ABSTRACT
Following Dennis E. Puleston's excavations in 1973 and 1974, archaeologists realized that a crucial aspect of Maya agricultural research was understanding both the behavior of the Rio Hondo and the effects of sea level changes in the area of Albion Island. Rio Hondo forms the international border between Belize and Mexico, and both countries monitor travel on the border to control smuggling. Rio Hondo flows from the highland regions of Guatemala and Mexico, crosses the sedimentary rocks of the eastern Yucatan Peninsula, and flows into the Caribbean Sea in Chetumal Bay. The bedrock contributing sediment to the river includes weakly cemented, chemically precipitated sedimentary rocks. The water and sediment of the Río Hondo flow through both the main western channel and the partially cut off eastern channel. Sea level may have been altered by local land subsidence, rather than by worldwide eustatic changes.
