PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

UC research on Maya village uncovers 'invisible' crops, unexpected agriculture

The research on the well-preserved plant remains found in a Maya village that was destroyed by a volcano's fury will be presented at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

2013-04-03
(Press-News.org) The University of Cincinnati's mastery of ancient Maya mysteries continues with new research from professor of biological sciences David Lentz.

UC faculty have been involved in multiple research projects concerning ancient Maya culture for more than a decade. This latest Maya study from Lentz focuses on Cerén, a farming village that was smothered under several meters of volcanic ash in the late sixth century.

Lentz will present his research, "The Lost World of the Zapotitan Valley: Cerén and its Paleoecological Context," at the 78th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, held April 3-7 in Honolulu. More than 3,000 scientists from around the world attend the event to learn about research covering a broad range of topics and time periods.

THE SCIENTIFIC GIFTS OF VOLCANIC CATACLYSM

Cerén, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site known as Joya de Cerén, was discovered in El Salvador in the late 1970s when a governmental construction project unearthed what turned out to be ancient ceramic pottery and other clay structures. The initial archaeological excavation was directed by Payson Sheets, a faculty member at the University of Colorado and a friend of Lentz.

Cerén is sometimes called "the Pompeii of Central America," and much like that doomed ancient Roman city, the wreckage of Cerén was remarkably well preserved by its volcanic burial shroud. So that bad news for the Cerén villagers became good news for archaeologists centuries later.

"What this meant for me, is this site had all these plant remains lying on the ground," Lentz says. "Not only do we find these plant remains well preserved, but we find them where the people left them more than a thousand years ago, and that is really extraordinary."

Lentz specializes in paleoethnobotany and oftentimes in his work – including at other Maya sites – he's left to interpret complex meaning from splinters of charred wood and hard nut fragments. The Mayas' tropical environment, which isn't conducive to preserving plant remains, doesn't make things any easier.

But the situation was different at Cerén. The village's sudden and complete ruin sealed it under layers of preservative ash. So Lentz's research there is still challenging but in an unfamiliar way.

"It was tricky because we kept encountering things we'd never encountered before at a Maya site," Lentz says. "They were just invisible because of the lack of preservation."

GARDENS, CROPS AND OTHER SURPRISES

A few examples of what Lentz and his team have discovered at Cerén:

They found tremendous quantities of a root crop (malanga, a relative of taro) that previously had not been associated with Maya agriculture. They found another "invisible" crop of manioc alongside the more anticipated fields of maize, and they found grasses no longer in existence on the modern-day El Salvador landscape.

They made what is thought to be the first discovery of a Maya kitchen, complete with intensively planted household garden. "We could tell what was planted around the houses," Lentz says. "This is fabulous because people have long debated how the Maya did all this. Now we have a real example."

They found a household with more than 70 ceramic pots, many used to store beans, peppers and other plant matter. Having that many vessels in one home was an unusual discovery for what is thought to be a small, farming village. Lentz likened it to having four or five sets of China in a typical American home.

They found large plots of neatly rowed land, evidence of ridge and furrow agriculture. Lentz also posits that the people of Cerén surrounded their homes with orchard trees. These discoveries seemingly debunk the common theory that the Maya employed a slash-and-burn agriculture method.

They found a raised, paved pathway called a "sacbe," which was used by the Maya for ceremonial and commercial purposes. Lentz plans additional research on the sacbe to see what other significant discoveries could be made by following the path.

LEARNING FROM ANCIENT LANDSCAPES

From these new discoveries come many lessons, a lot of them ecological. Lentz has studied how the Mayas effectively implemented systems of agriculture and arboriculture. He is intrigued by what made these methods successful, considering the Maya population was much denser than what exists on the modern landscape.

His findings at Cerén give him new pieces to plug into the Maya puzzle. Furthermore, they help us understand how humankind affects the natural world.

"Cerén is regarded internationally as one of the treasures of the world," Lentz says. "What's been found there gives you a real idea of what things were like in the past and how humans have modified things. I think what we're learning there is revolutionizing our concept of the ancient past in Mesoamerica."



INFORMATION:



Additional contributors to Lentz's research paper were students Christine Hoffer (The Ohio State University) and Angela Hood (University of Cincinnati). Funding for the research was provided by multiple National Science Foundation grants.



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

White blood cell enzyme contributes to inflammation and obesity

2013-04-03
ORLANDO, Fla., April 2, 2013 – Many recent studies have suggested that obesity is associated with chronic inflammation in fat tissues. Researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) have discovered that an imbalance between an enzyme called neutrophil elastase and its inhibitor causes inflammation, obesity, insulin resistance, and fatty liver disease. This enzyme is produced by white blood cells called neutrophils, which play an important role in the body's immune defense against bacteria. The researchers found that obese humans and mice have ...

Fatty acid metabolite shows promise against cancer in mice

2013-04-03
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — A team of UC Davis scientists has found that a product resulting from a metabolized omega-3 fatty acid helps combat cancer by cutting off the supply of oxygen and nutrients that fuel tumor growth and spread of the disease. The scientists report their discovery in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The groundbreaking study was a collaboration among multiple UC Davis laboratories and Harvard University. The metabolite is epoxy docosapentaenoic acid (EDP), an endogenous compound produced by the human body from the omega-3 ...

An inside look at carnivorous plants

2013-04-03
When we imagine drama playing out between predators and prey, most of us picture stealthy lions and restless gazelle, or a sharp-taloned hawk latched on to an unlucky squirrel. But Ben Baiser, a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard Forest and lead author of a new study in Oikos, thinks on a more local scale. His inter-species drama plays out in the humble bogs and fens of eastern North America, home to the carnivorous pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea. "It's shocking, the complex world you can find inside one little pitcher plant," says Baiser. A pitcher plant's work ...

Rising temperature difference between hemispheres could dramatically shift tropical rain patterns

2013-04-03
One often ignored consequence of global climate change is that the Northern Hemisphere is becoming warmer than the Southern Hemisphere, which could significantly alter tropical precipitation patterns, according to a new study by climatologists from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Washington, Seattle. Such a shift could increase or decrease seasonal rainfall in areas such as the Amazon, sub-Saharan Africa or East Asia, leaving some areas wetter and some drier than today. "A key finding is a tendency to shift tropical rainfall northward, ...

Daily stress takes a toll on long-term mental health, UCI-led study finds

2013-04-03
Irvine, Calif., April 2, 2013 – Our emotional responses to the stresses of daily life may predict our long-term mental health, according to a new study led by a UC Irvine psychologist. The research, which appears online in the journal Psychological Science, suggests that maintaining emotional balance is crucial to avoiding severe mental health problems down the road. Susan Charles, UC Irvine professor of psychology & social behavior, and her colleagues conducted the study in order to answer a long-standing question: Do everyday irritations add up to make the straw that ...

UC San Diego team achieves petaflop-level earthquake simulations on GPU-powered supercomputers

2013-04-03
A team of researchers at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego, has developed a highly scalable computer code that promises to dramatically cut both research times and energy costs in simulating seismic hazards throughout California and elsewhere. The team, led by Yifeng Cui, a computational scientist at SDSC, developed the scalable GPU (graphical processing units) accelerated code for use in earthquake engineering and disaster management through regional earthquake ...

NRC panel advises US DOD on green buildings

2013-04-03
AMHERST, Mass. – New recommendations by a National Research Council (NRC) expert panel on green and sustainable building performance could lead to a revolution in building science by creating the first large building performance database, says panel member Paul Fisette, a nationally recognized sustainable building expert at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Fisette and six other NRC panel members were asked to consider whether nearly 500,000 structures owned by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) worldwide are being operated as sustainably and as efficiently ...

Pedestrians at serious risk when drivers are 'permitted' to turn left

2013-04-03
CORVALLIS, Ore. – A study to examine driver behavior in permitted left turns has identified what researchers call an "alarming" level of risk to pedestrians crossing the street – about 4-9 percent of the time, drivers don't even bother to look and see if there are people in the way. As opposed to a "protected" left turn, in which a solid green arrow gives a driver the complete right of way in a left-turn lane, a "permitted" left turn is often allowed by a confusing hodgepodge of signals, and drivers may have to pick their way through narrow windows of oncoming traffic. This ...

Targeting cholesterol buildup in eye may slow age-related vision loss

2013-04-03
Targeting cholesterol metabolism in the eye might help prevent a severe form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), one of the most common causes of blindness in older Americans, according to indications in a study in mice, which was supported by the National Institutes of Health. Cholesterol build-up in arteries and veins, or atherosclerosis, occurs as a natural consequence of aging. Likewise, in AMD, cholesterol is known to accumulate in the eye, within deposits called drusen. The study, published in Cell Metabolism, shows that large cells called macrophages ...

Telerobotic system designed to treat bladder cancer better

2013-04-03
Although bladder cancer is the sixth most common form of cancer in the U.S. and the most expensive to treat, the basic method that doctors use to treat it hasn't changed much in more than 70 years. An interdisciplinary collaboration of engineers and doctors at Vanderbilt and Columbia Universities intends to change that situation dramatically. Headed by Nabil Simaan, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt, the team has developed a prototype telerobotic platform designed to be inserted through natural orifices – in this case the urethra – that can provide ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Pink skies

Monkeys are world’s best yodellers - new research

Key differences between visual- and memory-led Alzheimer’s discovered

% weight loss targets in obesity management – is this the wrong objective?

An app can change how you see yourself at work

NYC speed cameras take six months to change driver behavior, effects vary by neighborhood, new study reveals

New research shows that propaganda is on the rise in China

Even the richest Americans face shorter lifespans than their European counterparts, study finds

Novel genes linked to rare childhood diarrhea

New computer model reveals how Bronze Age Scandinavians could have crossed the sea

Novel point-of-care technology delivers accurate HIV results in minutes

Researchers reveal key brain differences to explain why Ritalin helps improve focus in some more than others

Study finds nearly five-fold increase in hospitalizations for common cause of stroke

Study reveals how alcohol abuse damages cognition

Medicinal cannabis is linked to long-term benefits in health-related quality of life

Microplastics detected in cat placentas and fetuses during early pregnancy

Ancient amphibians as big as alligators died in mass mortality event in Triassic Wyoming

Scientists uncover the first clear evidence of air sacs in the fossilized bones of alvarezsaurian dinosaurs: the "hollow bones" which help modern day birds to fly

Alcohol makes male flies sexy

TB patients globally often incur "catastrophic costs" of up to $11,329 USD, despite many countries offering free treatment, with predominant drivers of cost being hospitalization and loss of income

Study links teen girls’ screen time to sleep disruptions and depression

Scientists unveil starfish-inspired wearable tech for heart monitoring

Footprints reveal prehistoric Scottish lagoons were stomping grounds for giant Jurassic dinosaurs

AI effectively predicts dementia risk in American Indian/Alaska Native elders

First guideline on newborn screening for cystic fibrosis calls for changes in practice to improve outcomes

Existing international law can help secure peace and security in outer space, study shows

Pinning down the process of West Nile virus transmission

UTA-backed research tackles health challenges across ages

In pancreatic cancer, a race against time

Targeting FGFR2 may prevent or delay some KRAS-mutated pancreatic cancers

[Press-News.org] UC research on Maya village uncovers 'invisible' crops, unexpected agriculture
The research on the well-preserved plant remains found in a Maya village that was destroyed by a volcano's fury will be presented at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.