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National Geographic : 1993 Sep
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Lessons' learned by the Maya A patchwork of fields and ditches, still visi ble after more than a thousand years, marks a site where Maya grew corn and possibly cotton in northern Belize's Pull trouser Swamp. Drawn to the rich organic soils, the Maya dealt with waterlogged fields MARTYCOOPER(TOP); MIGUELFAIRBANKS much as their succes sors do, by digging a web of drainage ditch es. Excavations reveal that the Maya farmed these wetlands, some 15 miles from the coast, much earlier than once believed-during the Preclassic period of 2000 B.C. to A.D. 250. A rise in sea level and the subsequent high water table may have forced these ancient farmers to gradually abandon the land. Inland on the Yucatan Peninsula, an area prone to acute seasonal droughts, the Maya found it necessary to conserve water. An ancient reservoir brims with water at the Nakum ruins in Guatemala, near the Belize border. Now the latest crop of farmers have arrived to bend the land to their use. Whether their efforts are short-lived and destructive or sustaining and benefi cial may ultimately hinge on how well the dynamics of the rain forest are understood. The new class of remote sensors will surely help. O NationalGeographic, September 1993 130
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