Land, water, and stone

How the Maya fed a city in the forest, kept its water clean, and made the tools it ran on.

Maize, water at Tikal, obsidian, and chert. This page fills in December.

Sections to come

• Cacao.
• Salt and the sea trade.
• Jade and its sources.
• Raised fields and terraces.

Sources

• Aoyama, K. (2007). Elite artists and craft producers in Classic Maya society: Lithic evidence from Aguateca, Guatemala. Latin American Antiquity, 18(1), 3–26. https://doi.org/10.2307/25063083
• Haviland, W. A. (1967). Stature at Tikal, Guatemala: Implications for ancient Maya demography and social organization. American Antiquity, 32(3), 316–325. https://doi.org/10.2307/2694660
• Lentz, D. L., Dunning, N. P., Scarborough, V. L., Magee, K. S., Thompson, K. M., Weaver, E., Carr, C., Terry, R. E., Islebe, G., Tankersley, K. B., Grazioso Sierra, L., Jones, J. G., Buttles, P., Valdez, F., & Ramos Hernandez, C. E. (2014). Forests, fields, and the edge of sustainability at the ancient Maya city of Tikal. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(52), 18513–18518. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1408631111
• Lentz, D. L., Hamilton, T. L., Dunning, N. P., Scarborough, V. L., Luxton, T. P., Vonderheide, A., Tepe, E. J., Perfetta, C. J., Brunemann, J., Grazioso, L., Valdez, F., Tankersley, K. B., & Weiss, A. A. (2020). Molecular genetic and geochemical assays reveal severe contamination of drinking water reservoirs at the ancient Maya city of Tikal. Scientific Reports, 10, Article 10316. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67044-z
• Moholy-Nagy, H. (1997). Middens, construction fill, and offerings: Evidence for the organization of Classic period craft production at Tikal, Guatemala. Journal of Field Archaeology, 24(3), 293–313. https://doi.org/10.2307/530686
• Moholy-Nagy, H. (1999). Mexican obsidian at Tikal, Guatemala. Latin American Antiquity, 10(3), 300–313. https://doi.org/10.2307/972032
• Moholy-Nagy, H. (2003). The hiatus at Tikal, Guatemala. Ancient Mesoamerica, 14(1), 77–83. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536103141065
• Moholy-Nagy, H. (2014). [Chapter on the lithics of Tikal]. In Z. X. Hruby, G. E. Braswell, & O. Chinchilla Mazariegos (Eds.), The technology of Maya civilization. Routledge. (Original work published 2011). Chapter title to add. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315728858-11
• Piperno, D. R., Ranere, A. J., Holst, I., Iriarte, J., & Dickau, R. (2009). Starch grain and phytolith evidence for early ninth millennium B.P. maize from the Central Balsas River Valley, Mexico. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(13), 5019–5024. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0812525106
• Ranere, A. J., Piperno, D. R., Holst, I., Dickau, R., & Iriarte, J. (2009). The cultural and chronological context of early Holocene maize and squash domestication in the Central Balsas River Valley, Mexico. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(13), 5014–5018. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0812590106
• Tankersley, K. B., Dunning, N. P., Carr, C., Lentz, D. L., & Scarborough, V. L. (2020). Zeolite water purification at Tikal, an ancient Maya city in Guatemala. Scientific Reports, 10, Article 18021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75023-7
• Webster, D., Gonlin, N., & Sheets, P. (1997). Copan and Cerén: Two perspectives on ancient Mesoamerican households. Ancient Mesoamerica, 8(1), 43-61. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536100001565
• Woodfill, B. K. S., & Andrieu, C. (2012). Tikal's Early Classic domination of the great western trade route: Ceramic, lithic, and iconographic evidence. Ancient Mesoamerica, 23(2), 189–209. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536112000156

Every source the site uses is also on the Sources page. Links checked November 6, 2026.