COMMENTARY

The Maya Forest: Destroyed or cultivated by the ancient Maya?

Scott L. Fedick1 Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521

oth academic and popular percep- Use of pollen to reconstruct major from trees in the order Urticales increases and tions concerning the relationship changes in communities and the then remains relatively stable throughout the B between the Maya (ancient and environments that they represent has Maya Classic period and beyond. Urticales modern) and the Maya Forest in provided valuable information about include species that may have been important long-term climate patterns for the planet which their culture developed and persisted food producers for the ancient Maya, includ- for more than three millennia are varied and and resulting impacts on biologic ing ramon ( alicastrum), which has continuously subject to change (1). The communities over broad regions. analysis of a sediment core from a pond lo- The use of pollen to reconstruct local been suggested as a staple crop, and 22 other cated near the ancient Maya city of Copan, historical ecology, however, has many species that produce edible berries, nuts, buds, Honduras, interpreted by McNeil et al. (2) in obstacles to overcome, particularly when or fruit (Brosimum spp., , this issue of PNAS, offers a unique per- humans are agents of environmental Cecropia spp., Celtis spp., Chlorphora tinctoria, spective on long-term interactions between manipulation. We still have a great deal spp., Pourouma aspera,andTrema mi- the Maya and their environment. The results of research to conduct before we can crantha). For the other taxonomic groups of fi of this study demonstrate how refinement of provide de nitive answers about what trees and shrubs listed in the pollen diagram methods and extension of time frames past environments looked like when humans were involved. (2), six of the seven families (all but Myr- can provide dramatic reinterpretations of icaceae) contain food , including the scenarios that have become engrained in separately listed Acromia sp. and He- both academic and popular perceptions The Late Classic Maya dysomum mexicanum.TheChamaedorea- about the Maya. Whereas the pollen analysis presented and interpreted by McNeil et al. at Copan did not type pollen in the diagram (2) could include fi (2) cannot be expected to provide a full pic- ve species of food-producing palms, such as ture of the Maya Forest and how it may have foolishly strip away the pacaya palm (C. pacaya or C. tepejilote), been managed, it does provide sound and which is cultivated commercially today for its convincing evidence that the Late Classic the forest. edible male inflorescences. Maya at Copan did not foolishly strip away Among the herbs in the pollen diagram the forest and destroy their environment as (2), only the genus Spermacoce is not a Indigenous Food Plants of the Maya portrayed in Jared Diamond’s best-selling Lowlands known food plant for the Maya. The herba- book (3) and taught in our children’s class- ceous Cheno/Ams (combined families Che- rooms. Among academics, we generally rec- It is encouraging that McNeil et al. (2) recognize that increases in forest cover, nopodiaceae and Amaranthaceae) include ognize that the results of our research at least eight species with edible seeds and/or represent what we hope to be the best in- as indicated in the pollen of a sediment leaves, whereas the Poaceae family includes terpretation of currently available data, and core, may represent intentional manipu- lation of the forest in the form of forest four species besides maize that are known to that our interpretations will be subject to farming and the cultivation of tree crops in modifications as new data and methods are be used as food, and the Polygonaceae family home gardens. The interpretations offered developed. At the same time, our initial in- includes six species of shrubs, vines, and by McNeil et al. (2) also make an important terpretations, often based on very limited small trees that produce edible fruit or roots. contribution to the growing recognition data, are picked up and amplified in the For the aquatics listed in the pollen that the increase and decrease of maize diagram (2), the Cyperaceae family in- public realm through books and movies that pollen in sediment records is not necessarily influence audiences a thousand-fold greater cludes foods such as the tubers of chufa or the only or best measure of plant cultivation yellow nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus) and than the readers of our obscure academic for the Maya. A review of literature on publications. I was recently a reviewer for – the roots of the Caribbean spike-rush Maya ethnobotany (e.g., refs. 5 8) reveals (Eleocharis caribaea). The Typha sp. (cat- California Education and the Environment that the Maya of recent times make use of tail) listed in the diagram, although not Curriculum for seventh grade classes that more than 500 species of food plants that identified as a food plant for the ethno- would be taught aboutthe rise and fall of Pre- are indigenous to the Maya Lowlands, graphic Maya, is widely used as an im- Columbian civilizations in the Americas, supplemented by many additional species portant food source in many cultures with a strong focus on the ancient Maya. One that have been introduced from farther around the world. The spore-producing of the primary lessons in the curriculum was north in Mesoamerica or from South plants listed as Pteridophyte psilate mon- how the ancient Maya exemplified uncon- America, very likely in Pre-Columbian trolled destruction of the environment and times. These food plants range across 92 olete can include two species of ferns the consequent collapse of their civilization. different taxonomic families. (Microgramma lycopodioides and Acros- This lesson was based in large part on the As presented in the pollen diagram (2), the tichum aureum) recognized by the Maya as earlier interpretation of a sediment core increase in pollen from pine trees (Podocarpus having edible shoots. from Copan (4). Dramatic swings in our in- sp.) during the Late Classic population max- terpretations concerning the historical ecol- imum is strong evidence that the Copan Maya ogy of the Maya Lowlands will continue, at were managing those trees, most likely as a Author contribution: S.L.F. wrote the paper. least until enough studies, such as the one valued source of firewood.Itisalsoofinterest The author declares no conflict of interest. presented by McNeil et al. (2), are conducted to note that, after a period of apparent de- See companion article on page 1017. 1 and published. forestation during Preclassic times, pollen E-mail: [email protected].

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0913578107 PNAS | January 19, 2010 | vol. 107 | no. 3 | 953–954 Downloaded by guest on October 2, 2021 Under-Representation of Food Plants species of food plants used by the Maya torical ecology of the Maya Lowlands and in the Pollen Record are pollinated by animals. A recent article that we continue in the development of In the pollen diagram developed from the by Ford (9) considers this phenomenon in new methods and alternative strategies for Copan sediment core (2), nearly all of detail, making use of data collected from assessing how the ancient Maya managed the broad taxonomic categories of plants 18 forest gardens cultivated by Maya in or mismanaged the Maya Forest. The ’ fi used as indicators of both disturbance and west-central Belize. Ford s study nds that, pollen analysis presented and interpreted forestation could include species known of the 20 dominant species from the by McNeil et al. (2) does not imply that the forest that are also cultivated in the gar- to have been used as food by the Maya and ancient Maya were perfect stewards of the were likely to have been managed as sub- dens, only one (ramon, Brosimum alicas- trum) is wind pollinated, whereas the forest. We now have many documented sistence resources. The pollen record, cases of apparently human-induced local however, has severe limitations when we others are pollinated by bats, beetles, bees, environmental degradation, particularly try to evaluate the contribution of forest moths, and various insects (9). For the 37 management and polycultural home gar- species of cultivated plants that dominate for the Preclassic period (e.g., refs. 10 and dening to ancient Maya subsistence. Many, in the gardens, only seven species are 11). What needs to be more widely recog- if not most, of the indigenous food plants pollinated by wind (9). nized is that the ancient Maya, despite oc- used by the Maya would be invisible in the casional episodes of local mismanagement, pollen record of sediment cores. Virtually Three Millennia of Forest Management have survived and adapted for more than a all of the pollen represented in sediment It is important that we recognize biases in hundred generations without wide-scale cores is windborne, whereas most of the the methods used to reconstruct the his- destruction of their forest.

1. Fedick SL (2003) In Search of the Rain Forest, ed Slater C Mexico (El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Chetumal, 9. Ford A (2008) Dominant plants of the Maya (Duke University Press, Durham), pp 133–164. Mexico). Forest and gardens of El Pilar: Implications for ́ 2. McNeil CL, Burney DA, Pigott-Burney L (2010) Evidence 6. Atran S, Lois X, Ucan Ek E (2004) Plants of the Peten paleoenvironmental reconstructions. J Ethnobiol 28: ’ disputing deforestation as the cause for the collapse of Itza Maya (University of Michigan Museum, Ann 179–199. the ancient Maya polity of Copan, Honduras. Proc Natl Arbor, MI). 10. Beach T, Dunning N, Luzzadder-Beach S, Cooke DE, Acad Sci USA 107:1017–1022. 7. Arellano Rodríguez JA, Flores Guido JS, Tun Garrido J, Lohse J (2006) Impacts of the ancient Maya on soils 3. Diamond J (2005) Collapse: How Societies Choose to Cruz Bojórquez MM (2003) Nomenclatura, Forma de and soil erosion in the central Maya Lowlands. Fail or Succeed (Viking, New York). Vida, Uso, Manajo y Distribución de las Especies – 4. Rue DJ (1986) A palynological analysis of prehispanic Vegetales de la Península de Yucatán (Universidad Catena 65:166 178. human impact in the Copan Valley, Honduras. PhD Autónoma de Yucatán, Mérida, Mexico). 11. Anselmetti FS, Hodell DA, Ariztegui D, Brenner M, fi thesis (Pennsylvania State Univ, University Park, PA). 8. Balick MJ, Nee MH, Atha DE (2000) Checklist of the Rosenmeier MF (2007) Quanti cation of soil erosion 5. Anderson EN, et al. (2003) Those Who Bring Vascular Plants of Belize (New York Botanical Garden rates related to ancient Maya deforestation. Geology the Flowers: Maya Ethnobotany in Quintana Roo, Press, New York). 35:915–918.

954 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0913578107 Fedick Downloaded by guest on October 2, 2021