[Aztlan] Bajos and Sailing

[Jeff Baker]

I am in the midst of move to Tucson (about 2 hrs away), and haven't had
the time to follow this thread as closely as I'd like. Nevertheless, I
have a few comments on the thread.

The idea of bajos (seasonal swamps) as wetlands is not a new idea.
Oliver Ricketson first suggested the idea in the 1930s, with few people
paying much attention to the proposal. Peter Harrison revived this
suggestion in 1978 (in a paper in the Pre-hispanic Maya Agriculture
volume), suggesting that, using bajos, it would have been possible to
travel from the Caribbean Coast to Tikal, with only a few overland
portage trips. Again, his model did not receive much attention. In 1996,
John Jacob presented some evidence that the El Mirador bajo had been
perennial at some point in the past. In addition to the researchers
mentioned by other posters, Nick Dunning and his colleagues also have
presented evidence for perennial wetlands in Peten bajos. Both Dunning
and Jacob argue that the bajos were perennial in the Preclassic and
seasonal in the Classic. 

It also should be noted that biologists working in the Peten in the
1930s (Lundell and Bartlett) noted the presence of perennial wetlands in
the interior of many of the large bajos, which they called tembladorales
(I'm not sure if I have this spelled correctly). This item has simply
never received the attention it deserves. I have wondered if the work
conducted in bajos so far may simply be documenting old tembladorales
that have since dried up. Detailed topographic maps (with a 1 m contour
interval) of the investigated bajos showing where trenches have been
excavated that provide evidence of old perennial wetlands would be
helpful. Depending upon how extensive these perennial wetlands are, I
wonder if minor changes in precipitation could influence the size of the
perennial wetlands, even today.

The evidence from the bajos is based upon the presence of buried peats
in some of the wetlands. What this indicates is that the water, during
much of the year was fairly shallow (with the water possibly being
subsurface in some years). If the water had been fairly deep throughout
the year (over 1 m of water), the conditions would not have been right
for the development of peats. To use these areas for canoe travel, it
still would have been necessary to dig canals. 

Although many canals are visible in aerial photographs, not all canals
in the Maya area are so easily visible. Siemens, Puleston, and other
researchers in the 1970s noted that, on aerial photographs, canals would
disappear at they entered the forests immediately adjacent to rivers. On
the ground, these canals could still be observed, but the vegetation
obscured their visibility from the air. In northwestern Belize, I have
seen three complexes of raised fields that are clearly visible on the
ground, but can not be seen from the air.

Also in regard to the canals, there was a study by a Mexican
archaeologist (at the moment I cannot recall her name), who argued that
many of the long linear present in Campeche were constructed by the
logwood industry of the 17th and 18th century rather than by Prehispanic
Maya. 

If anyone is interested in the references for the sources I've mentioned
here, drop me a line next week, after I've had time to settle in, and
I'll try to pull them up.


Thanks,


Jeff




Jeffrey L. Baker, Ph.D
Archaeologist
EcoPlan Associates, Inc.
701 W. Southern Ave., Ste. 203
Mesa, Arizona 85210
480-733-6666, ext. 126
(FAX) 480-733-6661