Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T11:18:43.328Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ancient Agriculture and Population at Tikal, Guatemala: An Application of Linear Programming to the Simulation of an Archaeological Problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

D. Bruce Dickson
D. Bruce Dickson*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX 77843
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Population estimated for the Late Classic period at the Lowland Maya site of Tikal, Guatemala, is reviewed. Linear programming is described and suggested as a method for simulating the agricultural carrying capacity of the sustaining area of the site, thereby inferring its potential population. Archaeological data on the estimated size of the Tikal sustaining area is presented along with modern agricultural production and caloric output figures for maize, root crops, and ramon seeds. These data are used in the computation of a linear program. The results of the computer runs calculating the maximum population supportable by different combinations of milpa, intensive farming, and aboriculture are discussed. These results suggest that a mixed subsistence strategy in which ramon seed aboriculture and intensive root cropping were combined and were supplemented by kitchen gardening, hunting, gathering, and trade might have supported a population as high as 69,705 to 76,699 people within the boundaries of the site of Tikal during the Late Classic period.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , October 1980 , pp. 697 - 712
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Adams, Richard E. W. 1977 Prehistoric Mesoamerica. Little, Brown and Company, Boston.Google Scholar
Agrawal, R., and Heady, E. O. 1972 Operations research for agricultural decisions. Iowa State University Press, Ames.Google Scholar
Andrews, E. Wyllys, IV 1969 The archaeological use and distribution of Mollusca in the Maya Lowlands. Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, Publication 34.Google Scholar
Armillas, P. 1971 Gardens on swamps. Science 174:653–661.Google Scholar
Ball, J. W., and Eaton, J. D. 1972 Marine resources and the prehistoric Lowland Maya: a comment. American Anthropologist 74:772–776.Google Scholar
Benedict, Francis G., and Steggerda, Morris 1936 The food of the present-day Maya Indians of Yucatan. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 456:155–188.Google Scholar
Blanton, Richard E. 1972 Prehistoric settlement patterns of the Ixtapalapa Peninsula region, Mexico. Pennsylvania State University, Department of Anthropology, Occasional Papers in Anthropology 6.Google Scholar
Bronson, Bennett 1966 Roots and the subsistence of the ancient Maya. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 22:251–279.Google Scholar
Bronson, Bennett 1978 Angkor, Anuradhapura, Prambanan, Tikal: Maya subsistance in an Asian perspective. In Pre-Hispanic Maya Agriculture, edited by Harrison, P. D. and Turner, B. L., pp. 255–300. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Bullard, William R. Jr., 1960 Maya settlement pattern in northeastern Peten, Guatemala. American Antiquity 25:355–372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bullard, William R. Jr., 1964 Settlement pattern and social structure in the southern Maya Lowlands during the Classic period. Actas y Memorias del XXXV Congreso Internacional de Americanistas 1:279–287.Google Scholar
Carneiro, Robert L. 1973 Slash-and-burn cultivation among the Kuikuru and its implications for cultural development in the Amazon Basin. In Peoples and cultures of native South America, edited by Gross, D. R., pp. 98–123. Doubleday and Company, New York.Google Scholar
Coe, Michael D. 1964 The chinampas of Mexico. Scientific American 211:90–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowgill, Ursula M. 1961 Soil fertility and the ancient Maya. Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, Transactions 42:1–56.Google Scholar
Cowgill, Ursula M. 1962 An agricultural study of the southern Maya Lowlands. American Anthropologist 64:273–286.Google Scholar
Cowgill, Ursula M. 1971 Some comments on manihot subsistence and the ancient Maya. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 19:267–286.Google Scholar
Cowgill, Ursula M., and Hutchinson, George E. 1963 Ecological and geochemical archaeology in the southern Maya Lowlands. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 19:267–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Culbert, T. Patrick 1974 The lost civilization: the story of the Classic Maya. Harper and Row, New York.Google Scholar
Denevan, William M. 1966 The aboriginal cultural geography of the Llanos de Mojos of Bolivia. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Denevan, William M. 1970 Aboriginal drained-field cultivation in the Americas. Science 169:647–654.Google Scholar
Flannery, Kent V. (Editor) 1976 The early Mesoamerican village. Academic Press, Inc., New York.Google Scholar
Fowler, Melvin L. 1969 Middle Mississippian agricultural fields. American Antiquity 34:365–375.Google Scholar
Harrison, Peter D. 1975 Intensive agriculture in southern Quintana Hoo, Mexico: some new lines of evidence and implicationsfor Maya prehistory. Paper presented at the 40th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Dallas.Google Scholar
Harrison, Peter D. 1978 Bajos revisited: visual evidence for one system of agriculture. In Pre-Hispanic Maya agriculture, edited by Harrison, Peter D. and Turner, B. L. II, pp. 247–253. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Haviland, William A. 1967 Stature at Tikal, Guatemala: implications for ancient Maya demography and social organization. American Antiquity 32:316–325.Google Scholar
Haviland, William A. 1969 A new population estimate for Tikal, Guatemala. American Antiquity 34:429–433.Google Scholar
Haviland, William A. 1972 Family size, prehistoric population estimates, and the ancient Maya. American Antiquity 37:135–139.Google Scholar
Haviland, William, et al. 1968 The Tikal sustaining area: preliminary report on the 1967 season. Ms. on file, University of Vermont, Burlington.Google Scholar
Kelly, A. R. 1938 A preliminary report on archaeological explorations at Macon, Georgia. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 119:1–68.Google Scholar
Lange, Frederick W. 1971 Marine resources: a viable subsistence alternative for the prehistoric Lowland Maya. American Anthropologist 73:619–639.Google Scholar
Lathrap, Donald W. 1970 The Upper Amazon. Preager Books Inc., New York.Google Scholar
Lathrap, Donald W. 1973 The “hunting” economies of the tropical forest zone of South America: an attempt at historicalperspective. In Peoples and cultures of native South America, edited by Gross, D. R., pp. 83–95. Doubleday and Company, Inc., New York.Google Scholar
Millon, Rene 1957 Irrigation systems in the valley of Teotihuacan. American Antiquity 23:160–167.Google Scholar
Moholy-Nagy, Hattula 1963 Shells and other marine materials from Tikal. Estudios de Cultura Maya 4:65–73.Google Scholar
Moholy-Nagy, Hattula 1978 The utilization of Pomacea snails at Tikal, Guatemala. American Antiquity 43:65–73.Google Scholar
Morley, S. G. 1937-38 The inscriptions of Peten. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 437. Google Scholar
Nagle, Stuart S., and Marian, Neef 1976 Operations research methods. Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences 2.Google Scholar
Nations, James D. 1979 Snail shells and maize preparation: a Lacandon Maya analogy. American Antiquity 44:566–571.Google Scholar
Netting, Robert McC. 1977 Maya subsistence: mythologies, analogies, possibilities. In The origins of Maya civilization, edited by Adams, R. F. W., pp. 299–333. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Palerm, Angel, and Wolf, Eric R. 1957 Ecological potential and cultural development in Mesoameria. In Studies in human ecology. Anthropological Society of Washington and Pan American Union, Social Science Monograph 3:1–37.Google Scholar
Parsons, James J., and Bowen, William A. 1966 Ancient ridged fields of the San Jorge Rivers floodplain Columbia. The Geographical Review 56:317–343.Google Scholar
Parsons, James J., and Denevan, William M. 1967 Pre-Columbian ridged fields. Scientific American 217(10):93–100.Google Scholar
Parsons, Jeffrey R. 1976 The role of chinampa agriculture in the food supply of Aztec Tenochtitlan. In Cultural change andcontinuity, edited by Cleland, C., pp. 233–257. Academic Press, Inc., New York.Google Scholar
Puleston, Dennis E. 1968 Brosimum alicastrum as a subsistence alternative for the Classic Maya of the central Southern Lowlands. Unpublished M. A. thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Puleston, Dennis E. 1971 An experimental approach to the function of Maya chultuns. American Antiquity 36:322–335.Google Scholar
Puleston, Dennis E. 1973 Ancient Maya settlement patterns and environment at Tikal, Guatemala: implications for subsistence models. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Puleston, Dennis E. 1974 Intersite areas in the vicinity of Tikal and Uaxactun. In Mesoamerican archaeology: new approaches, edited by Hammond, N., pp. 303–311. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Puleston, Dennis E. 1976 The seeds of statehood: variability in subsistence modes in the rise of Maya civilization. Paper presentedat the XLII International Congress of Americanists, Paris.Google Scholar
Puleston, Dennis E. 1977 The art and archaeology of hydraulic agriculture in the Maya Lowlands, in Social process in Mayaprehistory: studies in memory of Sir Eric Thompson, edited by Hammond, N., pp. 449–467. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Puleston, Dennis E., and Callender, Donald W. Jr., 1967 Defensive earthworks at Tikal. Expedition 9:40–48.Google Scholar
Reina, Ruben E., and Hill, Robert M. 1980 Lowland and Maya subsistence: notes from ethnohistory and ethnography. American Antiquity 45:74–79.Google Scholar
Riley, Thomas J., and Freimuth, Glen 1979 Field systems and frost drainage in the prehistoric agriculture of the upper Great Lakes. American Antiquity 44:271–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roys, Ralph L. 1943 The Indian background of colonial Yucatan. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 548.Google Scholar
Sanabria, Laura S. 1977 Classic Tikal and slash-and-burn agriculture: population and subsistence in a prehistoric Mayacenter in the department of Peten, Guatemala. Unpublished honors paper, Texas A & M University Undergraduate Fellows Program.Google Scholar
Sanders, William T. 1960 Prehistoric ceramics and settlement patterns in Quintana Roo, Mexico. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 606:155–264.Google Scholar
Sanders, William T. 1962 Cultural ecology of the Maya Lowlands. Estudios de Cultura Maya 2:79–121, 3:203–241.Google Scholar
Sanders, William T. 1973 The cultural ecology of the Lowland Maya: a re-evaluation. In The Classic Maya collapse, edited by Culbert, T. Patrick, pp. 325–365. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Saul, Frank P. 1973 Disease in the Maya area: the Precolumbian evidence. In The Classic Maya collapse, edited by Culbert, T. Patrick, pp. 301–324. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Siemens, Alfred H. 1978 Wetland enclaves in the tropical lowlands between Belize and central Veracruz. Paper presentedat the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Tucson.Google Scholar
Siemens, Alfred H., and Puleston, Dennis E. 1972 Ridged fields and associated features in southern Campeche: new perspectives on the Lowland Maya. American Antiquity 37:228–239.Google Scholar
Squire, Ephriam George 1858 The states of Central America. Harper and Brothers, New York.Google Scholar
Steggerda, Morris 1941 Maya Indians of Yucatan. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 531.Google Scholar
Thompson, J. Eric 1963 Maya archaeologist. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Thompson, J. Eric 1974 ‘Canals’ of the Rio Calendria Basin, Campeche, Mexico. In Mesoamerican archaeology: new approaches, edited by Norman, Hammond, pp. 297–302. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Turner, Billie Lee, II 1974 Prehistoric intensive agriculture in the Maya Lowlands. Science 185:118–124.Google Scholar
Turner, Billie Lee, II 1976 Prehistoric population density in the Classic Maya Lowlands: new evidence for old approaches. Geographical Review 66:73–82.Google Scholar
Turner, Billie Lee, II 1980 Raised field agriculture and environs at Pulltrouser Swamp, Belize. Paper presented at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Turner, Paul R. 1977 Intensive agriculture among the Highland Tzeltals. Ethnology XVL:167–174.Google Scholar
United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare 1972 Food composition table for use in East Asia. U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington D. C.Google Scholar
Urrutia, R. Victor M. 1967 Corn production and soil fertility changes under shifting cultivation in Uaxactun, Guatemala. Unpublished M. A. thesis. Department of Agriculture, University of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
West, Robert C. 1959 Ridge or “era” agriculture in the Columbian Andes. Actas y Memorias de XXXIII Congresso Internacionalde Americanistas 1:279–282.Google Scholar
Wilken, Gene C. 1971 Food-producing systems available to the ancient Maya. American Antiquity 36:432–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiseman, Frederick M. 1980 Pollen analysis of raised fields at Pulltrouser Swamp, Belize. Paper presented at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Wolf, Eric R. 1962 Sons of the shaking earth. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar