process was not linear, but also involved periods of rapid growth that were punctuated by contractions. Thus, the long‐term development and disintegration of Maya geopolitical institutions presents an excellent vantage from which to study resilience, vulnerability, and the consequences of decision‐making in ancient complex societies.