THE HYDROLOGY OF WETLAND FIELDS LANDESQUE CAPITAL IN THE MAYA LOWLANDS (Invited Presentation)

Over the course of the last 2 decades we have explored, mapped, excavated, and modeled wetland agricultural fields of the ancient Maya in the tropical Maya Lowlands, as a subset of water control features. We have also traced springs groundwater, and streams as potential water sources for these features. These features have a remarkable diversity of structure, hydrologic situations and potential functions, and required much organization and labor input. This paper presents a typology of the Wetland fields we have examined thus far, and characterizes their geologic, hydrologic, and geomorphic settings and water sources, and other ancient landesque capital with which they are associated. The wetland agricultural features we have explored occur in multiple watersheds of the karstic and normally faulted Three Rivers Region of Northwestern Belize spanning Blue Creek/Rio Azul, the Rio Hondo, Rio Bravo, and the Booths River systems, and in the Buenavista Valley watersheds of the Peten of Guatemala. Some of these wetland field systems have water during the dry seasons today, demonstrating their hydraulic engineering and situation near more persistent water sources. We present a special focus on the sites of Chan Cahal, Birds of Paradise, the Rio Bravo fields near Wari Camp, Chawak But’o’ob, and Sierra de Agua/Wamil fields of Northwestern Belize, and wetlands and related hydrologic infrastructure we have investigated near El Zotz, El Palmar, and La Cuernavilla in Guatemala. Our evidence is derived from field survey and mapping, remote sensing and Lidar analysis, excavation, geochemistry, and other paleoenvironmental proxies.