Chan: An Ancient Maya Farming Community

5. Agroforestry and Agricultural Production of the Ancient Maya at Chan

5 Agroforestry and Agricultural Production of the Ancient Maya at Chan David Lentz, Sally Woods, Angela Hood, and Marcus Murph Excavations at the Chan community have revealed a remarkable paleoethnobotanical record that extends for two millennia, providing rich detail of past plant use practices in the upper Belize River drainage. Through the considerable time depth offered by the archaeological stratigraphy at Chan and a painstakingly recovered paleoethnobotanical assemblage, an extended chronological record of the plant exploitation strategies and regional forest history has gradually emerged. Analysis of more than 1,500 samples of macroremains and flotation-extracted plant materials from Chan brings to light shifting plant use practices and changes in forest extractive patterns from the Preclassic to the Early Postclassic periods. The Chan community rests on the southern edge of an almost level limestone plateau in western Belize that is floristically and geologically similar to the southern half of the Yucatan Peninsula and the northern Petén region of Guatemala. Following the Holdridge system, the vegetation has been classified as subtropical moist forest (Hartshorn et al. 1984), but it is often described simply as lowland tropical forest (for example, Nations 2006). Variable soil conditions create a variety of vegetation subtypes in the region including savannas, marshes, and deciduous forests of varying species composition. In poorly drained low areas there are freshwater lagoons dominated by logwood or tinta trees (Haematoxylon campechianum). For the most part, however, the vegetation in the lands around the Chan community today is a mosaic of farmland and lowland tropical forest. Dominant forest species include Manilkara zapota (sapodilla or chico zapote), Swietenia macrophylla (mahogany), Brosimum alicastrum (breadnut or ramón), Protium copal (copal), Chrysophila stauracantha (give-and-take palm), Bursera simaruba (gumbolimbo), Pimenta dioica (allspice), Calophyllum 90 · D. Lentz, S. Woods, A. Hood, and M. Murph brasiliense (Santa Maria), Simarouba glauca (negrito), Metopium brownei (black poison wood), Attalea cohune (cohune palm), Acosmium panamense (Billy Webb), Spondias mombin (hogplum), and other genera of tree species such as Pouteria, Trichilia, Ocotea, Nectandra, Zanthoxylum, Sabal, Cocoloba , and Ficus. A wide variety of small trees, palms, lianas, and shrubs make up the understory of the forest (Balick et al. 2000). Following clearance , terrain covered with tropical forest provides the preferred agricultural land because these forests are rooted in the most fertile soils of the region. The pronounced seasonality with both wet and dry seasons is a challenge for farmers in the area today because of the unpredictability of the onset of the rainy season, and it must have been so for the ancient Maya farmers at Chan, too. Just 17 km to the south of Chan, in the headwaters of the Macal River, lies the pine ridge area, which represents the northern edge of the Maya Mountains. As the name suggests, the dominant vegetation in the pine ridge area is pine forest, probably much today as it was in Preclassic times. This region has soils derived from metamorphic and igneous parent materials that are highly weathered and extremely poor in nutrients. In general, the vegetation can be characterized as an upland savanna with a climatic pattern that is both cooler and drier than the region immediately to the north, which includes the Chan community. The forests of the pine ridge area are dominated by Caribbean pine (Pinus caribaea var. hondurensis), but there are stands of another pine species, P. oocarpa, in the southern part of the zone (Balick et al. 2000). Although the soils are not conducive to exploitation by agriculturalists, other valuable resources from this zone made it a target for extractive activities in ancient Maya times. For several centuries during the Classic and Preclassic periods, this area served as a source of useful commodities, such as slate, granite, and as indicated by recent research, pine forest products (Lentz et al. 2005). Methods Soil samples designated for processing by water flotation (10 liters per sample ) were routinely collected from each cultural stratum excavated, then floated in a modified Ankara type flotation tank (Pearsall 1989) specially built for the Chan project paleoethnobotanical study. Macrobotanical remains observed during excavations were set aside, then packaged for shipment to the University of Cincinnati Paleoethnobotanical Laboratory for Agroforestry and Agricultural Production at Chan · 91 analysis. All ancient plant remains were examined with a Wild M5 binocular microscope adjustable from 6 to 60 magnifications. Burned wood or charcoal remains were particularly numerous among the plant remains recovered, and after careful examination and identification, we...