Hacker News Reader

Comment by Triesault | Hacker News Reader

How deep in the jungle was this supposed to be? Why would there be a old corn field in the middle of the jungle?

In Guatemala, corn fields are everywhere. For example, consider Tikal, it is in the heart of the humid jungle yet used to be a Mayan city 1000 years ago with a population of 100-200k people in the near vicinity (population density estimates put it in the same category as LA county). They cleared vast swaths of the jungle to cultivate corn.

Today you see a similar pattern among the poor, indigenous Guatemalans, though on smaller scales. As I drive through the country, I'm always astounded at how many corn fields are in the middle of a forest or on a seemingly inaccessible hillside. The majority of these rural poor are still cultivating corn by hand using techniques inherited from their ancestors. As corn was domesticated there, they have found ways to cultivate it that are very different from the industrial farms on flatland in Iowa.

Corn here being maize, not what we Brits call corn (a crop like wheat or barley) presumably.

Much of what is now a jungle in South America is recent, i.e. a product of the last 500-1500 years. Or rather, we know that many jungled areas were once open. Hence why we are still discovering entire settlements buried deep in jungle.

(A) Guatemala is in Central America, not South America. Central America being part of North America. In countless ways, Mexico and Central America are far more connected to the US than to South America.

(B) a lot of these cities discovered in the jungle is not because it was naturally not jungle before. Instead, it was jungle that the Maya deforested and cultivated the land. The amount of deforestation by the ancient Maya was similar (though smaller scale) to that of the Europeans.

This point in particular is critical in breaking the myth of the Maya as a super environmental people on harmony with nature. It makes them an overly simplistic "native people". The reality is they might have caused their own demise through environmental destruction (or at least the classical cities, the post classical are a different story)

> Instead, it was jungle that the Maya deforested and cultivated the land.

I am immensely skeptical. Do you have sources for this?

First possibly-reliable source I found (I had read about this before, but don't remember where)

Some text: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Maya/

and some maps speculating about the extend and climate change: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=77060

We know that native Indians built huge densely populated cities, cleared forests, shaped nature to suite their needs and engaged in bloody wars all the time. They created Maze through selective breeding of previous crops.

My money is on the fact that Mayans were pretty similar.

Also, I think it is incorrect to think that people who burn down forests aren't in harmony with nature. You can use nature and be in harmony with it at the same time. That is what I learned from ancient Hindu beliefs.

Evidence: https://www.amazon.com/1491-Second-Revelations-Americas-Colu...

If tourist guides in the Yucatan are anything to go by there basically was little to no jungle back in the Mayan days - it had been chopped down pretty much in full to make room for cities and corn fields.

There are way more lucrative crops to have in the middle of the jungle.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com