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Oriented Raised Fields in Central Veracruz

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Alfred H. Siemens
Alfred H. Siemens*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1W5Canada
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Abstract

In the lowlands of Central Veracruz, as in various locations across the base of the Yucatan peninsula, Prehispanic agriculturalists sought out wetlands with a limited fluctuation in water level for adaptation to intensive cultivation. Vestiges of canals and raised fields show through the dry season pastures of many ranches. The rectilinear remains of the earlier incursion show considerable accordance, from wetland to wetland, in their astronomical orientation: about 15 degrees clockwise of our own cardinal directions. It may be hypothesized that this orientation was imposed from Teotihuacan and that the majority of the raised field vestiges seen in the wetlands of Central Veracruz date back at least to a time between A.D. 100 and 600.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , January 1983 , pp. 85 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1983

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