[Aztlan] dating slash and burn agriculture

[Karen Bassie]

This is slightly off topic, but the two natural models for slash and 
burn technique are volcanic eruptions and hurricanes. For example, after 
the March/April eruptions of El Chichon in 1982, the Chol area was 
covered in a deep layer of ash. It may have been difficult coping with 
all the ash in the first few months, but the people of Joloniel told me 
that the direct result was a bumper crop of corn and coffee that year. 
When hurricanes sweep across the peninsula, they flatten great tracks of 
forest. When that vegetation dries out, lightning strikes cause wide 
spread fires that naturally open the forest. Although it looks 
devastating at first, the opening of the forest allows sun loving plants 
to quickly regenerate and the ash aids in that regeneration. We see this 
effect in our national parks when old growth forests finally get hit by 
a fire that the parks department can't put out. The next year there is a 
spectacular regeneration of small plants. So natural "slash and burn" 
was always there for the Maya to observe and emulate.