- 2000b. Monuments of the Imenkovs’ culture (V-VII cs. A.D.), in History of the Samara region from early times to modernity. Early Iron Age and medieval times. Moscow. - 2003. Middle-Volga region in IV-VII centuries. The Imenkovs’ culture. Samara. - 2005. The question of the Bulgarians’ settled way of life in the Volga region, in Gorodetsk Readings II. MATVEEVA, G.I. & I.B. VASILIEV. 1979. Mound near the village Sjeszheye on the river. Samara Soviet Archeology 4. Maya Geography and Culture: Ancient and Contemporary Beatriz M. Reyes-Foster Department of Anthropology, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA Introduction The Maya area is “the broad expanse of territory occupied by the Maya in the centuries before the conquest... defined both by the distribution of ancient ruins of Maya Civilization and by the known distribution of peoples still speaking Mayan languages” (Sharer 1994: 19). Maya geography and culture is thus concerned with both the archaeological past and the ethnographic present. An understanding of the geographic characteristic of this large and diverse territory as well as of the way in which people interacted and continue to interact with their environment is necessary because it informs many archaeologi- cal analyses of the ancient Maya. Definition Geography plays an important role in cultural production both past and present. The Maya area features great geographical and topographi- cal diversity. Mountain ranges in the northern and southern highlands feature peaks as high as 4,220 m (14,470 ft). The northern, central, and southern lowlands show a range of temperate to tropical climates. The southern lowlands have river basins, while in the northern lowlands water is found in underground streams called cenotes (a Spanish cognate of the Mayan word dzonot). Physical environment is much more than just a “backdrop” against which Maya civilization developed and continues to exist. Geographical concepts such as landscape, space, and place enable archaeologists to analyze the ways in which Maya (both ancient and contemporary) built meaningful relationships with their physical surroundings. Key Issues/Current Debates/Future Directions/Examples The Maya area covers about 324,000 km 2 (201,325 m 2 ), spanning from the lower Lempa River in El Salvador to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico, encompassing the Yucatan Peninsula, the southern Mexican states of Chiapas and Tabasco, the countries of Guate- mala, Belize, Western Honduras, and El Salva- dor. Sharer notes that these boundaries are diffuse, stating, “the ancient Maya were very much a part of a larger cultural area that has come to be called Mesoamerica” (1994: 19). This area features a variety of terrains, elevations, and weather patterns. Archaeologists divide the ancient Maya archaeological geographic region by zones (Fig. 1), broadly categorizing them into the Pacific Coastal Plains (spanning from southern Chiapas, Mexico, Guatemala, to El Salvador); the highlands, those areas between 1,000 and 2,000 m above the sea level (spanning the Mexican states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, as well as Guatemala, Honduras, and northern El Salvador); and the lowlands, those areas between sea level and 1,000 m (spanning the Yucatan Peninsula, the Mexican state of Veracruz, and Belize). These regions are inhabited by the con- temporary Maya, whose population (an estimated 7,000,000 who speak approximately 29 Mayan languages) is present in all five countries. The Pacific Coastal Plain, which stretches from southern Chiapas to El Salvador, is a fertile plain at the foothills of the volcanic M 4710 Maya Geography and Culture: Ancient and Contemporary