[Aztlan] Phosphorous and the Maya

[David Hixson]

Dear Jules and others,

There was an extensive conversation about all of these
topics on the "old" Aztlan.  Pages and pages of
emails, many with full bibliographic citations.  It
would be a great place to start if you are interested
in population models, carrying capacity, transport of
goods, etc.  I believe it began around December of
1998 and went on for several months into 1999.  The
main subject headings were "Failure of Civilizations"
and "Population Models" but other subject headings
were used as well (in searching you'll see why it's so
important to keep the same subject heading when
replying to a post!).  Of the many contributors to
this discussion, the posts by Jeff Baker are certainly
worth checking out.  I only give you all this info so
that you can more easily find the right posts in the
archives.

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?S1=AZTLAN

In fact, Jeff Baker and I love to debate these points,
but I don't have time to do so (again) right now. 
However, Jeff's chairing a session at the upcoming
SAA's about some aspects of this.  I know I'll be
there! [How's that shaping up, Jeff?]

I can say that periphyton is naturally occurring in
most of the shallow stagnant bajos of near-coastal
seasonal wetlands (such as the Yalahau and much of the
western coast of the peninsula).  During the dry
season it decays and turns into a fine white soil. 
You can see this soil in the photo I posted a while
back:

http://www.famsi.org/aztlan/uploads/RCKALIGN-PHOTO.jpg

If indeed this "pond scum" was used for fertilizing,
all one would need to do would be to scrape the
periphyton off the surface during the rainy season,
and transport it to higher ground for agriculture
(often this might be within throwing distance, other
times it might require more lengthy transport).

-Dave


      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Never miss a thing.  Make Yahoo your home page. 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs