A5030484338- Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
- Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
- Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond
- Archaeological Research and Protection
- Archaeology and Natural History
- Latin American history and culture
- Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory
- Maritime and Coastal Archaeology
- Isotope Analysis in Ecology
- Cryospheric studies and observations
- Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
- Marine and environmental studies
- Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies
- Landslides and related hazards
- Botany and Geology in Latin America and Caribbean
- Methane Hydrates and Related Phenomena
- 3D Surveying and Cultural Heritage
- Geological formations and processes
- Aeolian processes and effects
- Climate change and permafrost
- Karst Systems and Hydrogeology
- Water-Energy-Food Nexus Studies
- Remote Sensing and LiDAR Applications
- Water resources management and optimization
- Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology
The University of Texas at Austin
2015-2024
George Mason University
2002-2016
John Wiley & Sons (United States)
2016
Episodes of population loss and cultural change, including the famous Classic Collapse, punctuated long course Maya civilization. In many cases, these downturns in fortunes individual sites entire regions included significant environmental components such as droughts or anthropogenic degradation. Some afflicted areas remained depopulated for periods, whereas others recovered more quickly. We examine dynamics growth decline several Lowlands terms both resilience with a focus on that occurred...
We report on a large area of ancient Maya wetland field systems in Belize, Central America, based airborne lidar survey coupled with multiple proxies and radiocarbon dates that reveal uses chronology. The indicated four main areas complexes, including the Birds Paradise complex is five times larger than earlier remote ground had indicated, revealed previously unknown even larger. date mainly to Late Terminal Classic (∼1,400-1,000 y ago), but evidence from as early Preclassic (∼1,800 ago)...
The conjunctive use of paleoecological and archaeological data to document past human-environment relationships has become a theoretical imperative in the study ancient cultures. Geographers are playing leading roles this scholarly effort. Synthesizing both types data, we argue that large karst depressions known as bajos Maya Lowlands region were anthropogenically transformed from perennial wetlands shallow lakes seasonal swamps between 400 bc ad 250. This environmental transformation helps...
Getting at the Maya Collapse has both temporal and geographic dimensions, because it occurred over centuries great distances. This requires a wide range of research sites proxy records, ranging from lake cores to geomorphic evidence, such as stratigraphy speleothems. article synthesizes these lines together with previously undescribed findings on wetland formation use in key region near heart central Lowlands. Growing evidence point dryer periods history, which correlate major transition....
The objective of this project is to create a new implementation deep learning model that uses digital elevation data detect shipwrecks automatically and rapidly over large geographic area. This work intended apply methodology the field underwater archaeology. Shipwrecks represent major resource understand maritime human activity millennia, but archaeology expensive, misappropriated, hazardous. An automated tool map can therefore be used more accurate maps natural archaeological features aid...
Research on human and environmental interactions in the Maya Lowlands has included important case studies of ancient water soil management, impacts climatic fluctuations, diverse agricultural adaptations over millennia. Studies also have shed light landscape formation, including past periods erosion aggradation several parts these tropical lowlands. This study uses water, soils, radiocarbon, archaeological data to determine quantity, timing, causes Belize's Three Rivers region a series sinks...
Abstract
Forty-three years later these words still ring true, but are too seldom followed (Fedick 1996). For several years, we have been engaged in a multidisciplinary programme of research northwestern Belize and neighbouring areas Guatemala, eliciting comprehensive, integrated picture changing ancient Maya landscapes (Scarborough & Dunning 1996; Valdez et al. 1997). Our goals include reconstructive correlation environmental cultural history, including the relationship between changes water land...
The Pakbeh Regional Economy Program is studying the vexing questions of economic life among ancient Maya in northwestern Yucatan, Mexico. region constitutes an ideal laboratory which to investigate these questions, as it has very limited agricultural potential and fewer options for intensification than are found southern central lowlands, yet many times more people lived here during Classic period can eke out a living today, abundant evidence market trade. Because crop yields outfields low,...
This is the first article to characterize soil and fluvial geomorphology of Rio Bravo’s fluviokarst watershed in Bravo Conservation Management Area, northwestern Belize. Although has had little-altered tropical forest cover since c. 1000 BP, humans inhabited it for millennia, especially during Maya Preclassic Classic, 3000–1000 BP. We studied soils floodplain formation four excavation transects understand long-term human impacts on this watershed. Archaic ( 3000–1700 BP) sedimentation rates...
Of multiple ways to assess the geography of early Anthropocene, three ongoing efforts are establishing extent, intensity, and chronology human impacts on landscapes connecting global change through greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes. Landscapes interact with GHGs, these have climate implications. LiDAR, capable precisely mapping forest gaps, has revolutionized our ability characterize quantify humanized landscapes. In many cases, though, LiDAR is only as good its accompanying ground verification....