Lowland Maya Subsistence: Notes from Ethnohistory and Ethnography

Abstract

Recent ethnohistorical investigations by the authors as part of a larger research effort focusing on Highland Maya ethnohistory have produced information on settlement patterns and subsistence activities for the Maya of the Alta Verapaz region. The environmentally transitional nature of this area—from tropical highlands to lowlands—makes this information of potential interest to Mayanists concerned with lowland civilization. Parallel subsistence activities known ethnographically from the present-day Itza of the Peten strengthens the applicability of this ethnohistorical information.