Scott L Fedick
Biographic Data
| ID | 3617530 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Scott L Fedick |
| GIVEN NAMES | Scott L |
| FAMILY NAME | Fedick |
| SIGNATURE | FEDICK S L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Riverside |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 203 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 22 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Agriculture in the Ancient Maya Lowlands (Part 2)
Pre-Columbian food production in the Maya Lowlands was long characterized as reliant on extensive, slash-and-burn agriculture as the sole cultivation system possible in the region, given environmental limitations, with maize as the dominant crop. While aspects of this “swidden thesis” of Maya agriculture have been chipped away in recent years, there has been an underappreciation of the many forms of long-term capital investments in agriculture ma…
Agriculture in the Ancient Maya Lowlands (Part 1)
We focus on pre-Columbian agricultural regimes in the Maya Lowlands, using new datasets of archaeological wood charcoal, seeds, phytoliths, and starch grains; biological properties of plants; and contemporary Indigenous practices. We address inherited models of agriculture in the lowlands: the limitations of the environment (finding more affordances than anticipated by earlier models); the homogeneity of agricultural strategies (finding more hete…
Applied Perspectives on Pre-Columbian Maya Water Management Systems
Water security is a fundamental global challenge for humanity. Suggesting that scholars, water management engineers, and policy-makers draw from a wide range of examples, this chapter argues that knowledge gained from archaeological research provides unique insights into the long-term function and efficacy of water management systems. This chapter presents six cases of water management systems in the pre-Columbian Maya lowlands, from the Yalahau,…
Commentary
Tropical Landscapes and the Ancient Maya
Archaeologists have begun to understand that many of the challenges facing our technologically sophisticated, resource dependent, urban systems were also destabilizing factors in ancient complex societies. The focus of IHOPE-Maya is to identify how humans living in the tropical Maya Lowlands in present-day Central America responded to and impacted their environments over the past three millennia, and to relate knowledge of those processes to mode…
A Reassessment of Water and Soil Resources in the Flatlands of the Northern Maya Lowlands
Often characterized as a low, flat, limestone shelf with thin soils and restricted water resources, the northern lowlands are now proving to have supported high population levels and complex social development from the earliest Preclassic times through the Postclassic, though striking differences in developmental trajectories exist. The karstic plain of the north-central portion of the Yucatán Peninsula is characterized by the presence of dry dep…
Water and Landscape
In this chapter we present the major transitions in Maya history from the Late Preclassic through Terminal Classic periods in the Maya Lowlands, focusing first on major settlement and subsistence systems, followed by major social and environmental costs. We particularly focus on how the Maya built and relied on increasingly complex water and agricultural systems to adapt in the humid tropics where everything in life was rainfall dependent. The se…
The Deposition and Chronology of Cenote T ’isil
Cenotes (natural wells or sinkholes) comprise the most common landscape features in the northern M aya L owlands of the Y ucatán P eninsula, M éxico. Detailed study of dated soil‐sedimentary sequences, recovered from a cenote at the archaeological site T ’isil and nearby wetlands, allows a partial reconstruction of environmental variability at the site for the last 2000 years. Biogenic calcite sedimentation and C alcisol development occur during …
Adaptation Of Maya Homegardens By “Container Gardening” In Limestone Bedrock Cavities
The northern Maya Lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula are often characterized by outside observers as a challenging environment for agriculturalists. The limestone bedrock appears to have only a patchy cover of thin soil, yet the Maya inhabitants, both ancient and modern, have managed to successfully cultivate this landscape through a variety innovative techniques and micro-scale adaptations. Homegardens have a long history in the region, and conti…
Ancient Maya
1. The mystery and the challenge of the Ancient Maya 2. Background: geography, chronology, and theoretical perspective 3. The exploration and archaeology of the Maya: a brief history 4. Obscure beginnings and the preclassic florescence 5. The splinter of classic Maya florescence in the lowlands 6. Settlement and subsistence: the rain forest adaptation 7. Classic Maya economics 8. Religion and ideology: beliefs and ritual of the theater state 9. C…
Ancient use and manipulation of landscape in the Yalahau region of the northern Maya lowlands
Wetland Manipulation in the Yalahau Region of the Northern Maya Lowlands
Manipulation of wetlands for agricultural purposes by the ancient Maya of southern Mexico and Central America has been a subject of much research and debate since the 1970s. Evidence for wetland cultivation systems, in the form of drained or channelized fields, and raised planting platforms, has been restricted primarily to the southern Maya Lowlands. New research in the Yalahau region of Quintana Roo, Mexico, has recorded evidence for wetland ma…
The Managed Mosaic
Indigenous agriculture in the Americas
Land Evaluation and Ancient Maya Land Use in the Upper Belize River Area, Belize, Central America
In this study I examine local-scale associations between land resources and the density distribution of Maya residential sites for the prehistoric population maxima of the Late Classic period (ca. A. D. 600-900). Methods involve agricultural land evaluation following USDA guidelines, under assumptions of hand-cultivation technology. I give specific attention to the issue of concordance between the geographic scale of household agricultural produc…
Ancient Maya Agricultural Terracing in the Upper Belize River Area
Recent archaeological surveys in the upper Belize River area have documented high overall settlement densities, albeit with an uneven distribution. Analyses have defined clear relationships between the distribution of land resources of varying agricultural capability and the density of ancient residential sites. However, these investigations did not provide direct physical evidence for cultivation techniques, particularly for the intensive method…
Prehistory of the Americas
Itza Maya Tropical Agro-Forestry [and Comments and Replies]
The Role of Radiocarbon Dating in Maya Archaeology
Prehistoric Maya Settlement Patterns in the Upper Belize River Area
The Classic Period Maya (ca. AC, 250-900) have been defined largely on the basis of shared stylist complexes of material remain that indicate widespread and regular interaction across the vast expanse of the tropical Maya lowlands.(Fig.1.) recent research, however has revealed a great deal of variability in lowlands Maya Social, political and economic organization Numerous studies have demonstrated variability in settlement patterns for residenti…
The prehistoric agricultural landscape of the central Maya lowlands
Data on land resources and the locations of prehistoric residential sites are integrated to explain differential agricultural development and settlement pattern across the varied landscape of the central Maya lowlands. It is concluded that intensive dryfield cultivation within well‐drained uplands was the basis of food production at the regional scale. The significance of cultivation practices in other land resources varied according to the exten…
Linguistic Anthropology
Itza Maya Tropical Agro-Forestry [and Comments and Replies]
The prehistoric agricultural landscape of the central Maya lowlands
Data on land resources and the locations of prehistoric residential sites are integrated to explain differential agricultural development and settlement pattern across the varied landscape of the central Maya lowlands. It is concluded that intensive dryfield cultivation within well‐drained uplands was the basis of food production at the regional scale. The significance of cultivation practices in other land resources varied according to the exten…
Land Evaluation and Ancient Maya Land Use in the Upper Belize River Area, Belize, Central America
In this study I examine local-scale associations between land resources and the density distribution of Maya residential sites for the prehistoric population maxima of the Late Classic period (ca. A. D. 600-900). Methods involve agricultural land evaluation following USDA guidelines, under assumptions of hand-cultivation technology. I give specific attention to the issue of concordance between the geographic scale of household agricultural produc…
Ancient Maya Agricultural Terracing in the Upper Belize River Area
Recent archaeological surveys in the upper Belize River area have documented high overall settlement densities, albeit with an uneven distribution. Analyses have defined clear relationships between the distribution of land resources of varying agricultural capability and the density of ancient residential sites. However, these investigations did not provide direct physical evidence for cultivation techniques, particularly for the intensive method…
Ancient use and manipulation of landscape in the Yalahau region of the northern Maya lowlands
Wetland Manipulation in the Yalahau Region of the Northern Maya Lowlands
Manipulation of wetlands for agricultural purposes by the ancient Maya of southern Mexico and Central America has been a subject of much research and debate since the 1970s. Evidence for wetland cultivation systems, in the form of drained or channelized fields, and raised planting platforms, has been restricted primarily to the southern Maya Lowlands. New research in the Yalahau region of Quintana Roo, Mexico, has recorded evidence for wetland ma…
Prehistoric Maya Settlement Patterns in the Upper Belize River Area
The Classic Period Maya (ca. AC, 250-900) have been defined largely on the basis of shared stylist complexes of material remain that indicate widespread and regular interaction across the vast expanse of the tropical Maya lowlands.(Fig.1.) recent research, however has revealed a great deal of variability in lowlands Maya Social, political and economic organization Numerous studies have demonstrated variability in settlement patterns for residenti…
Indigenous agriculture in the Americas
Agriculture in the Ancient Maya Lowlands (Part 2)
Pre-Columbian food production in the Maya Lowlands was long characterized as reliant on extensive, slash-and-burn agriculture as the sole cultivation system possible in the region, given environmental limitations, with maize as the dominant crop. While aspects of this “swidden thesis” of Maya agriculture have been chipped away in recent years, there has been an underappreciation of the many forms of long-term capital investments in agriculture ma…
Agriculture in the Ancient Maya Lowlands (Part 1)
We focus on pre-Columbian agricultural regimes in the Maya Lowlands, using new datasets of archaeological wood charcoal, seeds, phytoliths, and starch grains; biological properties of plants; and contemporary Indigenous practices. We address inherited models of agriculture in the lowlands: the limitations of the environment (finding more affordances than anticipated by earlier models); the homogeneity of agricultural strategies (finding more hete…
Tropical Landscapes and the Ancient Maya
Archaeologists have begun to understand that many of the challenges facing our technologically sophisticated, resource dependent, urban systems were also destabilizing factors in ancient complex societies. The focus of IHOPE-Maya is to identify how humans living in the tropical Maya Lowlands in present-day Central America responded to and impacted their environments over the past three millennia, and to relate knowledge of those processes to mode…
The Deposition and Chronology of Cenote T ’isil
Cenotes (natural wells or sinkholes) comprise the most common landscape features in the northern M aya L owlands of the Y ucatán P eninsula, M éxico. Detailed study of dated soil‐sedimentary sequences, recovered from a cenote at the archaeological site T ’isil and nearby wetlands, allows a partial reconstruction of environmental variability at the site for the last 2000 years. Biogenic calcite sedimentation and C alcisol development occur during …
A Reassessment of Water and Soil Resources in the Flatlands of the Northern Maya Lowlands
Often characterized as a low, flat, limestone shelf with thin soils and restricted water resources, the northern lowlands are now proving to have supported high population levels and complex social development from the earliest Preclassic times through the Postclassic, though striking differences in developmental trajectories exist. The karstic plain of the north-central portion of the Yucatán Peninsula is characterized by the presence of dry dep…
Water and Landscape
In this chapter we present the major transitions in Maya history from the Late Preclassic through Terminal Classic periods in the Maya Lowlands, focusing first on major settlement and subsistence systems, followed by major social and environmental costs. We particularly focus on how the Maya built and relied on increasingly complex water and agricultural systems to adapt in the humid tropics where everything in life was rainfall dependent. The se…
Commentary
Linguistic Anthropology
The prehistoric agricultural landscape of the central Maya lowlands
Data on land resources and the locations of prehistoric residential sites are integrated to explain differential agricultural development and settlement pattern across the varied landscape of the central Maya lowlands. It is concluded that intensive dryfield cultivation within well‐drained uplands was the basis of food production at the regional scale. The significance of cultivation practices in other land resources varied according to the exten…
The Role of Radiocarbon Dating in Maya Archaeology
Prehistoric Maya Settlement Patterns in the Upper Belize River Area
The Classic Period Maya (ca. AC, 250-900) have been defined largely on the basis of shared stylist complexes of material remain that indicate widespread and regular interaction across the vast expanse of the tropical Maya lowlands.(Fig.1.) recent research, however has revealed a great deal of variability in lowlands Maya Social, political and economic organization Numerous studies have demonstrated variability in settlement patterns for residenti…
Itza Maya Tropical Agro-Forestry [and Comments and Replies]
Ancient Maya Agricultural Terracing in the Upper Belize River Area
Recent archaeological surveys in the upper Belize River area have documented high overall settlement densities, albeit with an uneven distribution. Analyses have defined clear relationships between the distribution of land resources of varying agricultural capability and the density of ancient residential sites. However, these investigations did not provide direct physical evidence for cultivation techniques, particularly for the intensive method…
Prehistory of the Americas
Indigenous agriculture in the Americas
Land Evaluation and Ancient Maya Land Use in the Upper Belize River Area, Belize, Central America
In this study I examine local-scale associations between land resources and the density distribution of Maya residential sites for the prehistoric population maxima of the Late Classic period (ca. A. D. 600-900). Methods involve agricultural land evaluation following USDA guidelines, under assumptions of hand-cultivation technology. I give specific attention to the issue of concordance between the geographic scale of household agricultural produc…
The Managed Mosaic
Wetland Manipulation in the Yalahau Region of the Northern Maya Lowlands
Manipulation of wetlands for agricultural purposes by the ancient Maya of southern Mexico and Central America has been a subject of much research and debate since the 1970s. Evidence for wetland cultivation systems, in the form of drained or channelized fields, and raised planting platforms, has been restricted primarily to the southern Maya Lowlands. New research in the Yalahau region of Quintana Roo, Mexico, has recorded evidence for wetland ma…
Ancient use and manipulation of landscape in the Yalahau region of the northern Maya lowlands
Ancient Maya
1. The mystery and the challenge of the Ancient Maya 2. Background: geography, chronology, and theoretical perspective 3. The exploration and archaeology of the Maya: a brief history 4. Obscure beginnings and the preclassic florescence 5. The splinter of classic Maya florescence in the lowlands 6. Settlement and subsistence: the rain forest adaptation 7. Classic Maya economics 8. Religion and ideology: beliefs and ritual of the theater state 9. C…
Adaptation Of Maya Homegardens By “Container Gardening” In Limestone Bedrock Cavities
The northern Maya Lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula are often characterized by outside observers as a challenging environment for agriculturalists. The limestone bedrock appears to have only a patchy cover of thin soil, yet the Maya inhabitants, both ancient and modern, have managed to successfully cultivate this landscape through a variety innovative techniques and micro-scale adaptations. Homegardens have a long history in the region, and conti…
The Deposition and Chronology of Cenote T ’isil
Cenotes (natural wells or sinkholes) comprise the most common landscape features in the northern M aya L owlands of the Y ucatán P eninsula, M éxico. Detailed study of dated soil‐sedimentary sequences, recovered from a cenote at the archaeological site T ’isil and nearby wetlands, allows a partial reconstruction of environmental variability at the site for the last 2000 years. Biogenic calcite sedimentation and C alcisol development occur during …
Tropical Landscapes and the Ancient Maya
Archaeologists have begun to understand that many of the challenges facing our technologically sophisticated, resource dependent, urban systems were also destabilizing factors in ancient complex societies. The focus of IHOPE-Maya is to identify how humans living in the tropical Maya Lowlands in present-day Central America responded to and impacted their environments over the past three millennia, and to relate knowledge of those processes to mode…
A Reassessment of Water and Soil Resources in the Flatlands of the Northern Maya Lowlands
Often characterized as a low, flat, limestone shelf with thin soils and restricted water resources, the northern lowlands are now proving to have supported high population levels and complex social development from the earliest Preclassic times through the Postclassic, though striking differences in developmental trajectories exist. The karstic plain of the north-central portion of the Yucatán Peninsula is characterized by the presence of dry dep…
Water and Landscape
In this chapter we present the major transitions in Maya history from the Late Preclassic through Terminal Classic periods in the Maya Lowlands, focusing first on major settlement and subsistence systems, followed by major social and environmental costs. We particularly focus on how the Maya built and relied on increasingly complex water and agricultural systems to adapt in the humid tropics where everything in life was rainfall dependent. The se…
Commentary
Applied Perspectives on Pre-Columbian Maya Water Management Systems
Water security is a fundamental global challenge for humanity. Suggesting that scholars, water management engineers, and policy-makers draw from a wide range of examples, this chapter argues that knowledge gained from archaeological research provides unique insights into the long-term function and efficacy of water management systems. This chapter presents six cases of water management systems in the pre-Columbian Maya lowlands, from the Yalahau,…
Agriculture in the Ancient Maya Lowlands (Part 1)
We focus on pre-Columbian agricultural regimes in the Maya Lowlands, using new datasets of archaeological wood charcoal, seeds, phytoliths, and starch grains; biological properties of plants; and contemporary Indigenous practices. We address inherited models of agriculture in the lowlands: the limitations of the environment (finding more affordances than anticipated by earlier models); the homogeneity of agricultural strategies (finding more hete…
Agriculture in the Ancient Maya Lowlands (Part 2)
Pre-Columbian food production in the Maya Lowlands was long characterized as reliant on extensive, slash-and-burn agriculture as the sole cultivation system possible in the region, given environmental limitations, with maize as the dominant crop. While aspects of this “swidden thesis” of Maya agriculture have been chipped away in recent years, there has been an underappreciation of the many forms of long-term capital investments in agriculture ma…
Archaeology (20 works) · Geography (20 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (16 works) · Maya (16 works) · Ecology (12 works) · Agriculture (9 works) · Biology (7 works) · History (7 works) · History (6 works) · Prehistory (6 works)