as a defensive fortifications (the first discovered in the Maya Lowlands at that time) and probably the northern urban border of the site. He studied caves and sacred writing to expand knowledge on the spiritual beliefs of the ancient Maya. And, he developed several important hypotheses on Maya subsistence and agriculture that are discussed below. Puleston died in 1978, struck by lightning while viewing a thunderstorm from the summit of El Castillo, Chichen Itza in Yucatan, Mexico. Approach to archaeology While several of Puleston's contemporaries were concerned with human interactions with nature -- cultural ecology, Dennis's approach was novel in its ability to juxtapose the micro and macro perspectives of these environments into one coherent argument. Traditional archaeological methods rest on theory interpreted through anthropological observations and repetition of artifactual data from site to site. However, a more encompassing approach was needed to address the problems Puleston was studying. Therefore, he set forth to test many of his theories through experiments in the environment. A wave of such approaches was evident in the aftermath of Puleston's death, as evident in the book, Maya Subsistence: A Tribute to Dennis E. Puleston and In the recordings of the proceedings of Puleston's memorial conference (available at https://web.archive.org/web/20120515225809/http://findingaids.princeton.edu/getAid?eadid=WC012&kw= ), entitled "The History and Development of Maya Subsistence, which was held in October 1979 in Minneapolis. Unfortunately, arguments of environmental change since the 8th and 9th century decline of Lowland Maya societies have been convincing and have been used to undermine the experimental approach to archaeology to the point that it is now rarely practiced. Consequently, there is a waning in the study of ecology and archaeology through these experiments. Despite this, there are still questions to be answered through experimental means and a portion of the field, particularly in Europe, but also including American researchers like Clark Erickson and John P. Hart are actively involved in experimental archaeology to this day. Below are brief synopses of two of Puleston's works in experimental archaeology. Research into chultuns Chultuns are man-made holes in the ground and are found in many parts of Mesoamerica. They come in several forms, but they are all called by the same moniker. In 1971, Puleston wrote an article entitled, An Experimental Approach to the Function of Classic Maya Chultuns. Within this article, he shows that, despite the common name, there are several different types of chultuns and he suggests that these