TALK: Agriculture and Landscape in Maya Forest:
An Alternative Environmental History
Anabel Ford (ISBER, UCSB)
Monday, November 13 / 5:00 PM
McCune Conference Room, HSSB 6020
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Existing interpretations of Maya agricultural practices
depend on occidental perspectives on agricultural practice,
failing to recognize the cultural legacy of the Maya
forest garden. Overwhelming evidence that the forest
ecosystems are largely anthropogenic allows a reexamination
of the Maya data. By integrating data from archaeology,
ethnology, economic botany, ecology and agro-forestry
with paleoclimatic research, Ford argues that the Maya
developed skills and knowledge from more than 5,000 years
of continuous intimate contact with Neotropical ecosystems.
Far from destroying habitat, these practices provide
insights relevant to conservation of the region and the
survival of the forest and its people. Dr. Anabel Ford
is an archaeologist who has studied the ancient Maya
landscape for three decades, focusing on its forest environment
and its role in the development of the Mesoamerican civilizations.
In 1983 she was the first archaeologist to discover and
map the great center of El Pilar. Ford won a Rolex Award
for Enterprise for spearheading a major binational park
embracing 5000 hectares in Belize and Guatemala, the
El Pilar Archaeological Reserve for Maya Flora and Fauna,
where the legacy of the Maya thrive in a living museum.
Sponsored by the IHC’s Archaeology Research Focus
Group
