With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Patricia McAnany and her colleagues will conduct two seasons of archaeological fieldwork at the site of K'axob, located in the tropical lowlands of Belize. Extensive prior work at the site by Dr. McAnany has indicated an extensive Mayan settlement which spans the development and the classical period of Mayan prehistory. Associated with the settlement are a series of agricultural features, termed `raised fields` which consist of raised elongated `fields` and canals or drainage ditches which separate them. Dr. McAnany wishes to understand how and when these fields were constructed, how long they were used and just what crops were grown on them. She wants to compare changes in settlement pattern and size with development and changes in the field system. To accomplish this she will: 1. construct a complete ground-truthed map of the wetland canal and island-field system at K'axob; 2. conduct archaeological excavation of a statistically significant sample of island fields and canals drawn from a known sampling frame; 3. use optical microscopy for micromorphological analysis of wetland sediments to clarify formation processes; 4 apply magnetic susceptibility and total phosphate analysis to sediment columns to facilitate the discrimination of depositional sequences; 6. synthesize the chronology and stratigraphically derived excavations with that of settlement excavations in the adjacent uplands. The lowland Maya flourished and lived in large groups in a harsh tropical lowland environment which is essentially uninhabited today. Archaeologists wish to understand the agricultural practices which permitted this florescence and to trace how these developed and changed over time. To date no consensus exists and scientists disagree strongly on the age of these occurrences and just how they functioned. Dr. McAnany's carefully designed project should provide an answer to these questions. The work is also important for the insight it can shed on wetland management and many of the data may be relevant to management practices today. It appears that the Mayan people were able to utilize wetlands for extended periods of time and use them for agricultural production without destroying their essential nature. The results of this project will be of interest to many scientists. It will provide data of potential use for wetland management and shed new light on the subsistence practices of prehistoric Mayan peoples.
