What is Sierra de los Cuchumatanes?
The '''Sierra de los Cuchumatanes''' is a group of mountains in [[Guatemala]].<ref name=Anomaly>{{cite journal|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238747098|accessdate=July 28, 2022|author1=Matthew K. Steinberg|author2=Michael Taylor|title=Guatemala's Altos de Chiantla: Changes on the High Frontier|date=August 2008|journal=Mountain Research and Development|type=Full text |volume=28|issue=3|pages=255–262|doi=10.1659/mrd.0891|s2cid=130796411 }}</ref> ==Forming== The mountains formed during the [[Cretaceous]] Period. The Altos de Chiantla is a [[plateau|table-shaped land]] in the Sierra. It had an ice cap.<ref name=Anomaly /> ==History== Historians don't know what people used the Sierra and the Altos de Chiantla for before the Spanish came to Mesoamerica. They think only a few people lived there. After the Spanish came to Mesoamerica, they brought sheep. Historians are not sure whether the Spanish brought potatoes to the Sierra or whether South Americans and Mesoamericans brought potatoes there first. But they do know there was more potato farming after the Spanish came.<ref name=Anomaly /> When sheep [[graze|eat the plants and grass]], sometimes the soil [[erosion|is pushed away by the rain and wind]]. This is called erosion. This is a problem in the Sierra.<ref name=Anomaly /> ==Plants== Some scholars say that the plants of Sierra de los Chuchumatanes are more like the plants in the Andes Mountains in South America than like plants in the rest of Mesoamerica.<ref name=Anomaly /> The plants in this place are páramo [[grassland]]s, but there are also some trees: [[juniper]] and [[pines]] in small groups and forests of [[fir]] trees. However, the sheep eat many new plants, so most trees grow in places that are too steep for the sheep to walk.<ref name=Anomaly /> ==Economy== People in the Sierra de los Chuchumantanes grow [[potato]]es and sheep. They do not grow corn the way people closer to [[sea level]] do. This is because the weather is colder higher up in the mountains.<ref name=Anoma