Dunnings research zeroes in on why larger and successful Maya communities were located along the edges of the massive wetlands of Tikal.

Supported by the National Science Foundation and the Wenner Gren Foundation, the UC researchers are exploring different aspects of the ancient Maya in one of the premier cities of the ancient Maya world, Tikal, located in northern Guatemala. Its a region where architecture  pyramids, palaces and temples dating as far back as the fourth century B.C. are still standing in tribute to this ancient, sophisticated, Native American society that largely disintegrated around 900 A.D. Their demise has remained a mystery for centuries.

Located near the southwestern margin of the Bajo de Sante Fe, its also a challenging region to conduct research. It doesnt take a lot of rain to make it impossible to get in and out of the bajos. Theyre seasonal swamps. The mud gets deep very quickly, explains Dunning.

But the researchers have found that when the Maya started building their cities adjacent to these wetlands, they were different environments than what exist now, Dunning says. Portions of the area where UC researchers are working once may have been a shallow lake and perennial wetlands from which early populations extracted organic, peat moss-like soil to help sustain nearby fields where the Maya were primarily farming maize. Over the years, the farming-on-the-edge practice on sloping land led to soil erosion that resulted in creating aprons of deep, rich soil along the interface between the uplands and the swamps.