In her book, Ancient Maya Life in the Far West Bajo: Social and Environmental Change in the Wetlands of Belize, Julie L. Kunen offers a detailed study of the dialectic relationship between wetland microenvironments and associated socioeconomic adaptations in a small area of northwestern Belize. Kunen's central argument is that ancient Maya inhabitants of the Far West Bajo recognized and utilized three environmental zones for different purposes: the flat bajo interior for the extraction of raw materials (chert, clay, water, and organic soils), the gently sloping bajo margins for intensive agricultural production, and the surrounding upland areas for habitation and gardening. This land-use pattern developed over time as environmental changes in the bajo landscape brought about by human activity during the Preclassic period (400 B.C.-A.D. 150) required a shift in agricultural strategies that resulted in the construction and use of terraces and berms to conserve soil and manage water around bajo margins. Through their status as community founders, certain families in surrounding upland settlements enjoyed preferential access to multiple resources, which they were able to maximize during times of environmental stress, thereby maintaining their socioeconomic status. This deceptively simple argument integrates multiple lines of evidence, derived from Kunen's dissertation as well as the research of others, to paint a dynamic portrait of human-environment interaction in this locale.
The book is divided into seven chapters. Chapter 1, "The Evolving Maya Landscape," outlines the central argument and introduces the reader to the cultural and natural landscapes of the Maya lowlands. The study is placed within the context of other wetlands research, which has tended to focus more on lowlying, perennial wetlands, such as riverine floodplains and swamps, than on seasonally inundated upland bajos, such as the Far West Bajo. The emphasis on environmental heterogeneity within the Maya lowlands leads Kunen to employ a heterarchical model of political economy. Resource specialization by nonurban settlements (specifically "bajo communities") developed out of the patchiness of resource availability and permitted some degree of economic independence from major political centers, in this case, La Milpa. How then, asks Kunen, was the landscape of the Far West Bajo organized and utilized, and how did environmental changes and human activities in this locale interact through time? To address these questions, Kunen conducted an extensive survey of her study area, supplemented by a small number of test excavations (Chapter 2, "Investigating the Bajo"). In no less than eight survey blocks covering 79 ha in and around the bajo and five transects covering over 4 km across the bajo, Kunen and her colleagues recorded and mapped a variety of cultural and natural features.
In Chapter 3, "Environment of the Bajo Interior," Chapter 4, "Agricultural Zones," and Chapter 5, "Bajo Communities," Kunen presents the results of her survey and excavation program and slowly builds her argument. Chapter 3 describes a distinct spatial distribution of cultural features related to elevation, soil, and vegetation: (1) a limited number of rockpiles (with varying functions) in the scrub forest of the bajo interior; (2) a system of terraces and berms in the transitional forest on the slopes of the bajo margins; and (3) a high proportion of residential features in the upland forest of surrounding hilltops and ridges. Somewhat hidden in the last page and a half of this chapter, Kunen summarizes paleoecological research by Nicholas Dunning and colleagues, which is essential to her argument. Principally, Dunning et al. (2002) found that widespread deforestation and soil erosion around the Far West Bajo during the Preclassic period transformed the perennially wet bajo into a seasonal swamp. To adapt to this environmental shift, Kunen argues that bajo inhabitants turned from slash-and-burn agriculture on surrounding slopes (inferred