ABOUT ROOTS
ROOTS studies the earliest human impacts in the New World from the perspective of Human Behavioral Ecology with a focus on adaptive strategies to tropical environments, human environmental relationships, and biological change over time.
OUR RESEARCH.
We conduct research through lenses of human biology, diet, mobility, economy, and demography. This project is focused on early human adaptations in the neotropical forests of Central America, which is the area below the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Lack of knowledge of the earliest humans in the region (14,000 – 3,000 years ago) in southern Mesoamerica, a critical early migration bottleneck, has impeded our understanding of the peopling of the Americas and how early New World migrants adapted to emergent tropical environments and became adept in their environments eventually domesticating key agricultural products including maize, beans, and squash. This project is collecting unique archaeological data and building chronologies from stratigraphic excavations in unusually well-preserved sites.
STUDY
AREA.
Map of southern Belize showing the locations of the rock-shelters used as mortuary sites.
Map credit: Amy Thompson. DOI: 10.5744/bi.2023.0029
The primary study area for this project is two large rock shelters (Mayahak Cab Pek [MHCP] and Saki Tzul [ST]) located in the Bladen Nature Reserve of southern Belize and the surrounding landscape. These sites are extremely remote and are 37 km from the nearest road or modern settlement in a vast tropical forest that has one of the highest levels of conservation as a protected area in Central America. These are proving to be among the most important archaeological sites in the Americas for the study of early humans and were continuously utilized between 14,000 and 1,000 years ago. The rockshelters are protected from the elements by large limestone cliffs overhanging the dry level occupation surfaces. These formations have prevented rainfall from infiltrating the sites and destroying organic materials preserved in human bone, animal bone and plant residues. The sites are also perched high enough above rivers to prevent any flooding in this tropical region of high season rainfall. This combination of conditions is unique to any sites in the Maya Lowlands and has resulted in unprecedented access to information about the past.
Plan views of MHCP (A) and ST (B) with the locations of excavation units. Burials were located in all marked units. DOI: 10.5744/bi.2023.0029
OUR FINDINGS.
Research at MHCP and ST (2014-2019) has documented archaeological deposits extending to ~13,000 cal. BP. We use stable isotope data (𝛿13Ccollagen, 𝛿15Ncollagen, 𝛿13Capatite) to document a marked increase in the consumption of C4 plants (likely maize) after 5000 cal. BP, with C4 consumption equal to that in the Classic Period by 4000 cal. BP. This is comparable to studies of Classic Maya famers. However, the individuals dating before 5000 cal. BP were also consuming some C4 resources, suggesting that smaller amounts of maize were being incorporated into the earlier diets. Anecdotal data from other proxies from these rockshelters suggests increasing plant exploitation and reliance on horticulture during the Early and Middle Holocene (by 8000 BP), including declines in the numbers of large mammals in the faunal record while changes in lithic technology point to the abandonment of formal bifacial projectiles or knives associated with hunting large animals). We have also being documenting the population history of these first neotropical people. The earliest individual in our were directly descended from the earliest Native Americans in the North America through several population dispersals before 10000 BP. Later dispersals admixed with earlier populations and formed the primary communities from which later Maya populations emerged. We also document a Middle Holocene south-to-north migration from the linked to Isthmo- Colombian ancestry who may have helped shape the emergence of farming in the region before 6000 BP.
These are proving to be among the most important archaeological sites in the Americas for the study of early humans, and were continuously utilized between 14,000 and 1,000 years ago