Dominant Plants Of The Maya Forest And Gardens Of El Pilar: Implications For Paleoenvironmental Reconstructions

Ford, Anabel

doi:10.2993/0278-0771-28.2.179

Cited by 50 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Associations of Maya sites in mainland Yucatan and the wider Maya region with forests that contain high representation of useful species is a well-recognised phenomenon (Puleston 1968, Gómez-Pompa 1987, Rico-Gray and García-Franco 1991, White and Hood 2004, Ford 2008, Ross 2011. Prevalence of domestically useful trees in these forests has given rise to a concept of the ‗Maya tropical forest' (Nations 2010), uniformly abundant in useful species and which has persisted owing to positive anthropic selection.…”

Section: Preliminary Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Marco Gonzalez Maya site, Ambergris Caye, Belize: Assessing the impact of human activities by examining diachronic processes at the local scale

Graham

Macphail

Turner

et al. 2017

Quaternary International

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Research at the Maya archaeological site of Marco Gonzalez on Ambergris Caye in Belize is socio-ecological because human activities have been a factor in the formation and fluctuation of the local marine and terrestrial environments over time. The site is one of many on Belize's coast and cayes that exhibit anomalous vegetation and dark-coloured soils. These soils, although sought for cultivation, are not typical 'Amazonian Dark Earths' but instead are distinctive to the weathering of carbonate-rich anthropogenic deposits. We tentatively term these location-specific soils as Maya Dark Earths. Our research seeks to quantify the role of human activities in long-term environmental change and to develop strategies, specifically Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), that can be applied to environmental impact modelling today. AbstractResearch at the Maya archaeological site of Marco Gonzalez on Ambergris Caye in Belize is socio-ecological because human activities have been a factor in the formation and fluctuation of the local marine and terrestrial environments over time. The site is one of many on Belize's coast and cayes that exhibit anomalous vegetation and dark-coloured soils. These soils, although sought for cultivation, are not typical ‗Amazonian Dark Earths' but instead are distinctive to the weathering of carbonate-rich anthropogenic deposits. We tentatively term these location-specific soils as Maya Dark Earths. Our research seeks to quantify the role of human activities in long-term environmental change and to develop strategies, specifically Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), that can be applied to environmental impact modelling today.

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Section: Preliminary Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Marco Gonzalez Maya site, Ambergris Caye, Belize: Assessing the impact of human activities by examining diachronic processes at the local scale

Graham

Macphail

Turner

et al. 2017

Quaternary International

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“…Beyond forest gardens, the Maya would have impacted other areas through hunting, medicinal plant harvesting, and myriad other land uses. The dominance of Maya useful species in the contemporary forest has led to the perception of the Mesoamerican forest as a 'feral garden' (Campbell et al 2006a, Ford 2008. Post-colonial land use has also been found to have impacted the species composition of the extant forest.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ancient Maya Agroforestry Echoing Through Spatial Relationships in the Extant Forest of NW Belize

Ross

Rangel

2010

Biotropica

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Previous research has shown that ancient Maya 'forest gardens'-tree-dominated home gardens containing a diversity of tree species used for daily household needsstill resonate in the species composition of the modern forest. Centuries of positive interspecies interactions may enhance the reproductive and survival success of garden species selected and encouraged by experienced Maya forest gardeners. We hypothesized that such interaction may result in aggregated spatial patterns between 32 pre-selected, commonly utilized forest garden species. In this paper, we developed a novel randomization (Monte Carlo) method designed to measure and test if the spatial relationships among pairs of Maya 'forest garden' trees species differ between areas that experienced high and low ancient settlement density in northwestern Belize. A total of 28 high ancient settlement density and 27 low ancient settlement density plots containing a total of 2772 and 3134 trees, respectively, were used for this study. The analysis revealed that 58 pairs of forest garden species tended to 'cluster' together significantly more often in the high settlement density areas than would be expected in a random distribution. In low settlement density plots, only 12 pairs of species exhibited a significant clustered spatial relationship. The effect was not species specific, suggesting that some synergistic relationships, mediated by third-party agents such as dispersers, may occur at the community level. The impacts of ancient human land use, echoing across centuries of dispersal, colonization, disturbance, and biotic and abiotic interactions, can have important implications for understanding the current biodiversity patterns and processes.Abstract in Spanish is available at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/btp.

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“…Therefore, the pollen record does not provide a complete picture of plant use along the lake side, nor does it provide direct evidence of plant use at Los Naranjos itself. Other cautions have been issued in the Maya area, where researchers have noted that shift in pollen signatures may actually reflect 11 fallowing practices (rise in grasses) or the management of forest home gardens (rise in arboreal taxa), rather than shifts in forest succession following human depopulation or abandonment (Ford 2008). In our work, macrobotanical and microbotanical samples were analyzed in an effort to fill in the existing picture of ethnobotanical practice at Lake Yojoa, making use of both sediments and artifacts recovered in excavations at Los Naranjos itself.…”

Section: Previous Paleoethnobotanical Data From Lake Yojoamentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Proxy Analysis of Plant use at Formative Period Los Naranjos, Honduras

Morell-Hart¹,

Joyce²,

Henderson

2014

Latin Am. antiq.

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Paleoethnobotanical analyses of samples excavated at Los Naranjos, Honduras, provide an unprecedented record of the diversity of plants used at an early center with monumental architecture and sculpture dating between 1000 and 500 B.C. and contribute to understandings of early village life in Mesoamerica. Los Naranjos is the major site adjacent to Lake Yojoa, where analysis of an important pollen core suggests very early clearing of the landscape and shifts in the relative prevalence of certain plants over time, including increases in maize. Our results from starch grain, phytolith, and macrobotanical analysis complicate interpretation of previous pollen core dates, suggesting that maize was not as central as expected to the early inhabitants of the settlement. Moreover, with identification of macrobotanical remains recovered from flotation of sediments and extraction of microbotanical remains from adhering sediments and the surfaces of obsidian tools, we can compare the potential of each analysis in interpretations of plant use. No single method would have allowed recovery and identification of all the plants documented across sample types. The presence of botanical residues on the obsidian tools provides direct evidence of processing. Even in the small sample analyzed, we can recognize tools used exclusively for culinary processing, tools used only for non-culinary tasks, and multi-purpose tools.

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Dominant Plants Of The Maya Forest And Gardens Of El Pilar: Implications For Paleoenvironmental Reconstructions

Abstract: BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.

Cited by 50 publications

References 44 publications

The Marco Gonzalez Maya site, Ambergris Caye, Belize: Assessing the impact of human activities by examining diachronic processes at the local scale

The Marco Gonzalez Maya site, Ambergris Caye, Belize: Assessing the impact of human activities by examining diachronic processes at the local scale

Ancient Maya Agroforestry Echoing Through Spatial Relationships in the Extant Forest of NW Belize

Multi-Proxy Analysis of Plant use at Formative Period Los Naranjos, Honduras

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