ABSTRACT
The conventional story of the magnificent Maya civilization ends with the disappearance of the Maya people and destruction of their environment in Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico. The source of Maya wealth lay in their landscape and in their profound understanding of how to use it. The historical ecology of this forest is complex to understand it means examining contemporary agroecology of traditional farming and the paleoenvironmental record of the Late Classic Maya. The archaeological evidence from the Preclassic Maya focuses first on areas with secure water reserves. The chapter explores in detail the subtlety of the patterns and how they are embedded within the forest. The first people inhabited an arid and cool landscape founded on the karstic limestone platform that forms the Maya region. The agricultural civilization of the Maya emerged naturally within the context of the Maya forest and the tropical lowland ecosystem of southern Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Peten of Guatemala, and Belize.
