Category: Fieldwork

Mark Robinson and project collaborator José Iriate, presented research at the Andrés Barbero Ethnographic Museum and Museo ITAIPU Tierra Guaraní in Paraguay. The Exeter based researchers, along with Yoshi Maezumi and Mike Ordemann (Max Planck), then joined Paraguayan archaeologist, Mirtha Alfonso, to assist with a new international fieldwork program that explores the cultural and environmental history of the country, including collecting palaeoenvironmental lake cores in Lago Ypacaraí and assessing stratigraphy at the rock art sites in the Parque Nacional Cerro Corá. A massive thanks is extended to Mirtha, Débora Soto Vera, Guillermo Lamenza, and Migue Torales Peña (and the wider group of Paraguayan researchers), for their warm welcome and for sharing the beautiful and interesting landscapes and history of the region. We hope this is the start of a wonderful long collaboration.

The Bladen Legacy team had a successful 2nd field season in the Bladen Nature Reserve in southern Belize. It included:

• 1,370,000 m² surveyed to complete the lidar-directed survey of Maya structures in both Ek Xux Valley and A/C Valley, led by Dr. Mark Robinson and Dr. Sara Eshleman
• 1,326 trees recorded within 13 botanical plots along environmental and anthropogenic gradients, led by Dr. Steven Brewer
• 19 soil test pits paired to botanical plots for geochemical and palaeobotanical analyses, led by Dr. Mark Robinson and Dr. Sara Eshleman
• 188 trees cored for tree ring analysis and 61 cored for wood density, led by Dr. Victor Caetano Andrade
• Over 2 m of excavation depth in the Saki Tzul rock shelter, led by Dr. Keith Prufer, Nadia Neff, and Erin Ray
• 3 household excavations in two weeks, led by Dr. John Walden
• 3 excavations in the Ek Xux reservoir system, to better understand water management, led by Dr. Mark Robinson 

The Bladen Legacy team enters the Bladen Nature Reserve for their 2nd field season this Saturday, 10 May, but the advance team arrived in Belize on 2 May for preparations. The team helicopters into the reserve and camps there for one month without the ability to resupply. This means that all supplies must be accounted for ahead of time – including all fieldwork equipment and food supplies. Pictured above are a portion of these supplies, by the end of the week they will be added to a cargo net and dropped into the reserve.

The video below shows Dr. Keith Prufer attaching a cargo net of supplies to the helicopter after the 2024 field season.

The Bladen Legacy team was astounded by the number and size of big trees during the 2024 field season. These trees will be the focus of directed work in the upcoming 2025 field season. One particularly astonishing specimen was a large ceiba tree. Ceiba trees are important to Maya mythology and have a strong human connection in that manner, but they also grow relatively quickly so further testing is necessary to ascertain whether the ancient Maya in the Ek Xux valley saw this same tree.

Click the point cloud image below to explore the lidar point cloud around the ceiba. The photos demonstrate the size of this Ceiba relative to different team members.

Dr. Mark Robinson and Sara Eshleman were invited to partake in an abbreviated field season in the Serranía de La Lindosa, Colombia with the LASTJourney project. The stunning rock shelter sites contain evidence of early peopling of the tropical Americas, an interesting corollary to the Bladen rock shelters. The fieldwork centred on digitally documenting rock art panels and collecting pigment samples to determine the age of the artwork.

The Bladen Legacy team had a successful field season in the Bladen Nature Reserve in southern Belize. It included:

• Excavations of a reservoir, aguadas, and test pits to retrieve soil samples for paleoecological and archaeobotanical analysis, led by Dr. Mark Robinson and Sara Eshleman
• Inventories of botanical plots along environmental and anthropogenic gradients, led by Dr. Steven Brewer
• Retrieval of plants specimens for genetics, led by Dr. Christine Bacon
• Rock shelter excavations, led by Dr. Keith Prufer and Nadia Neff
• Lidar-directed surveys of Maya structures, led by Dr. Mark Robinson and Sara Eshleman
• Household excavations, led by Dr. Amy Thompson and Chris Ploetz