Certain Mayan agricultural customs affected the environment, particularly with strong negative impacts on tropical forests due to burning of trees and the construction of waterways to guarantee wetlands, according to a University of Texas (UT) report in Austin.
By increasing CO2 from burning and methane from planting, and by affecting the ecosystem with the construction of canals in large areas, Mayan agricultural uses affected the environment, the research said Monday, based on a large study Areas of ancestral crops in Belize, published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
The analysis, the first of its kind to combine images of wetlands with data obtained by anthropological excavations, found that the wetland complex known as Birds of Paradise in Belize was "five times larger than previously discovered."
Similarly, another wetland complex could be identified even larger than that of Birds of Paradise , with which the researchers claim that the Maya caused "wider anthropogenic impacts, more intense and earlier" than previously known.
By combining digital images of elevation models, scientists obtained one that "reverts to the past" and represents an approximate reality of the Mayan ancestral ecosystem.
"Now we begin to understand the complete human imprint (of the geological era) of the Anthropocene in tropical forests," said Tim Beach, lead author of the study and professor at the UT Department of Geography and Environment in Austin.
According to the study, this Mesoamerican civilization faced "serious environmental pressures," including an "increase in ocean levels in the Preclassic and Classic periods, between 3,000 and 1,000 years ago."
They also suffered droughts during the end of the Classic Period and the beginning of the Postclassic Period (between 1,200 and 900 years ago.
The response to these environmental adversities by the Maya was to convert forests into wetlands and dig channels to manage water quality and quantity.
In addition, large population increases led to the need for significant increases in food production in the Late Preclassic and Early Postclassic periods, about 1800 years ago.
According to the report, the Maya expanded the network of fields and canals accessible by canoe throughout their territory.
"The largest premodern increase in methane occurred 2000 to 1000 years ago, and coincides with the increase in the Mayan wetland networks," the research said.
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