Settlement Distribution and Density

_______The first mapped survey grid (Figure 5) was located just north of the center of La Milpa. The majority of settlement within the survey grid was recorded in a portion of slightly greater relief to the east of the baseline. West of the baseline, land was dominated by Cohune palms, suggesting that the area could experience some degree of inundation from time to time. We recorded 10 large and 14 small structures, grouped into ten residential units, all within a 100 by 100 m grid. The larger mounds were from 1-3 meters in height, indicating that considerable effort had been devoted to their construction. The structure density in this survey grid is extremely high, 240 structures per km2 with an average of 2.4 structures per residential unit. This density and residential unit composition is similar to the settlement adjacent to centers in the core area (Table 4).

_______The second mapped survey grid (Figure 6) was located east of the main road near the main Rio Bravo escarpment. This area has fairly steep relief. Settlement was recorded only at the ridge top, as the slope dropped sharply on either side. All four mounds recorded in this area were small, solitary structures, and none was greater than 0.4 meters in height. The structure density of this area is 40 structures per km2, less than one fifth the density of the La Milpa area, and there was an average of one structure per residential unit. No agricultural terraces were observed on the hill slopes.

_______Other surface surveys focused on zones of slow-drained lowlands near some minor closed-depression seasonal swamp zones in the Hills Subregion just north of Cedar Crossing. None of these zones had visible settlement. The absence of settlement is consistent with the situation in other areas of the Maya lowlands, where settlement also tends to avoid margins of closed-depression seasonal swamps (see Ford 1986).

_______A final zone of consideration is the area north of Irish Creek, observed during the air surveys. The location combines a small zone of uplands associated with a minor escarpment adjacent to a riverine-associated swamp. This swamp zone has rectilinear features which resemble the field systems identified in riverine associated swamps in Northern Belize (see Siemens 1982). The area of rectilinear features appears to be more extensive than those recorded in the north. If these features are relic fields of the ancient Maya, then there should be identifiable settlement in the adjacent uplands.