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ABSTRACT This paper argues that we would massively increase the value of our archaeological understanding of the past for the present if we cast it differently. Rather than use a reductionist, ex-post approach (which explains the present by invoking the past, looking for origins), we should be using an 'ex ante' approach that looks at the emergence of change, linking past and present to the future. This would allow us to learn from the past for the future. The paper examines some of the difficulties encountered in implementing such a different approach, at the level of our cognition, our scientific practices, and our paradigms, and then illustrates some of the changes in perspective such a shift would bring about by referring to the different discussions of Maya archaeology presented in this volume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: The notion of “sustainable development” has drawn attention to the precarious balance between populations and natural resources in terms of current and future needs. Approaches to the study of sustainability that focus on socio‐ecological systems may obscure the fact that what is sustainable at a broad scale may not be optimal for an entire population. Political ecology offers a complementary lens to investigate how relationships between humans and their environments unfold within historically situated structures of power. Archaeology provides a means to extend the historical gaze of political ecology to account for long‐term patterns of sustainability at multiple scales. This paper applies an archaeological approach to the historical political ecology of the northern Basin of Mexico. Specifically, it focuses on the people who settled in the wetland environment of Lake Xaltocan and their dynamic relationships with each other, land, and water over the last 2500 years. Over this time, local actors have adjusted to a variety of external constraints, from ecological change to political upheaval. A long‐term perspective reveals how politically‐situated actions transformed Lake Xaltocan physically and conceptually and how the sustainability of local regimes was unevenly determined by access to power rather than the husbanding of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Great attention has been focused on the southern trade routes across the Yucatan Peninsula through Tikal but little to the potential for crossing through Calakmul further to the north. This chapter shows that a combination of topography and politics make the Calakmul corridor the more efficient transit route. The political turmoil generated by Teotihuacan's involvement in Lowland trade following C.E. 378 cascaded into centuries of conflict between cities along the Tikal corridor and inhabitants of alternative routes. We trace the evolution of this conflict as influenced by landscape and climate, and decisions of the ambulatory Kaan Dynasty of El Mirador, Dzibanche, Calakmul and finally Calkini. The conflict seems to have played out in the elevated interior of the peninsula, the bone of contention perhaps being control of the Calakmul corridor through the Candelaria River. We suggest there are sufficient parallels between the Calakmul and European Rhône River corridors to draw a productive analogy between two, including that they both fall under the same synoptic climate system. Because the post-Columbian world economic system rose indirectly from the Rhône corridor, the two systems make a good test bed for thinking about the future evolution of the world system. The scale of comparison is rendered feasible by viewing the systems in terms of the scale of information transfer in which they were embedded. We offer three brief examples of how rise and decline of the Calakmul hegemony suggests ways of thinking about the future of the world economic system: warfare, sustainable design, and climate engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT How can the past inform the present? Archaeologists working though IHOPE-Maya seek to address this question by using archaeological data and ecological reconstructions to explore human-nature couplings. Maya archaeologists are revitalizing and contemporizing the field to focus on issues relevant today: the socio-natural boundary and the coupled human-nature dynamic. The ancient Maya occupied a diverse range of tropical environments that permits a comparative exploration of past permutations in adaptive responses and may also be instructive concerning issues of overexploitation. The variety of places that the Maya occupied afforded diverse opportunities and constraints. By providing access to long-term historical interactions between peoples and their landscapes, archaeology is uniquely qualified to define, examine, and interpret topics like sustainability, resilience, and vulnerability that are as equally significant to the past as they are to the present. Because Maya archaeology is well positioned to analyze ancient variability in political structures and cultural adaptations that can be related to differential societal success and decline, the discipline can contribute to broader, more current, debates concerning climate change, population limits, urban forms, landscape modifications, and stability. The research being undertaken by IHOPE-Maya hopes to serve as a catalyst for transforming the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]