We address inherited models of agriculture in the lowlands: the limitations of the environment (finding more affordances than anticipated by earlier models) the homogeneity of agricultural strategies (finding more heterogeneity of strategies across the lowlands than a single rigid template) the centrality of maize in agriculture (finding more reliance on root crops and tree crops than historically documented) the focus on the milpa system as food base (finding more agroforestry, homegardening, horticulture, and wild resource management than previously documented) the dominance of swidden strategies in agricultural practices (finding more diverse practices than accounted for in most models) and the foregrounding of maize crop failure in collapse models (finding more evidence of resilience and sustainable agricultural practices than predicted).Īgriculture in tropical environments takes many forms, as agricultural practices are diverse and even definitions of “tropical environment” vary widely. We focus on pre-Columbian agricultural regimes in the Maya Lowlands, using new datasets of archaeological wood charcoal, seeds, phytoliths, and starch grains biological properties of plants and contemporary Indigenous practices.
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