Alfred H Siemens
Biographic Data
| ID | 354835 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alfred H Siemens |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alfred H |
| FAMILY NAME | Siemens |
| SIGNATURE | SIEMENS A H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of British Columbia |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 101 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1971 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Searching Out Prehispanic Landscapes in Mesoamerica by Means of Aerial Reconnaissance
Aerial imagery in its various forms is prime material for the location and contextualization of ancient remains; it also contributes to an ample appreciation of the significance of landscape. It has been used in the investigation of many long-occupied Mesoamerican places, but not always systematically or explicitly. This article outline procedures and constraints in the search for evidence of ancient landscapes in Mesoamerica by means of light pl…
From the guest editors
Modeling the tropical wetland landscape and adaptations
Prehispanic changes in wetland topography and their implications to past and future wetland agriculture at Laguna Mandinga, Veracruz, Mexico
Cultivated Landscapes of Native Amazonia and the Andes
Wagner are acknowledged with thanks. Notes 1. Harris is a professor in and head of the Department of Human Environment at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London; he received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. 2. Whitmore and Turner, front endpaper. 3. Byatt (2000, 15,; 16) Byatt, A. S. 2000. A biographer's tale, London: Vintage. [Google Scholar]. 4. De la Vega ([1609] 1966 de la Vega, Garcilaso. [1609] 1966. R…
Dams” on the Candelaria
Much has been learned from the basin of the Candelaria River, Campeche, Mexico: the fabric of a densely settled pre-Historic landscape, including impressive ceremonial centers; the logistics of an ancient entrepôt; the process of exploitation of dyewood and chicle in historic times; as well as the doubtful results of the mid-twentieth-century colonization of an “empty” forested basin. It also yielded the first evidence of more or less intensive p…
The Persistence, Elaboration and Eventual Modification Of Humboldt's View Of The Lowland Tropics
Most travellers who came to Mexico in the nineteenth century entered at Veracruz and proceeded inland through the coastal lowlands along the Jalapa road. While in the lowlands many recalled and elaborated on Humboldt's dictum that although nature was highly promising in this region the lowlanders had been unequal to its challenge. Extraneous intervention would be necessary for the development of commercial agriculture, the economic optimum. Such …
A Favored Place
The wetlands of the San Juan Basin in Central Veracruz, Mexico, have been a favored place since the fifth century A.D., when Prehispanic people built an extensive network of canals and raised fields that allowed for almost year-round agriculture. Alfred Siemens' discovery of the remains of this network in the 1970s led him to uncover fifteen centuries of land-use history in the region. This book contains a full record of his findings. Siemens org…
A Favored Place
Vestiges of Prehispanic, Sloping-Field Terraces on the Piedmont of Central Veracruz, Mexico
Some prominent Mesoamericanists long considered lowland central Veracruz to have been agriculturally unproductive prior to the Totonacs' construction of a canal-irrigation system at Zempoala during the Middle Postclassic period (A. D. 1200-1400). This evaluation reflects a long-standing negative predisposition toward tropical lowlands and a preoccupation with the significance of canal irrigation in the emergence of urban societies. However, an ap…
Between the Summit and the Sea. Central Veracruz in the Nineteenth Century
Between the Summit and the Sea
Stratigraphy, depositional environment, and cultural significance of holocene sediments in patterned wetlands of central Veracruz, Mexico
The coastal wetlands of Veracruz State, Mexico contain many areas of rectilinearly patterned ground. These are the remains of Prehispanic agricultural complexes. Reconnaissance‐level stratigraphic studies were carried out in one such wetland area, the “San Juan Basin,” in order to reconstruct the local environmental history. Basal, well‐sorted fine sand, which underlies the basin, was likely deposited in the intertidal and beach zones as marine w…
The ancient Maya
Wetland Agriculture in Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica
U NTIL the late 1960s the swidden thesis was the usual explanation for preHispanic Mayan subsistence.1 By that time archaeological research in the Mayan-occupied lowlands indicated higher population densities than could be accounted for by shifting cultivation and its ancillary activities. Investigators provided other options, including the exploitation of root crops, the use of the nut from the ramon tree, other orchard crops, marine resources, …
Oriented Raised Fields in Central Veracruz
In the lowlands of Central Veracruz, as in various locations across the base of the Yucatan peninsula, Prehispanic agriculturalists sought out wetlands with a limited fluctuation in water level for adaptation to intensive cultivation. Vestiges of canals and raised fields show through the dry season pastures of many ranches. The rectilinear remains of the earlier incursion show considerable accordance, from wetland to wetland, in their astronomica…
A decade of ‘colonization’ along a tropical lowland river in Mexico
Ridged Fields and Associated Features in Southern Campeche
Prehistoric ridged fields and canals were recognized from the air in 1968 along the Candelaria River of Campeche, Mexico, in the vicinity of sites described by E. Willys Andrews in 1943. These remains were subsequently identified by Scholes and Roys as the settlements of Acalan, a native province along the route of the journey by Cortes to Honduras. Ground exploration in 1969 and 1970 has suggested that the fields were used over a considerable pe…
Gelenkter kulturwandel im hochland von chiapas
Ridged Fields and Associated Features in Southern Campeche
Prehistoric ridged fields and canals were recognized from the air in 1968 along the Candelaria River of Campeche, Mexico, in the vicinity of sites described by E. Willys Andrews in 1943. These remains were subsequently identified by Scholes and Roys as the settlements of Acalan, a native province along the route of the journey by Cortes to Honduras. Ground exploration in 1969 and 1970 has suggested that the fields were used over a considerable pe…
Wetland Agriculture in Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica
U NTIL the late 1960s the swidden thesis was the usual explanation for preHispanic Mayan subsistence.1 By that time archaeological research in the Mayan-occupied lowlands indicated higher population densities than could be accounted for by shifting cultivation and its ancillary activities. Investigators provided other options, including the exploitation of root crops, the use of the nut from the ramon tree, other orchard crops, marine resources, …
Vestiges of Prehispanic, Sloping-Field Terraces on the Piedmont of Central Veracruz, Mexico
Some prominent Mesoamericanists long considered lowland central Veracruz to have been agriculturally unproductive prior to the Totonacs' construction of a canal-irrigation system at Zempoala during the Middle Postclassic period (A. D. 1200-1400). This evaluation reflects a long-standing negative predisposition toward tropical lowlands and a preoccupation with the significance of canal irrigation in the emergence of urban societies. However, an ap…
Prehispanic changes in wetland topography and their implications to past and future wetland agriculture at Laguna Mandinga, Veracruz, Mexico
Dams” on the Candelaria
Much has been learned from the basin of the Candelaria River, Campeche, Mexico: the fabric of a densely settled pre-Historic landscape, including impressive ceremonial centers; the logistics of an ancient entrepôt; the process of exploitation of dyewood and chicle in historic times; as well as the doubtful results of the mid-twentieth-century colonization of an “empty” forested basin. It also yielded the first evidence of more or less intensive p…
Between the Summit and the Sea. Central Veracruz in the Nineteenth Century
Oriented Raised Fields in Central Veracruz
In the lowlands of Central Veracruz, as in various locations across the base of the Yucatan peninsula, Prehispanic agriculturalists sought out wetlands with a limited fluctuation in water level for adaptation to intensive cultivation. Vestiges of canals and raised fields show through the dry season pastures of many ranches. The rectilinear remains of the earlier incursion show considerable accordance, from wetland to wetland, in their astronomica…
A Favored Place
Stratigraphy, depositional environment, and cultural significance of holocene sediments in patterned wetlands of central Veracruz, Mexico
The coastal wetlands of Veracruz State, Mexico contain many areas of rectilinearly patterned ground. These are the remains of Prehispanic agricultural complexes. Reconnaissance‐level stratigraphic studies were carried out in one such wetland area, the “San Juan Basin,” in order to reconstruct the local environmental history. Basal, well‐sorted fine sand, which underlies the basin, was likely deposited in the intertidal and beach zones as marine w…
Modeling the tropical wetland landscape and adaptations
The Persistence, Elaboration and Eventual Modification Of Humboldt's View Of The Lowland Tropics
Most travellers who came to Mexico in the nineteenth century entered at Veracruz and proceeded inland through the coastal lowlands along the Jalapa road. While in the lowlands many recalled and elaborated on Humboldt's dictum that although nature was highly promising in this region the lowlanders had been unequal to its challenge. Extraneous intervention would be necessary for the development of commercial agriculture, the economic optimum. Such …
Gelenkter kulturwandel im hochland von chiapas
Ridged Fields and Associated Features in Southern Campeche
Prehistoric ridged fields and canals were recognized from the air in 1968 along the Candelaria River of Campeche, Mexico, in the vicinity of sites described by E. Willys Andrews in 1943. These remains were subsequently identified by Scholes and Roys as the settlements of Acalan, a native province along the route of the journey by Cortes to Honduras. Ground exploration in 1969 and 1970 has suggested that the fields were used over a considerable pe…
A decade of ‘colonization’ along a tropical lowland river in Mexico
Wetland Agriculture in Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica
U NTIL the late 1960s the swidden thesis was the usual explanation for preHispanic Mayan subsistence.1 By that time archaeological research in the Mayan-occupied lowlands indicated higher population densities than could be accounted for by shifting cultivation and its ancillary activities. Investigators provided other options, including the exploitation of root crops, the use of the nut from the ramon tree, other orchard crops, marine resources, …
Oriented Raised Fields in Central Veracruz
In the lowlands of Central Veracruz, as in various locations across the base of the Yucatan peninsula, Prehispanic agriculturalists sought out wetlands with a limited fluctuation in water level for adaptation to intensive cultivation. Vestiges of canals and raised fields show through the dry season pastures of many ranches. The rectilinear remains of the earlier incursion show considerable accordance, from wetland to wetland, in their astronomica…
The ancient Maya
Stratigraphy, depositional environment, and cultural significance of holocene sediments in patterned wetlands of central Veracruz, Mexico
The coastal wetlands of Veracruz State, Mexico contain many areas of rectilinearly patterned ground. These are the remains of Prehispanic agricultural complexes. Reconnaissance‐level stratigraphic studies were carried out in one such wetland area, the “San Juan Basin,” in order to reconstruct the local environmental history. Basal, well‐sorted fine sand, which underlies the basin, was likely deposited in the intertidal and beach zones as marine w…
Vestiges of Prehispanic, Sloping-Field Terraces on the Piedmont of Central Veracruz, Mexico
Some prominent Mesoamericanists long considered lowland central Veracruz to have been agriculturally unproductive prior to the Totonacs' construction of a canal-irrigation system at Zempoala during the Middle Postclassic period (A. D. 1200-1400). This evaluation reflects a long-standing negative predisposition toward tropical lowlands and a preoccupation with the significance of canal irrigation in the emergence of urban societies. However, an ap…
Between the Summit and the Sea. Central Veracruz in the Nineteenth Century
Between the Summit and the Sea
A Favored Place
The wetlands of the San Juan Basin in Central Veracruz, Mexico, have been a favored place since the fifth century A.D., when Prehispanic people built an extensive network of canals and raised fields that allowed for almost year-round agriculture. Alfred Siemens' discovery of the remains of this network in the 1970s led him to uncover fifteen centuries of land-use history in the region. This book contains a full record of his findings. Siemens org…
A Favored Place
The Persistence, Elaboration and Eventual Modification Of Humboldt's View Of The Lowland Tropics
Most travellers who came to Mexico in the nineteenth century entered at Veracruz and proceeded inland through the coastal lowlands along the Jalapa road. While in the lowlands many recalled and elaborated on Humboldt's dictum that although nature was highly promising in this region the lowlanders had been unequal to its challenge. Extraneous intervention would be necessary for the development of commercial agriculture, the economic optimum. Such …
Dams” on the Candelaria
Much has been learned from the basin of the Candelaria River, Campeche, Mexico: the fabric of a densely settled pre-Historic landscape, including impressive ceremonial centers; the logistics of an ancient entrepôt; the process of exploitation of dyewood and chicle in historic times; as well as the doubtful results of the mid-twentieth-century colonization of an “empty” forested basin. It also yielded the first evidence of more or less intensive p…
Cultivated Landscapes of Native Amazonia and the Andes
Wagner are acknowledged with thanks. Notes 1. Harris is a professor in and head of the Department of Human Environment at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London; he received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. 2. Whitmore and Turner, front endpaper. 3. Byatt (2000, 15,; 16) Byatt, A. S. 2000. A biographer's tale, London: Vintage. [Google Scholar]. 4. De la Vega ([1609] 1966 de la Vega, Garcilaso. [1609] 1966. R…
From the guest editors
Modeling the tropical wetland landscape and adaptations
Prehispanic changes in wetland topography and their implications to past and future wetland agriculture at Laguna Mandinga, Veracruz, Mexico
Searching Out Prehispanic Landscapes in Mesoamerica by Means of Aerial Reconnaissance
Aerial imagery in its various forms is prime material for the location and contextualization of ancient remains; it also contributes to an ample appreciation of the significance of landscape. It has been used in the investigation of many long-occupied Mesoamerican places, but not always systematically or explicitly. This article outline procedures and constraints in the search for evidence of ancient landscapes in Mesoamerica by means of light pl…
Geography (18 works) · Archaeology (16 works) · Ecology (10 works) · Wetland (8 works) · Agriculture (6 works) · Archaeology and Natural History (6 works) · Biology (6 works) · Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond (6 works) · Physical geography (5 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (4 works)