| What was served for dinner at the beach-side
trading port at the tip of Ambergris Caye on the Belizean barrier
reef?
Marco Gonzalez, now located in a mosquito infested mangrove swamp
was once a port of trade along the Atlantic coast mercantile route
used by the Late Classic Mesoamericans. The islands of the Belize
and Honduran cayes didn't have good agricultural land or many large
land mammals, so how did the residents and travellers to this island
resort feed themselves?
I spent one summer investigating just this question by comparing the animal
remains recovered during excavation with the marine resources available
off-shore. Which of the many fish and other marine animals did the
residents of Marco Gonzalez harvest? And how much food would have
been available after generations of fishing and gathering in the
area? The modern fishers of Ambergris provided me with excellent
data on the effects of over-fishing in the region, and the Hol Chan
Marine Reserve acted as a wonderful comparison with a marine community
that had not been fished in several years. |