The earliest European accounts of Maya wetland fields come from Spanish reports, such as that of the Battle of
Cintla (maize in Nahuatl) in 1519 in Tabasco, Mexico, in which Cortes’s army followed their indigenous foes
into a maze of ditches and steep banks (Puleston 1977; Freidel and Scarborough 1982, citing Lopez de Gomara
in Simpson 1966:46). Herein, Europeans encountered America’s millennia old management of wetlands. Today,
we value wetlands for their myriad of ecosystem services, aesthetics, and long history of human interactions
and ecosystem change preserved within their soils and relict geometry (Barber 1993). They also have unique
and little studied soils and ecosystems (Amundson et al. 2003) that are being lost at high rates in Central
America and around the world (Ellison 2004). Some of these complex systems also contain evidence of ancient
knowledge and adaptations to environmental hazards, and thus represent cultural and ecological heritage in
humankind’s adaptation to changing landscapes and demographics (Luzzadder-Beach and Beach 2006; Smardon 2004).
For understanding wetlands, the history of the Maya Lowlands includes agricultural evidence as early as
4600 BP, possible evidence for wetland management in the Archaic by 3500 BP, clear evidence of wetland
management in the Preclassic, from 3200 to 1700 BP, and in the Classic 1700-1100 BP.
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Olmec
A square of 1650 feet per side would be 1000 Sumerian cubits of 19.8" per side
or 100 surveying poles per side (of 16.5 English feet or 15 Sumerian feet).
