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175 8 Feeding the Masses New Perspectives on Maya Agriculture from Cerén, El Salvador Christine C. Dixon The Classic period (ca. AD 250–950) Maya site of Cerén, located in El Salvador, is well-known in archaeological literature for its rapid burial in volcanic ash and its subsequent exceptional preservation of a moment 1,400 years ago (ca. AD 600) (Sheets 2002). Historically, research on the Classic period Maya has emphasized exotic royal artifacts, the uppermost echelons of ancient Maya society, and the political interactions of competing polities (Sharer 2006; Willey et al. 1965). Excavations of the Cerén site have greatly contributed to larger scholarship investigating daily life at the household and village levels, which has served to correct an overemphasis on elites and top-down approaches present in Maya archaeology (Robin 2003). The preservation of the Cerén village facilitates a careful reconstruction of quotidian activities of commoners in the sixth and seventh centuries. Since 1979, excavations at Cerén have revealed remarkable in situ artifacts and standing municipal, special, and domestic structures (Sheets 2002, 2006). The preservation of entire agricultural fields is equally spectacular. Remnants of agriculture from this time period rarely survive to the present day; thus, Cerén affords powerful insight into a lesser-known but very important component of ancient life. This chapter explores how previous and recent research on Cerén agriculture might influence and affect understanding of Classic Maya agricultural production. A review of traditional models illustrating the interplay of population and agriculture in studies of the Maya area provides a context in which to assess the potential implications of the latest Cerén discoveries. The specific location and environment of Cerén are outlined, and the results of recent research at the site, including both geophysical findings and the 2007 excavations, are presented and compared with what was previously known from the site. As a result of its extraordinary preservation, evidence from Cerén is poised to contribute to larger discussions of the interplay of population and agriculture. Specifically, understandings of how dense Maya populations were possibly sustained christine c. dixon 176 might be informed by the unexpected finding in 2007 of carefully cultivated manioc fields near the Cerén village. POPULATION AND AGRICULTURE IN THE MAYA AREA Literature of the Maya region has long grappled with estimating Classic period demography and the likely agricultural systems needed to sustain various population densities (Turner 1978). The predominant canon of agricultural system and population density in the Maya area has been one of dispersed Classic Maya populations dependent on expansive swidden, or slash-and-burn, cultivation of maize and the secondary crops of beans and squash (Harrison and Turner 1978; Sharer 1994; Turner 1978). This model of swidden maize agriculture is typically presented as a labor- and land-extensive system, resulting in relatively low yields per unit area, yet swidden agriculture often produces a high yield per unit of effort (Morrison and Andersen 2006). Thus, given the expansive land use required for this agricultural system, swidden maize agriculture is thought to have been able to sustain only a low, dispersed population, such as those witnessed by early explorers of the Maya area (Dobyns 1966; Sharer 1994). Prior to the mid-twentieth century, most scholars subscribed to a view of the Maya as peaceful, dispersed farmers who gathered at large centers for religious devotion (Gann and Thompson 1931; Sanders 1973). Accounts written as early as the sixteenth century document low population densities in the Maya area and extensive swidden agriculture of maize, beans, and squash. The writings of Bishop Diego de Landa include a description of plants available to the Maya, such as multiple colors of maize, two kinds of beans, peppers, melons, millet , and unnamed root crops (Gates 1978, 103). De Landa depicted slash-and-burn field preparation, the use of digging sticks in planting, and the reliance on maize in Maya communities of the northern Yucatan Peninsula (Gates 1978, 38–39). During the nineteenth century, explorers not only described the extant Maya populations they encountered but also provided new theoretical hypotheses about the ancient Maya. John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood (1841) put forth perhaps one of the first explicit swidden hypotheses for the ancient Maya, based on their observations of Central America in the nineteenth century (Turner 1978). Stephens and Catherwood wrote, “Indian corn, however, is the great staple, and the cultivation of this probably differs but little now from the system followed by the Indians before the conquest...

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