Beyond Determinism?

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2004, 2005, 2007). To scholars the most obvious proxy for wealth is jade, or more properly, jadeite and nephrite, the most precious stones in the. Maya world.
Archaeological Review from Cambridge V o l u m e

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N o v e m b e r

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B eyond D e te rminism? Engagement and Response in Human-Environment Interactions

ANNO • DOM

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Edited by Robyn H. Inglis and Alexander J.E. Pryor

About ARC

The Archaeological Review from Cambridge is a bi-annual journal of archaeology. It is run on a non-profit, voluntary basis by postgraduate research students at the University of Cambridge. Although primarily rooted in archaeological theory and practice, ARC increasingly invites a range of perspectives with the aim of establishing a strong, interdisciplinary journal which will be of interest in a range of fields. Archaeological Review from Cambridge Department of Archaeology University of Cambridge Downing Street Cambridge CB2 3DZ UK http://www.societies.cam.ac.uk/arc

Volume 24.2 Theme Editors



Robyn H. Inglis and Alexander J.E. Pryor

Production



Leonie Pett

Cover artwork Matthew Dalton Published in November 2009. Copyright remains with the authors. Opinions expressed in contributions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors. All images are the authors’ own except where otherwise stated. ISSN 0261-4332 Committee, Archaeological Review from Cambridge November 2009 General Editors Tera Pruitt Alexander Pryor Treasurer Donna Yates Secretary Skylar Neil

Book Reviews Victoria Pía Spry-Marqués

Publicity and Events Danika Parikh

Layout Leonie Pett

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Subscriptions Robyn Inglis

IT Manager Mark Sapwell

Contents Introduction Robyn H. Inglis and Alexander J.E. Pryor

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Issues in Current Archaeological Research on Human-Environment Interactions: Perspectives from South Asia V. Selvakumar

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Scoping the Past Human Environment: A Case Study of Pollen Taphonomy at the Haua Fteah, Cyrenaica, Libya David J. Simpson and Chris O. Hunt

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A Strong Climatic Component to the Gravettian Occupation of Central Europe Clea Paine

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Climate Change and the Broad Spectrum Revolution in Europe? Sarah Roberts

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The First of a Series of Disasters? Pompeii and the Aftermath of an Early Bronze Age Eruption Monica Nilsson

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Understanding the Causes of Abandonment in the Maya Lowlands Thomas Guderjan, Timothy Beach, Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach and Steven Bozarth

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Changing Attitudes Towards Wilderness in Early Modern Northern Finland Anna-K aisa Puputti

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Situating Nature: Exploring Perceptions of Human-Environment Interactions in Medieval Western Europe c. AD 800-1550 Andrew Seaman

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Beyond Diversity: A Commentary Terry O'Connor

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Book Reviews—Edited by Victoria Pía Spry-Marqués

Mesolithic Europe edited by Geoff Bailey and Penny Spikins

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Gender Through Time in the Ancient Near East edited by Diane Bolger

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The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans edited by William V. Harris

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Ancestral Zuni Glaze-Decorated Pottery: Viewing Pueblo IV Regional Organization through Ceramic Production and Exchange by Deborah L. Huntley

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Childhood in the Past: An International Journal, Volume 1. edited by Eileen Murphy

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Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition edited by Christopher M. Woolgar, Dale Serjeantson and Tony Waldron

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Preserving the Cultural Heritage of Africa: Crisis or Renaissance? Edited by Kenji Yoshida and John Mack

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Forthcoming Issues

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Subscription Information

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Available Back Issues

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— Andrea L. Balbo

— Kirsten M. Bedigan

— Darrell J. Rohl

— Kit Nelson

— Gabriel Moshenska

— David Klingle

— Sarah Foster

Understanding the Causes of Abandonment in the Maya Lowlands Thomas Guderjan 1, Timothy Beach 2, Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach 3 and Steven Bozarth 4 Department of Social Sciences, University of Texas at Tyler1 Centre for the Environment, School of Foreign Science, Georgetown University2 Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science, George Mason University3 Department of Geography, University of Kansas4 [email protected]

Introduction

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odels that emphasise strict environmental causation for major human events such, as the collapse of structures of power and authority in the southern Maya lowlands of Mexico and Central America at AD 800–1000, are overly simplistic, deterministic and fail to acknowledge the role of human agency. To understand how human agency interacts with the environment, we must detect behaviour in the archaeological record that reflects both responses to, and causes of, environmental change. With this recognition, we seek to understand the dynamic relationships between humans and their environments at the ancient Maya site of Blue Creek, Belize. Our approach is to understand Blue Creek’s environmental setting and to examine the Maya’s agricultural and economic interaction with their environment. Additionally, we seek to compare these data with information related to settlement Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambridge - 24. 2 - 20 09

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expansion and construction of new agricultural systems during the Late Classic period. Further, we have collected detailed and nuanced data that demonstrate that areas of the community were being abandoned while other parts experienced revitalisation. In this paper, we present partial results of 17 years of fieldwork focusing on the chronology and nature of agricultural systems, and the behavioural events and processes that we can detect in the Late and Terminal Classic periods related to their abandonment. Blue Creek can be viewed as a microcosm of larger processes that can help us understand the role of human agency in depopulation at the end of the Classic period and the collapse of Maya social complexity. There is a long history of scholarship regarding how complex society ends, especially in the case of the ancient Maya civilisation (Culbert 1973; Demarest et al. 2004; Morley 1946; Webster 2002; Yaeger and Hodell 2008). While human relationships with the environment include both successes and failures, recent popular treatments, such as Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse! by Jared Diamond (1997, 2005) lead many to see the demise of complex society only through the lens of environmental determinism. Such a simplistic view ignores the role of human agency in the success and failure of ancient societies in times of environmental change. The case of the ancient Maya is particularly important as their complex society had collapsed a half millennium before its first encounters with Europeans. Moreover, there were other significant transitions in Maya history at the end of the Preclassic and between the Early and Late Classic (Dunning and Beach in press). As the Maya ‘collapse’ was not caused by European invaders, the Maya offer us a laboratory in which to study the internal events and processes that led to the destruction of their civilisation. In this paper, we review the extant information we see in northwest Belize in our study area centred on the city of Blue Creek and its neighbours in modern Belize, Mexico and Guatemala. Blue Creek has been the focus of annual, multi-disciplinary investigations since 1992 (Guderjan 1991, 2004, 2005, 2007; Guderjan et al. 2003a; Guderjan et al. 2003b; Guderjan et al. in press). This effort has produced a massive and important artefactual, Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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architectural, behavioural and environmental database that offers an increasingly detailed and nuanced perspective on the events and processes that preceded the abandonment of Blue Creek at the end of the Classic period.

Fig. 1. Map of Yucatan Peninsula showing location of Blue Creek and other sites (copyright Maya Research Project (MRP). Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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The Ancient Maya The term ‘Maya’ as used today refers to a large group of people, past and present, who are indigenous to southern Mexico (Chiapas, Tabasco, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo) and the Central American countries of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador and includes approximately 13 distinct languages (fig. 1). While many contemporary ‘Maya’ writers regard themselves as members of smaller ethnic groups (such as Mopan or Yucatec) and the very concept of ‘Maya’ as spurious, the larger concept of ‘Maya’ can well be applied to the large-scale, ancient complex society that developed in the region, roughly between 600 BC and AD 1200. The time known as the Classic Maya period (from approximately AD 250– 850) is when this region was at its most populous with some estimates placing population as high as 20 million (Culbert and Rice 1990). Since the complex society that we know as the ‘ancient Maya civilisation’ had ceased to exist as a political entity hundreds of years before the first European arrived, for many years we lacked understanding of basic questions, such as what was the nature of ancient Maya political organisation? We now generally believe that their political organisation was based on the principal of Ahau, or kingship, and that there were probably hundreds of independent kingdoms that engaged in alliance and warfare and were at times conquered by each other (Schele and Freidel 1990). Certainly, there are hundreds of archaeological sites that exhibit large public plazas surrounded by large-scale public-civic buildings known as ‘pyramids’, incorporating written records of royal history on stone monuments (stelae) and architecture that date from the Classic period (fig. 2). By AD 850–900, the construction of these edifices and public places came to a sudden end, especially in the southern part of the region. While significant changes also occurred in the northern lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula, the south was most affected and largely depopulated with concurrent collapse of central political authority. At Blue Creek for example, we estimate the population at approximately AD 800 as being in the range of 20,000 people (Guderjan 2007). By AD 900, there may have been as many as a few hundred people, or as few as none. Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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Fig. 2. Photograph of Maya pyramid at Uxmal in the northern Yucatan Peninsula (copyright MRP).

The Maya Site of Blue Creek Blue Creek is a medium-sized Maya centre and was occupied from approximately 600 BC until approximately AD 1000 (Guderjan 2004, 2007; Kosakowski and Lohse 2003). Spatially, the ‘greater’ Blue Creek area covers approximately 100–150km2 (Guderjan 2007; Lichtenstein 2000) in northwestern Belize (fig. 3). Nearly 500 ancient buildings have been documented and approximately 100 excavated in the 20 percent of this area that has been intensively surveyed. Excavations have been undertaken throughout this area and across all contextual zones. The result is a rich database of a wide range of archaeological information that is nearly unmatched in the Maya area. Blue Creek also offers the opportunity to study decline in a region that would have been little influenced by the projected Late Classic droughts (Hodell et al. 1995) because the region bestrides a zone of high water tables and the confluence of three rivers. Thus drought alone would have been an unlikely cause of decline, and Blue Creek should have persisted longer than the vast uplands to the west that are farther from perennial water sources. Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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At first appearance, Blue Creek is unexceptional: surrounding its main plaza are six buildings including Structure 1, nearly 15m tall (fig. 4). Two stelae were erected in the main plaza and there is a small ballcourt and royal residences in the central precinct (Guderjan 2007). From the end of the Late Preclassic period (AD 150–250) through the Early Classic period (AD 250–600), Blue Creek became a wealthy city Fig. 3. Map of Northern Belize showing sites mentioned in text (copyright MRP). (Guderjan 1998, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2007). To scholars the most obvious proxy for wealth is jade, or more properly, jadeite and nephrite, the most precious stones in the Maya world. Jade was only available from a small and remote source area several hundred kilometres south of Blue Creek along the Motagua river, which forms the modern border between Honduras and Guatemala. Further, jade was only owned by the elites of Maya society. One of the largest collections of Maya jade comes from Blue Creek. This is perplexing as similarly large collections of Maya jade have only been found in the largest cities (Calakmul and Tikal), a city near the source (Copan) and at Cancuen, a palace of one of the most powerful royal families (Guderjan 1998, 2007; Kovacevich 2006). Excavations of dozens of similarly sized cities have yielded no such display of wealth. Aside from jade, Blue Creek had access to many other exotic goods, including grinding stones made of metamorphic rocks, obsidian tools and sponges from the Caribbean coast (Haines 2000; Pastrana 1999). The amount and kinds Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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of exotic goods indicate that Blue Creek was wealthy far beyond other cities of its size. When first confronted with the reality that Blue Creek was a far wealthier city than we had anticipated, we began to seek to understand what created that wealth. Deeper investigation shows that Blue Creek’s wealth derives from their leaders’ abilities to manipulate control over some of the richest and most extensive agricultural soils in Central America (Guderjan 2007; Guderjan et al. 2003a) and access to the riverine trade system via the Río Hondo (Barrett and Guderjan 2006). Two major agricultural systems covered more than half of Blue Creek’s approximately 150km2: non-irrigated upland soils and ditched lowland soils (Guderjan 2007). Clearly Blue Creek’s wealth was based on its ability to produce agricultural products far in excess of its needs, and to readily enter these goods into long-distance systems of trade and transport. These zones are divided by a 100–150 metre high limestone escarpment and its fertile but thin backslope soils and terraces (Beach et al. 2002). Above and west of the escarpment, the terrain consists of eroded limestone hills separated by seasonally wet, karstic sinks with large expanses of rich, clayey soils, known as bajos and bajitos and ranging in size from 1 to 40km2. Below the escarpment are equally rich soils, but these were subject to seasonal inundation Fig. 4. Plan view of central precinct of Blue Creek (copyright MRP). Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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Fig. 5. Map of components of Blue Creek (copyright MRP).

and excess gypsum accumulation that could have lead to complete crop losses. To prevent this, the Blue Creek Maya dug hundreds of kilometres of ditches to drain these fields (Baker 2003; Beach and Luzzadder-Beach 2004, 2005; Beach et al. 2002; Beach et al. 2009; Guderjan 2007; LuzzadderBeach and Beach 2009). These broad expanses of agricultural lands separate outlying residential neighbourhoods or barrios, each with unique characteristics (figs 5, 6). For example, one of these, Kín Tan, located one kilometre west Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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of the central precinct, consists of a group of large masonry residences built through the Classic period (fig. 7). These housed important lineages in the political fabric of Blue Creek for nearly a millennium. Around AD 150– 250, they buried their lineage founder under a shrine in the midst of their largest residences. Not long afterward, another important male, perhaps the founder’s son or grandson, was buried in front of the shrine and the shrine was expanded to incorporate his tomb. Judging from the evidence of continued expansion, construction and wealth, this was the home to a family of apparently ever-increasing political and economic strength at Blue Creek for another 600 years (Guderjan and Hanratty 2006; Guderjan et al. 2003b; Hanratty 2002). Conversely, other barrios never attained the power and authority of Kín Tan. Examples include Sayap Ha and Chan Cahal, located east of the central precinct and surrounded by ditched agricultural fields (Guderjan 2007). The residents of Sayap Ha never had Kín Tan’s wealth and most lived in humble thatch-roofed, wooden pole homes and had little in the way of valuable and exotic possessions (fig. 8).

Increasing Population Size Throughout our excavations at Blue Creek, we see increasing numbers of residential structures in the Late Classic period (Guderjan 2007). This is presumably the consequence of increased population size, however shifts from pole-and-thatch that would leave little archaeological evidence of highly visible masonry construction could account for part of this pattern. Region–wide, there is ample evidence for increased population sizes in the Late Classic (Culbert and Rice 1990). Immediately south and west of Blue Creek, populations at their Late Classic maximum may have been three to eight times as high as in the Early Classic (Adams et al. 2004). While there are serious methodological issues that may cause underestimation of Early Classic populations (Sagabiel 2005; Sullivan and Valdez 1996), it is still clear that Late Classic populations expanded rapidly. The increasing population size is evident at the residential barrio of U Xulil Beh, a small, informally clustered group of 22 visible housemounds with no monumental architecture or larger residential structures (fig. 9) located approximately 2.5km southwest of the Blue Creek public precinct (Guderjan 2007; Guderjan et al. 2003a; Lichtenstein 2000). Unlike all other Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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Fig. 6. Aerial view of Kín Tan (foreground) and Central Precinct (mid-ground). Kín Tan is surrounded by modern agricultural fields (copyright MRP).

Fig. 7. Map of Kín Tan (copyright MRP). Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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documented residential groups, U Xulil Beh has no central place such as a shrine or small pyramid and lacks access to the high quality agricultural soils controlled by other groups such as Kin Tan and Rosita. Instead, the group is bounded on three sides by erosional cuts more than 10m deep (Guderjan 2007; Guderjan et al. 2003a; Lichtenstein 2000). Dating the founding and occupation of U Xulil Beh has proven complex. When first identified, several test pits were excavated that indicated the residences did not exhibit the multiple floors, refurbishing or Early Classic burials so commonly seen elsewhere (Lichtenstein 2000), indicating that U Xulil Beh was probably a late occupation. Further, dating by ceramic analysis was problematic because of the lack of high status ceramics, the lack of sealed contexts and the eroded nature of many sherds. Nevertheless, several analysts felt strongly that the badly eroded ceramics dated to the Late Classic period. Renewed excavations in 2008 confirmed U Xulil Beh’s Late Classic date (Guderjan et al. 2009). The 2008 excavations confirmed that these terraces were artificial, agricultural features. However, they had limited agricultural potential with soil depths of 10cm or less above the limestone bedrock as contrasted with the many metre-deep, highly fertile soils elsewhere at Blue Creek. In summary, U Xulil Beh seems to be a later expansion of the Blue Creek population into a marginal, low resource area. This situation was repeated many times over in the region as ancient populations grew dramatically at the end of the Classic period, creating stress on the relationship between humans and their environment (Adams et al. 2004; Hageman and Lohse 2003). While the residents of U Xulil Beh produced some agricultural goods, perhaps for their own consumption, they did not participate in the large-scale production of other residential areas. Since our surveys have not often extended into marginal areas, it remains uncertain whether U Xulil Beh is an anomaly or representative of a larger pattern of expansion. It is also uncertain whether the inhabitants of U Xulil Beh derived from existing Blue Creek lineages or were immigrants. However, the group represents a clear case of population expansion near the end of the Classic period.

Increased Stress on Upland Agricultural Systems Detailed information about upland agriculture practices in backslopes—bajos and bajitos—are lacking since most of them are presently used for modern, Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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mechanised farming that has destroyed archaeological evidence of their past use. Repeated surveys of ploughed fields indicate that there was no habitation in them, despite the intensive habitation on the adjacent hills. Further, significant energy was expended to increase productivity on the margins of these soils at Blue Creek; here we find agricultural terraces, cross-channel features such as check dams and growing platforms constructed along the margins of the bajos and bajitos (Guderjan 2007). In one well-documented case in the area, dozens of terrace features were recorded on the slopes and margins of single karstic hills (Beach et al. 2002; Weiss-Krejcu and Sabbas 2002). These features are notoriously difficult to date, but ceramics from them most likely date to the Late Classic period. The Late Classic Maya were not only growing in numbers but also going to considerable lengths to expand the agricultural output as much as possible, even if the expansions were relatively trivial. Since it is very likely that they were producing products far beyond simple subsistence, even for the needs of a growing population, the Classic Maya at Blue Creek were probably attempting to expand their productivity for commercial purposes.

Fig. 8. Photograph of excavated house in Chan Cahal (copyright MRP). Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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Fig. 9. Map of U Xulil Beh (copyright MRP).

Alternatively, the Maya likely recognised that agricultural practices were causing significant soil erosion and declining productivity (Beach et al. 2008). We know, initially from sediment core samples from Guatemala’s Petén lakes, that ancient Maya cultivation practices caused large-scale erosion of hill slopes adjacent to the Petén lakes (Anselmetti et al 2007; Binford et al. 1983; Deevey et al. 1990). Not only did lacustrine aggradation dramatically increase during the Preclassic and Classic periods with increased agricultural pollen signatures, but topsoil was rapidly eroding. Subsoils were also eroding, marking a rapid decline in productivity. Through observations over nearly two decades, we have also observed that recently cleared soils erode very rapidly (Beach et al. 2008). Such observations follow arguments recently made by Montgomery (2007) that complex societies, including our own, often damage their agricultural base unknowingly as the rate of damage is beyond the scale of a human lifetime. We argue that the Late Classic terraces and other small agricultural features were built in response to this declining productivity.

Increased Stress on Lowland Agricultural Systems Beneath and east of the Bravo Escarpment are large expanses of ancient ditched fields (fig. 10). Soon after being located by the senior author, initial Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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Fig. 10. Aerial photograph of ancient agricultural ditches at base of Bravo Escarpment (copyright MRP).

investigations were conducted by Jeff Baker (2003). This work was followed by long-term investigations led by Tim Beach and Sheryl LuzzadderBeach (Beach et al. 2009). While Classic period agricultural practices taxed productivity in the uplands due to erosion and possibly nutrient depletion, the lowlands experienced the converse problem—deposition of large amounts of sedimentation alluvium that had eroded from the watershed and evaporate formation from the extremely hard groundwater. Recent work has defined a sequence of deposition in the lowlands pertinent to this discussion (Beach et al. 2008). Stage 1 (2500–600 BC) represents a period with relatively stable ground surfaces on which Maya agriculture began and a water table approximately two metres lower than today. Stage 2 represents aggradation of eroded soils from the uplands. Stage 3 (AD 120–700) represents the increasingly rapid aggradation from upland erosion and especially gypsum precipitation. This material is as much as two metres thick covering as many as 10–15km2. Stage 4 marks the construction of a massive network of ditches into the Stage 3 materials. We frame the date of this construction as being more recent than the sediments it intruded into (300 BC–AD 700) and later Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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than the earliest dates from the sedimentary infilling of these ditches (Stage 5: AD 870–1010). Importantly, a wide range of economically important crops—not all of them foods—were grown in these fields. Studies by Steven Bozarth (e.g. 2009) show considerable pollen and phytolith evidence for cultivation of fruit trees, including breadnut (Brosimum alicastrum), craboo or cha (Byrsonima species), caimito, agya or sebul (Chrysophyllum species), chicle macho, chiquibul or chicle (Manilkara species), Cacao (Theobroma cacao) or mountain cacao (T. bicolor), and avocado (Persia). At least one species of Marantaceae, probably platanillo (Pleiostachya pruinosa) or wild banana (Stromanthe hjalmarssonii), was grown for large leaves used as food wrappers and disposable plates. Additionally, maize (Zea mays) and sweet potato (Ipomoea) pollen were found.   The construction of the network of agricultural ditches that extends 1–2km eastward from the base of the Bravo Escarpment, and for many kilometres along the escarpment, was most likely not driven by intensification of agriculture, but by renewal of what were probably preexisting agricultural lands. These had been buried by alluvial aggradation at the same time that the water table was rising. This rising water table would have the effect of keeping these wetlands wet. These drainage ditches were dug to control the moisture levels in the agricultural plants’ root zones. Again, we see the construction of these as human responses to declining productivity and environmental stresses of excessive gypsum and soil burial.

The dynamics of collapse and the role of agency The scenario outlined above may imply the simple conclusion that increasing populations and poor soil management led to declining productivity and, then, collapse. However, the human response to this situation shows a much more complex reality. Human agency—that is the ability of people to make decisions and choices that sometimes benefit themselves and at other times undermine their own success—must be taken into account (Dobres and Robb 2000). Collapse and abandonment did come to Blue Creek, as it did to most Maya communities in the Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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southern lowlands. However, this was a process, not an event, and we understand some components of this process, but not its entirety. Abandonment first came in the central precinct and the nearby elite residences of Kín Tan at the end of the Classic Period (AD 825–850). In Blue Creek’s main plaza, the front of Structure 3 was buried by thousands of ceramic sherds and other objects. Another such deposit was found in a residence near the secondary plaza. For this discussion, it matters little whether these termination deposits represent smashing of pots against the building or whether they are redeposited from garbage deposits or previous feasting events. Their importance is that they represent the final action as the buildings were being rapidly abandoned. At approximately the same time, even larger termination deposits were placed at several elite residences and shrines in Kín Tan (Hanratty 2008). The central authorities and the lineages that held power and authority for centuries were the first victims of the deteriorating situation. We anticipated that such a pattern would be the case in other residential groups but were surprised by a radically different situation at the Rosita residential group. Rosita is located 2.5km from the central precinct and, like Kín Tan, almost surely controlled the high quality agricultural lands of the surrounding upland, bajo zones. However, instead of termination and abandonment, the Rosita residents responded to the collapse of central authority and powerful lineages by re-aligning themselves with external institutions. At one Rosita residence, a structure was razed and a new shrine in the northern Yucatan round style was built in its place (Preston 2007). On top of the associated Classic period shrine and in other nearby residences, new construction was marked by the burial of new dedicatory caches using Daylight Orange ceramics, a temporal marker for the Terminal Classic period that is not found in the earlier terminal deposits in the central precinct and Kín Tan (Preston 2007). The round shrine is similar to another building excavated downstream from Blue Creek at Nohmul (Chase and Chase 1983). Another was found on Ambergris Caye not far from the mouth of the Río Hondo (Guderjan and Garber 1995) and three others were recently found along a river further south along the Sibun River (Harrison-Buck and McAnany 2006). Harrison-Buck has found that these are actually shrines like those Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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commonly found much further north in the Yucatan peninsula. So, as the southern lowland polities were crumbling, the polities of the northern lowlands, probably Chichen Itza, were extending their influence into distant lands via water routes (Andrews 1990, 2008; Barrett and Guderjan 2006; Guderjan and Garber 1995; Sabloff 1977) As central authority at Blue Creek failed, the survivors re-aligned themselves with these external powers and were able to thrive. However, they could not thrive for long. Again, we do not know how long Rosita was occupied after the abandonment of the central precinct and Kín Tan, but it does not appear to have been more than 50 or 75 years. So, by AD 875–900, Rosita was abandoned as the macro-scale changes affecting the Maya world engulfed them. Rosita was not alone in its temporary survival of the Late Classic collapse. Our colleagues have recently conducted excavations at the nearby sites of Bedrock and Nojol Nah (Guderjan et al. 2009). Information from these sites, while still very preliminary, indicates that they survived at least as long as did the residents of Rosita. Further, data from the site of La Milpa (Sagabiel 2005), approximately 20km southwest of Blue Creek, also indicate that central authority remained intact there until about the same time as Nojol Nah. Even more striking, the large site of Lamanai, approximately 20km southeast of Blue Creek and situated on the New River Lagoon with direct access to the Caribbean and coastal trade, not only survived, but truly thrived, constructing new pyramids in the Early Postclassic period (Pendergast 1986, 1990). While the root causes of the ninth century devastation in the southern Maya lowlands can be seen in how humans interacted with their environment, the responses of humans to these issues were highly variable, with different degrees of success and failure. We, like many of our colleagues, are now engaged in a long-term study of the processes and events that led to abandonment. We have many questions leading us down many avenues of research, but we understand clearly that the role of human agency must be incorporated into any successful and robust explanation of the end of the Maya civilisation. At a broad scale, the evidence for drought in the Late Classic seems undeniable (Hodell et al. 1995; Yaeger and Hodell 2008), but Blue Creek Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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with its close access to the confluence of three rivers declined like those sites that were distant from water. Hence, if droughts were a causal factor in the decline, they were only secondary at Blue Creek because of its proximity to multiple water sources. Further, we argue that no model of the abandonment of a single Maya city or region can successfully lead us to an understanding of how and why the Classic Maya civilisation disintegrated unless it incorporates a wide range of data. In this case, we are especially interested in detailed and nuanced data regarding environmental interaction in the centuries before abandonment and the chronology and specific events that occurred as individual households and residential groups were abandoned. Only with such detailed information can we truly test any hypothesis that claims to explain the demise of an ancient civilisation.

Acknowledgements We would like to express our gratitude to the many members of the Blue Creek team who have contributed to this work. Other members of the 2008 field team included Jason Barrett, Bill Brown, Bruce Dickson, Pieta Greaves, Tim Preston, Leslie Reyes and Bob Warden. We also thank the staff of the Institute of Archaeology of Belize, especially our colleagues John Morris, Sherlyne Jones, and Joyce Tun. The paper benefited greatly from the comments of anonymous reviewers. Funding for the 2008 field season at Blue Creek was provided by Maya Research Program, The Denver Foundation, the National Geographic Society and private donors. Jason Barrett also provided Figure 3.

References Adams, R.E.W., Robichaux, H., Valdez Jr. H., Houk, B. and Mathews, R. 2004. Transformations, periodicity and urban development in the Three Rivers region. In Demarest, A., Rice P., and Rice, D. (eds), The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands: Collapse, Transition, and Transformation. Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 324–341. Andrews, A.P. 1990. The role of trading ports in Maya civilization. In Clancy, F. S. and Harrison, P.D. (eds), Vision and Revision in Maya Studies. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 159–168. Archae o lo gic al R ev iew f rom C ambr idge 24. 2: 9 9 –121

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