The early lowland Maya site of Cuello, Belize, has a ceramic and stratigraphic sequence extending back through the Early Formative, which radiocarbon dating indicates begins by at least 2000 b.c./2500 B.C. The environmental archaeology program of the Cuello Project has identified a number of local econiches, and flotation of carbonized plant remains has documented the exploitation of these throughout the site sequence.
The ubiquitous presence of maize from the earliest levels is accompanied by a number of other seed, tree, and perhaps root crops, including many common Mesoamerican comestibles here seen adapted to a humic tropical lowland environment. Cacao and cotton are among economically important crops identified by the Late Formative (400 b.c.--250 A.C.). Preliminary settlement-survey data suggest that population at Cuello rose rapidly in the Late Formative period, coeval with the emergence of Maya civilization.