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Zusatztext ...a powerful reminder of how complex and sophisticated cultural modifications to the environment were in this time period and how the ebb and flow of civilizations transformed landscapes in Middle America. Informationen zum Autor Dr Whitmore is director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Geography, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill: secretary/treasurer of the Cultural Ecology Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers.Professor Turner is a former Guggenheim Fellow, Senior Fellow of the Green Center for the Study of Science and Society, member of the National Academy of Sciences, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Delivered the Clarendon Lectures in Geography and Environmental Studies on 'Integrated Land Change Science: The Yucatan Case' in Oxford, November 2000. Klappentext The human-environment conditions in the Americas on the eve of the sixteenth-century European conquest have of late attracted growing interest in both academic and public circles. Focusing on Middle America, this book completes a trilogy which has made the most comprehensive survey everachieved of pre-Colombian agriculture and culture throughout the continents. It addresses the question of what lands were permanently occupied; how they were used; and what the environmental and social implications of this use were. The answers to these questions are central to such wide-rangingthemes as indigenous land rights, the conservation and preservation 'ethic' of these native people, and the global carbon cycle. The kind, scale, and location of land use is documented and mapped in detail. The book not only demonstrates the sophistication of the agricultural landscapes and theirlocal integration, but also investigates the omissions and land degradation of the native agriculturalists. Drawing on this wealth of data the authors make a stimulating contribution to the debate about resource, land, and population in the Americas. Zusammenfassung This book is the first to bring together all that is known about the humanly-modified and cultivated landscapes of Middle America just prior to the European conquest. It assesses the agricultural and human-environment conditions existing at that time, and its implications for various contemporary themes ranging from global change to the presumed 'environment friendly' Native American. Inhaltsverzeichnis List of Figures List of Maps 1: On the Eve of Conquest: The Context and Background to the Problem 2: The Context of Cultivation: Social and Economic Organization and the General Nature of Cropping 3: Arboriculture and Horticulture 4: Rainfed Cultivation 5: Terrace Cultivation 6: Floodwater and Irrigated Cultivation 7: Wetland Cultivation 8: Inventing Histories? Themes and Implications Bibliography Index ...
