Project Description

This research forms a distinct part of a 3-year, six-institution project aimed at providing an interdisciplinary approach to understanding long-term human-environment dynamics in the Maya Mountains of Southern Belize. Currently beginning its second year, the project utilizes both specific archaeological and ethnographic data, along with data specific to agro-ecological production, production inputs and outputs, labor scheduling, and ecological variables such as soil quality.

The primary project objective is to model dynamic human behavioral responses to environmental transformation, linking these processes to patterns of settlement, resource exploitation, agricultural intensification, competition, and polity stability. To accomplish this, we apply a theoretical framework drawn from behavioral ecology that integrates key variables: population density and distribution, environmental suitability as a function of economic intensification and endogenous environmental change, and political exploitation.