In the years since Anabel Ford met the Mayan people of El Pilar between Belize and Guatemala in 1983, the anthropologist of studies and director of the Mesoathst-American Research Center at UC Santa Barbara has faithful his career to documentation and preservation of the ancient site.
Now, a new $289806 grant from the National Science Foundation will allow Ford and his team of archaeologists, botanists, geographers, palinologists and pedoologists to drive on how the Maya built and maintained dense settlements in the rainforest.
“We know what geographic characteristics influence the former Mayan colonies,” said Ford, whose team includes co-lead researcher Keith Clarke, a professor in UCSB’s Department of Geography.
“To ask this question, we want a survey of colonies for archaeology, soil for fertility, plants for the environment, topography for landscape base and modeling for geography,” he said.
“This scholarship will bring our comparative knowledge with soil studies through paedologists and research of plants and pollen through botanists from EcoSur Mexico,” Ford said. “They are running in the Mayan forest and will bring new and exciting perspectives on colonization and environmental problems.”
The grant will also allow Ford to complete the mapping of the El Pilar Archaeological Reserve for Mayan Flora and Fauna, which covers 5,000 acres or 2,000 hectares. Remotely detected Lidar images, as well as knowledge of the disciplines on the site, will be used through Clarke to build models of agricultural land sustainability and human environmental impacts.
“We want soil and plant knowledge to integrate the colony’s study and compile a new map with all the variables to read about and subsistence, and then move on to an in-depth examination of how the other people of El Pilar controlled the environment.” Ford said.
The assignment will also provide opportunities for students, professional colleagues and volunteers from the United States, Belize, Guatemala and Mexico to interact in research, according to Ford.
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“Researchers will expand local networks and partnerships by coordinating activities with network organizations, NGOs and government agencies to publicize greater clinical wisdom of prehistory and ecology of the Mayan lowlands,” he said.
“The new knowledge generated through this assignment will be available to all partners to help develop school assignment and progression plans,” he said.
Prior to Ford’s search in El Pilar, it was widely accepted that the Maya had disappeared due to overcrowding and environmental degradation. But in his paintings on the site, he showed that the Maya were in fact qualified forest stewards.
“Ecological imperialism was the de facto judge,” he said. “And the view has had an effect on the way you look at the landscape if you are looking for arable land to plow, and the Maya did not use a plow.”
“If what you are looking for is fertility and arable land, if it is through the hand, it is a completely different vision. In addition, the fact that the milpa cycle is fundamental. Agroforestry studies show that the price of the intimate view of the poly The cultural estate is so different from that of the typical traditional monoculture of the United States.”
In “The Maya Forest Garden: Eight Millennia of Sustain Cultivation of the Tropical Woodlands” (Routledge, 2015), which he co-wrote with Ronald Nigh, Ford examines how the milpa formula: a consciously controlled cycle of felling and tree development, the rotation that ends with the return of land to the forest – has been to maintain giant pre-Columbian populations.
And that destroying the environment through agriculture, as dictated by traditional wisdom, the maya milpa formula has taken a step forward in the soil and biodiversity of the forest.
It is also worth noting that Ford says that he “knew” El Pilar that he “discovered”, and that the remains of what was an important town are “monuments” and not “ruins”. The site has been around for millennia and its lifestyle has never been a secret to the Maya themselves.
“The so-called El Pilar on the maps I discovered even without mentioning the squares and temples, and as Columbus ‘discovering’ America, it is still there; I just helped put a price on the archaeological world,” Ford said.
“This is the explanation for why I use the word monument, not ruins: it inspires respect, gives firmness to the local network and values its observations and delights in El Pilar,” he said.
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