Abstract
The El Pilar community is dynamic and includes proximal villages, the districts of Cayo and Petén, the nations of Belize and Guatemala, and the greater international community interested in the cultural and natural environments of the tropics. Participation at El Pilar comes from all these levels. From its first archaeological recognition in 1983, El Pilar was destined to play a role in the conservation and development of the Maya forest. Large and imposing, with monuments straddling the political boundary between Belize and Guatemala, El Pilar has a complex relationship to these different communities: it is locally linked, nationally divided, and integrated across all levels by an appreciation of the Maya forest and ancient Maya culture. Work at El Pilar has created challenges and potentials over the past three decades and has permeated local households through community outreach at primary schools and village organizations. The site is recognized for a unique brand of tourism promoting Archaeology Under the Canopy that unites traditional Maya farmers and ancient Maya settlement patterns, for the international exploration of solutions past directing a path to sustainable conservation and development.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Ruin is defined as the state of disintegrating or being destroyed.
- 2.
Monument is defined building, structure, or site that is of historical importance or interest.
References
Altieri, M. A. (1999). The ecological role of biodiversity in agroecosystems. Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment, 74, 19–31.
Altieri, M. A., & Toledo, V. M. (2005). Natural Resource Management among small-scale farmers in semi-arid lands: Building on traditional knowledge and agroecology. Annals of Arid Zone, 44, 365–385.
Anderson, M. K. (2005). Tending the wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Conklin, H. C. (1954). An ethnoecological approach to shifting agriculture. In R. W. Miner (Ed.), Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences (Vol. 17, pp. 133–142). New York: The New York Academy of Sciences.
Conklin, H. (1957). Hanunóo agriculture: A report on an integral system of shifting cultivation in the Philippines. Rome: FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Denevan, W. M. (1992). Stone vs metal axes: The ambiguity of shifting cultivation in prehistoric Amazonia. Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society, 20(1 and 2), 153–165.
Diamond, J. (2005). Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed. New York: The Penguin Group.
Everton, M. (2012). The Modern Maya: Incidents of travel and friendship in Yucatán. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Ford, A. (Ed.). (1998). The future of El Pilar: The Integrated Research and Development Plan for the El Pilar Archaeological Reserve for Flora and Fauna, Belize, Guatemala. Washington, DC: Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.
Ford, A. (2006). The Maya Forest Garden and El Pilar: A Coloring Book. Belize: National Institute of Culture and History.
Ford, A. (2008a). Coloring the past: The El Pilar Maya Forest Garden Coloring Book Project: Plants of the Maya Forest and Gardens of El Pilar: Implications for Environmental Reconstructions. In Sixth World Archaeological Congress, WAC-6, Ireland 2008.
Ford, A. (2008b). Dominant plants of the Maya Forest and Gardens of El Pilar: Implications for paleoenvironmental reconstructions. Journal of Ethnobiology, 28(2), 179–199.
Ford, A. (2012). JardinerÃa Forestal Maya de El Pilar: The Maya forest garden of El Pilar, Exploring Solutions Past: The Maya Forest Alliance.
Ford, A. (2015). Ancient Maya subsistence: The domestic economy of the Milpa cycle and development of the Maya and their Forest. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology, 12, 161–174.
Ford, A., & Ellis, C. (2013). Teaching secrets of conservation and prosperity in the Maya Forest. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology, 10, 305–310.
Ford, A., & Havdra, M. (2006). Archaeology under the canopy: Imagining the Maya of El Pilar. In K. Meethan, A. Anderson, & S. Miles (Eds.), Tourism, consumption and representation: Narratives of place and self (pp. 67–93). Wallingford: CAB International.
Ford, A., & Larios, R. (2000). Huellas Antiguas en la Selva Maya Contemporanea: Patrones de Asentamiento y Medio Ambiente en El Pilar. In XIII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueologicas en Guatemala (pp. 385–407).
Ford, A., & Nigh, R. (2010). The Milpa cycle and the making of the Maya forest garden. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology, 7(18), 183–190.
Ford, A., & Nigh, R. (2015). The Maya Forest Garden: Eight millennia of sustainable cultivation in the tropical woodlands. Santa Rosa: Left Coast Press.
Ford, A., Jaqua, A., & Nigh, R. (2012). Paleoenvironmental record, reconstruction, forest succession, and weeds in the Maya Milpa. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology, 9, 279–288.
Garcia, D. B. (1997). Legal and institutional analysis of the management framework for the El Pilar Archaeological Reserve for Maya Flora and Fauna in Belize and Guatemala (Draft White Paper: 18).
Garcia, D. B., & Salas, O. (1997). Legal and institutional analysis of the management framework for the El Pilar archaeological reserve for Maya Flora and Fauna in Belize and Guatemala, Draft white paper, 18.
Garrett, W. E. (1989). La Ruta Maya. National Geographic, 176(4), 424–479.
Haug, G. H., Hughen, K. A., Sigman, D. M., Peterson, L. C., & Rohl, U. (2001). Southward migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone through the Holocene. Science, 293(5533), 1304–1308.
Larios Villalta, C. R. (2005). Architectural restoration criteria in the Maya Area. FAMSI. Retrieved from http://www.famsi.org/reports/99026/.
Mathews, J. P. (2009). Chicle: The chewing gum of the Americas, From the Ancient Maya to William Wrigley. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Montes, J. A. (1997). Analisis Legal y Institucional Del Marco Administrativo de la Reserva Arqueologica El Pilar para La Flora y Fauna Mayas Belice y Guatemala, University of California, Santa Barbara; University of Florida, 20.
NASA. (2012). Mayan farming, modern farming: Land use in Central America. Retrieved 10 August, 2017, from https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=77055.
NG, National Geographic. (1989). Protecting the Heart of the Maya Land. National Geographic, 176(4), 475–479.
Perry, T. D., Breuker, M., Hernandez-Dunqué, G., & Mitchell, R. (2003). Interaction of microorganisms with Maya Archaeological Materials. In A. Gómez-Pompa, M. F. Allen, S. L. Fedick, & J. J. Jimenez-Osornio (Eds.), The Lowland Maya Area: Three millennia at the human-wildland interface (pp. 175–192). New York: Food Products Press.
Roys, R. L. (1952). Conquest sites and subsequent destruction of Maya Architecture in the interior of Northern Yucatan. Contributions to American Anthropology and History (Vol. 11, pp. 129–182). Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington.
Schwartz, N. (1990). Forest Society: A social history of Petén. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Steele, J., Adams, J., & Sluckin, T. (1998). Modelling Paleoindian dispersals. World Archaeology, 30(2), 285–305.
Taylor-Ide, D., & Taylor, C. E. (2002). Just and lasting change: When communities own their futures. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press in Association with Future Generations.
Terán, S., & Rasmussen, C. H. (1995). Genetic diversity and agricultural strategy in 16th century and present-day Yucatecan Milpa Agriculture. Biodiversity and Conservation, 4(4), 363–381.
TNC, The Nature Conservancy. (2017). Maya Forest. Retrieved January 5, from http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/mexico/placesweprotect/maya-forest.xml.
TripAdvisor. (2017). Things to do near San Ignacio, Belize: El Pilar. Retrieved December, 2017, from https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g291971-d4040388-Reviews-El_Pilar-San_Ignacio_Cayo.html.
Turner, B. L., II, & Sabloff, J. A. (2012). Classic period collapse of the Central Maya Lowlands: Insights about human–environment relationships for sustainability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 109(35), 13908–13914.
Larios Villalta, C. R. (2009). Manual de Criterios de Restauracion para la Arquitectura Prehispanica, Programa de Desarrollo de Petén para la Conservación de la Reserva de la Biósfera Maya, 95.
WDPA, World Database on Protected Areas (2018). El PIlar Belize-Guatemala. Retrieved from https://protectedplanet.net/el-pilar-archaeological-reserve.
Webster, D. L. (2002). The Fall of the Ancient Maya: Solving the mystery of the Maya collapse. London: Thames & Hudson.
WMF, World Monument Fund. (2017). El Pilar Archaeological Reserve. Retrieved from https://www.wmf.org/project/el-pilar-archaeological-reserve.
Woodburne, M. O. (2010). The great American biotic interchange: Dispersals, tectonics, climate, sea level and holding pens. Journal of Mammalian Evolution, 17(4), 245–264.
Yam, I. O. (2009). Los Montes Yucatecos: La Perceptción de un Espacio en las Fuentes Coloniales. In A. Gusenheimer, J. F. Chuckiak IV, & T. O. Harada (Eds.), Texto y Contexto: Perspectivas Intraculturales en el Análisis de la Literatura Maya Yucateca (pp. 185–203). Bonn: Bonner Amerikanistische Studien, Universidad de Bonn.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ford, A. (2019). Archaeological Commitment to Participation from the Local to the International: Discovering the El Pilar Community. In: Jameson, J.H., Musteaţă, S. (eds) Transforming Heritage Practice in the 21st Century. One World Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14327-5_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14327-5_16
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-14326-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-14327-5
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)