Ancient Maya Sustainability at Caracol, Belize: Implications for the Past and Future

Long-term archaeological research at Caracol, Belize has revealed a sizeable city with over 100,000 inhabitants at A.D. 650 that practiced intensive agriculture within its urban boundaries. Over 160 square kilometers of the landscape within Caracol was anthropogenic, having been rebuilt to both provide agricultural sustainability for the city’s inhabitants and to control the flow of rainwater over the karstic environment. Their landscape adaptions provided the base for half a millennium of sustainable occupation (here defined as the ability to feed family units and provide needed quotidian and prestige items to households). The ancient Maya technologies that promoted sustainable agriculture and habitation in largely rain-fed environments that lacked standing and running water have not been replicated by modern people, but hold the potential to significantly improve modern lifeways.