Payne's Creek National Park

Payne's Creek National Park is a nature reserve in the Toledo District of southern Belize. The park encompasses 37,680 acres (152 km2) of land including the dominant broadleaf forest as well as mangrove areas.[2]

Payne's Creek National Park
IUCN category II (national park)
Map of Belize
LocationToledo District, Belize
Coordinates16°19′37″N 88°34′37″W[1]
Area37,680 acres (152 km2)

Natural history

This national park, which stretches along the lower reaches of the Monkey River, was previously disturbed by banana farming and slash-and-burn agricultural practices; however, in 2007 a verdant broadleaf secondary forest provides habitat for a diverse tropical flora and fauna.

Black howler monkey troops are abundant, each troop maintaining a home range of 40,000 to 70,000 square metres (430,000 to 750,000 sq ft) in this forest(Lumina, 2006).

Maya sites

At least four Maya sites have been discovered in Payne's Creek National Park to date. Included are a site now under water, with rare preserved wooden artifacts and portions of wooden buildings.[3]

The excavations of submerged Mayan saltworks at the Payne's Creek National Park, dating back to 300–900 AD, highlight the usage of stone tools for cutting meat or fish, salting and preserving them within wooden kitchens, in order to be transported to inland markets.[4]

Bibliography

References
  1. "Paynes Creek National Park". protectedplanet.net.
  2. Toledo Institute Payne's Creek National Park, Belize
  3. "LSU Works to Preserve Underwater Maya Sites in Belize". Louisiana State University.
  4. McKillop, Heather; Aoyama, Kazuo (8 October 2018). "Salt and marine products in the Classic Maya economy from use-wear study of stone tools". PNAS. doi:10.1073/pnas.1803639115. PMC 6205481. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)


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