Food security has always been a key resilience facet for people living in cities. This paper discusses lessons for food security fromhistoric and prehistoric cities. The Chicago school of urban sociology established amodernist understanding of urbanism as an essentialist reality separate from its larger life-support system. However, different urban histories have given rise to a remarkable spatial diversity and temporal variation viewed at the global and long-term scales that are often overlooked in urban scholarship.Drawing on two case studies fromwidely different historical and cultural contexts – the Classic Maya civilization of the late first millennium AD and Byzantine Constantinople – this paper demonstrates urban farming as a pertinent feature of urban support systems over the long-term and global scales. We show how urban gardens, agriculture, and water management as well as the linked social–ecological memories of how to uphold such practices over time have contributed to long-term food security during eras of energy scarcity. We exemplify with the function of such local blue–green infrastructures during chocks to urban supply lines. We conclude that agricultural production is not “the antithesis of the city," but often an integrated urban activity that contribute to the resilience of cities.
The author sets out to explain why Maya cities are so dispersed, with a ceremonial core surrounded by spacious neighbourhoods. Using the case study of Xuch, and the judicious application of phosphate analysis, he shows that these were clusters of farmsteads, growing food. Tackling the apparent confrontation of town and country in the same settlement he urges us to reconsider 'urbanism' as being too narrow a term in archaeology. Solutions that combine food production and ritual can be seen as increasingly diverse. The paper provides valuable reflections for archaeologists studying settlement evolution the world over.
Säkra matförsörjningssystem är det mest grundläggande problemet för alla städer och ärnyckeln till hållbara urbana system, oavsett plats och tid. Den förhärskandebilden som vi har idag av staden som fenomen präglas i mycket av eurocentrism, recentism och gigantism, eller enkelt uttryckt: på samtida eller sentida förtätade mega-städer av europeisk modell. Denna bild riskerar att blockera vår förmåga att planera och forma nya städer i framtiden, liksom det ofta harförsvårat vår förståelse av andra former av städer i det förflutna. I denna text ges, med utgångspunkt från Maya områdets arkeologi, exempel på andra modeller av städer som kan inspirera oss idag.
Owing to poor preservation of organic remains in humid environments, direct evidence of early manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz) cultivation is exceptionally rare in datable archaeological contexts. Recent research summarized here offers new insights into the spatio-temporal framework of the initial domestication and early spread of manioc in the Neotropics. Integrating evidence from comparative plant genetics and paleoethnobotanic starch analysis to contribute to the archaeology of manioc origins, this review finds that (1) the strongest candidate for the botanical origin of domesticated manioc the wild progenitor of the root crop is the species Manihot esculenta subspecies flabellifolia (Pohl) Ciferri; (2) the geographical origin of manioc the bionic in which the progenitor evolved is most likely in the savannas, the Brazilian Cerrado, to the south of the Amazon rainforest; (3) the Cerrado is also, in our best estimate, the region of agricultural origin of initial cultivation: (4) domesticated manioc had spread from the agricultural origin by the early Holocene, possibly as early as 10,000 years ago, but certainly by 7000 B.C.; and (5) domesticated manioc was a readily available plant in most habitats of the Neotropics by the mid-Holocene, at least some 6500 years ago.
Owing to poor preservation of organic remains in humid environments, direct evidence of early manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz) cultivation is exceptionally rare in datable archaeological contexts. Recent research summarized here offers new insights into the spatio-temporal framework of the initial domestication and early spread of manioc in the Neotropics. Integrating evidence from comparative plant genetics and paleoethnobotanic starch analysis to contribute to the archaeology of manioc origins, this review finds that (1) the strongest candidate for the botanical origin of domesticated manioc—the wild progenitor of the root crop—is the species Manihot esculenta subspecies flabellifolia (Pohl) Ciferri; (2) the geographical origin of manioc—the biome in which the progenitor evolved—is most likely in the savannas, the Brazilian Cerrado, to the south of the Amazon rainforest; (3) the Cerrado is also, in our best estimate, the region of agricultural origin of initial cultivation; (4) domesticated manioc had spread from the agricultural origin by the early Holocene, possibly as early as 10,000 years ago, but certainly by 7000 B.C.; and (5) domesticated manioc was a readily available plant in most habitats of the Neotropics by the mid-Holocene, at least some 6,500 years ago.
In Andean cognition the embodiment of the past is different from many other ways to spatiallyrelate the position of the body to time. This epistemology is for instance expressed in the Quechuaword ñawpa, which signifies that the past is “in front of us;” it is known and can be seen. Seeing andknowing the past in this way reverberates within the historical ecological argument that the presentis contingent with the past and is explicitly reflected within the contributions to this volume. “ThePast Ahead: Language, Culture, and Identity in the Neotropics” forms a collection of reworkedpapers originally presented in shorter format by archaeologists, anthropologists, and linguists atthe research symposium “Archaeology and Society in Bolivia” organized at Uppsala University bythe editor. The volume includes chapters by Jan-Åke Alvarsson, Lisbet Bengtsson, Roger Blench,Sergio Calla, Christian Isendahl, Carla Jaimes, John Janusek, Adriana Muñoz, Heiko Prümers,Walter Sánchez, Per Stenborg, Juan Marcelo Ticona, and Charlotta Widmark examining a series ofdifferent aspects of agriculture, complex societies, identities, landscape, languages, and urbanism inthe highland and lowland Neotropics that all highlight the significance of the past in the present.
In the Maya lowlands ancient water management was multi-componential, diverse across space, and shifted over time. In the seasonally dry Puuc region of the northwestern Yucatan Peninsula, large reservoirs dominated water management during the Late Classic to Early Postclassic periods (a.d. 600–1250). Research reported here suggests that reservoirs were central components of Puuc urban settlements and that natural depressions—from which water reservoirs could be made in the Puuc terrain—were key settlement attractors in the region. In particular, new evidence of the pre-Hispanic construction of a berm of monumental proportions along the perimeter of a water reservoir at Xuch—a Late Classic to Early Postclassic Puuc Maya agro-urban settlement in Campeche, Mexico—stresses the political, economic, and symbolic importance of water and water reservoirs in pre-Hispanic Maya communities, previously demonstrated by colleagues working elsewhere in the Maya lowlands. This article discusses the “weight” of water reservoirs in Classic period Puuc Maya landscapes, adds to the literature on water management in other regions of the Maya lowlands, and explores aspects of economy, power, environment, and cosmology in water management systems of the dry regions of the northern Yucatan Peninsula.
Maya and Aztec cities exhibited a distinctive kind of low-density urbanism common in ancient Mesoamerica. The non-monumental components of these cities differed from the high-density ancient and historical cities in the Old World that are often considered the norm for pre-modern urbanism. Distinctive features include the practice of intensive agricultural cultivation within urban settlements, residential zones that were dispersed and unplanned, and the arrangement of houses into spatial clusters that served as urban neighborhoods. The residential areas of Maya and Aztec cities resembled modern peri-urban zones and informal settlements. Because of the benefits of smallholder intensive urban agriculture, cities thrived for many centuries, and some were successful for millennia. On the basis of this longevity, we argue that these were sustainable cities, and their form and dynamics may hold lessons for understanding contemporary urbanization processes.
En la corriente dominante de economía del desarrollo agrícola los términos agricultura“pre-industrial,” “indígena” y “tradicional” a menudo se utilizan como sinónimos intercambiablespara los sistemas agrarios considerados como algo estático. Sin embargo, lacreciente evidencia de la investigación arqueológica a escala global presenta un panoramaradicalmente diferente; éstas descripciones de los sistemas de producción de alimentos enel pasado sugieren una diversidad espacial y una variación temporal. Un ejemplo de elloes el paisaje agro-arqueológico que recientemente ha sido descubierto en Rasupampa,en la región de los Yungas del Departamento de Cochabamba, Bolivia. Inicialmente investigado,descrito y documentado por Walter Sánchez (2008), estos restos incluyen unavariedad con respecto a tenencia de la tierra, control de la erosión de la capa superior delsuelo y soluciones de gestión del agua que no han sido reportados en una configuraciónsimilar en otras partes de los Andes. Las investigaciones en curso exploran diferentesaspectos de este agro-sistema y la ecología histórica de los Yungas. Una parte importantede esta investigación es conocer las actuales prácticas agrícolas y sistemas agronómicos deconocimiento locales. Este trabajo resume las prácticas actuales de agricultores en Rasupampay las regiones circundantes, a partir de una serie de entrevistas con los agricultoresde la población de Tablas Monte.