Reviving the Art of the Ancient Maya Forest Gardens

[Judi Lynn]

The research team at El Pilar. | Credit: Courtesy El Pilar Project UCSB

For nearly half a century, Dr. Anabel Ford — archaeologist, research scientist, and director of UC Santa Barbara’s MesoAmerican Research Center — has dedicated her working life to questioning conventional wisdom about Maya agricultural practices.

Through much of her research, Ford has challenged Western assumptions that Mesoamerican forests were inadequate for sustaining communities, and that Maya people had damaged the forests with overpopulation and “slash and burn” practices. After decades of studying the land, the people, and the ancient ways, Ford is looking to prove the viability of the long-abandoned “art of the Maya forest garden.”

On Monday, Ford took the stage at Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History’s Fleischmann Auditorium to give a lecture to a packed house, where she spoke about her experiences rebuilding a site in western Belize called El Pilar, which she hopes to establish as a real-life example of the ancient Maya “milpa forest gardens.”

Many of the misconceptions about Maya agro-forestry, Ford says, can be attributed to the “western” way of thinking, which assumes the Maya people overburdened the land. These assumptions, she explained, are simplified ways of measuring the worth of land based on modern agricultural ideals.

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These practices, she says, were likely forced underground when the Spanish colonized the area in the 16th century, making it illegal for Maya people to tend their community gardens and groves. Since then, hundreds of years of neglect has turned much of the area into a shadow of what it was, but even now, Ford says that there are nearly 500 species of food, plants, and crops that survived.

More:
https://www.independent.com/2025/01/07/reviving-the-art-of-the-ancient-maya-forest-gardens/

Beautiful, amazing resource for more information on the subject, with many images, much information.



Maya Farming & Agriculture

Often overlooked, Maya agriculture illustrates the extent of the ingenuity of the Maya, particularly their capacity to make the most of an incredibly difficult environment...


Agriculture was not only essential to feed the population, but it also helped to shape Maya cities. Farming was associated closely with political control and community resilience, and it supplied goods that were essential for political relationships through trade.

The variety in Maya agriculture is reflective of the wide range of environments in the Maya region, with variations in rainfall, soils, climate, access to groundwater, local plants and animals. An understanding of the local environment was crucial for Maya farmers and the agricultural strategies they used.

Farming was also tied strongly to the Maya calendar and the scheduling of daily activities. Seasons in the tropics are divided into a wet (around June to November) and a dry season, which vary significantly in rainfall. The hurricane season around July to October can be very destructive. Seasonality and timing were therefore critical for the Maya farmer.

But what did they grow? How did they grow it? And how do archaeologists know?

More:
https://planetarchaeology.co.uk/maya-farming-and-agriculture/