The primary theoretical question addressed in this book focuses on the lingering concern of how the ancient Maya in the northern Petén Basin were able to sustain large populations in the midst of a tropical forest environment during the Late Classic period. This book asks how agricultural intensification was achieved and how essential resources, such as water and forest products, were managed in both upland areas and seasonal wetlands, or bajos. All of these activities were essential components of an initially sustainable land use strategy that eventually failed to meet the demands of an escalating population. This spiraling disconnect with sound ecological principles undoubtedly contributed to the Maya collapse. The book's findings provide insights that broaden the understanding of the rise of social complexity - the expansion of the political economy, specifically - and, in general terms, the trajectory of cultural evolution of the ancient Maya civilization.

Formato	Tapa suave
Número de Páginas	371
Lenguaje	Inglés
Editorial	Cambridge University Press
Fecha de Publicación	2019-11-28
Dimensiones	10.0" x 7.0" x 0.77" pulgadas
Letra Grande	No
Con Ilustraciones	No
Temas	Arqueológico, América Latina, Nativo Americano

Scarborough, Vernon L.

"Vernon L. Scarborough is Distinguished University Research Professor and Charles Phelps Taft Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Cincinnati. His work emphasizes sustainability and global water systems through an examination of past engineered landscapes, using comparative ecological and transdisciplinary perspectives. In addition to editing Water and Humanity: A Historical Overview for UNESCO, he is a steering committee member of the Integrated History and Future of People on Earth (IHOPE) network, whose main office is located at Uppsala University, and an active organizer of the subgroup IHOPE-Maya. He is a senior editor for the journal WIREs Water and a series editor for Cambridge University Press's New Directions in Sustainability and Society series. He has published ten books - eight of them edited, including this volume - and authored more than ninety book chapters or journal articles."

Dunning, Nicholas P.

Nicholas P. Dunning is Professor of Geography at the University of Cincinnati. He is a geoarchaeologist and cultural ecologist specializing in the neotropics. He has published several books and more than ninety articles and book chapters, including those in this volume.

Lentz, David L.

David L. Lentz is Professor of Biological Sciences and Executive Director of the Center for Field Studies at the University of Cincinnati. He is the author of more than ninety publications that have appeared as journal articles, book chapters, and three books, including this volume. He is the editor of Imperfect Balance: Landscape Transformations in the Precolumbian Americas (2000) and the coauthor of Seeds of Central America and Southern Mexico (2005, with Ruth Dickau). A Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and a former Fulbright Scholar, he has received support for his ancient landscape studies and paleoethnobotanical research from the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Geographic Society, the Heinz Family Foundation, and the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies.