84-1 Paleosol Stratigraphy and Soil and Water Management in Maya Lowlands’ Fluviokarst

Session: Geoarchaeology of Sites to Landscapes: Current Research on Long-Term Water and Soil Management and Maladaptation, Part I

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Abstract:

To verify ancient soil and water management features requires distinguishing human induced and natural processes and landforms in soil stratigraphy. We usually start from surficial indications based on visual or visualized evidence such as a lidar Digital Elevation Model, though surfaces can deceive. Decades of soils and geoarchaeology excavations in hypothesized anthropogenic and natural features along fluviokarst catenas and floodplains in Belize have uncovered many examples of buried soils and paleosols that date through the Holocene, though very few to before the Holocene. These provide natural contexts for Maya induced and geological changes through their formation and profile stratigraphy. To contextualize across landscapes, we focus on three example profile typologies from hillslopes, upper floodplains, and main floodplains. Many excavations indicate pre-Maya buried soils or paleosols that indicate a state change associated with subsequent local Maya land uses. We present examples from hillslopes and floodplains that indicate state changes range from the Archaic before 4,000 BP and the Preclassic before 2,000 BP or even the Classic before 1,000 BP. A typical profile in floodplains and hillslopes is a 2,000 to 3,000 BP paleosol surface often containing artifacts, topped by laminated sediments, followed by the stratigraphy of a later Maya Anthrosol in a terrace or wetland field, which are soil or water management features that date to 2,000 to 800 BP. We present these examples as a general model with variations through multiple lines of ancient Maya use, including new and synthesized geochemistry, artifacts, and radiocarbon chronologies.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Program. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-8085

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