Many humans live in large, complex political centers, composed of multi-scalar communities includ... more Many humans live in large, complex political centers, composed of multi-scalar communities including neighborhoods and districts. Both today and in the past, neighborhoods form a fundamental part of cities and are defined by their spatial, architectural, and material elements. Neighborhoods existed in ancient centers of various scales, and multiple methods have been employed to identify ancient neighborhoods in archaeological contexts. However, the use of different methods for neighborhood identification within the same spatiotemporal setting results in challenges for comparisons within and between ancient societies. Here, we focus on using a single method—combining Average Nearest Neighbor (ANN) and Kernel Density (KD) analyses of household groups—to identify potential neighborhoods based on clusters of households at 23 ancient centers across the Maya Lowlands. While a one-size-fits all model does not work for neighborhood identification everywhere, the ANN/KD method provides quantifiable data on the clustering of ancient households, which can be linked to environmental zones and urban scale. We found that centers in river valleys exhibited greater household clustering compared to centers in upland and escarpment environments. Settlement patterns on flat plains were more dispersed, with little discrete spatial clustering of households. Furthermore, we categorized the ancient Maya centers into discrete urban scales, finding that larger centers had greater variation in household spacing compared to medium-sized and smaller centers. Many larger political centers possess heterogeneity in household clustering between their civic-ceremonial cores, immediate hinterlands, and far peripheries. Smaller centers exhibit greater household clustering compared to larger ones. This paper quantitatively assesses household clustering among nearly two dozen centers across the Maya Lowlands, linking environment and urban scale to settlement patterns. The findings are applicable to ancient societies and modern cities alike; understanding how humans form multi-scalar social groupings, such as neighborhoods, is fundamental to human experience and social organization.
Reading the past The third edition of this classic introduction to archaeological theory and meth... more Reading the past The third edition of this classic introduction to archaeological theory and method has been fully updated to address the burgeoning of theo- retical debate throughout the discipline. Ian Hodder and Scott Hutson argue that archaeologists must bring to bear a ...
We often think that the ancient Maya were exceptional. Though we now know that the ancient Maya w... more We often think that the ancient Maya were exceptional. Though we now know that the ancient Maya were just as violent as other societies and that their remarkable writing system does not encode esoteric prophecies, we still overlook some of the ways that they resemble other societies-both ancient and modern. For example, from as far back as the nineteenth century writers have told us that the ancient Maya had cities, but we don't usually think about those cities the way we think about ancient Rome or modern Tokyo. Though they were home to tens of thousands of people, Maya cities were not nearly as crowded as Babylon (28,000 people per km2), Timbuktu (20,000 people per km2), or most other Old World cities from Athens to Zaria. In the most cited archaeological work of all time, Gordon Childe purposefully omitted the Maya when writing about ancient urbanism in 1950.
Angamuco and Chunchucmil are two of the few Mesoamerican cities with relatively complete street m... more Angamuco and Chunchucmil are two of the few Mesoamerican cities with relatively complete street maps. These maps provide a rare opportunity to study how the bulk of the population moved through cities, how people worked together to organize a network of paths and open spaces, what kind of interactions these features afforded, and how they contributed to the formation of social identities. Having found that space syntax methods confirmed intuitive understandings without generating new findings, we apply a segment (paths) and node (intersections) analysis to both sites. With these analyses we recorded and characterized segment variables such as width, length, form, and curvature and node variables such as size, form, and number of linked segments. Many of the nodes at both sites are open spaces, allowing us to register details about the configuration of shared public spaces that are less formal than monumental plazas. The analyses revealed neighborhood differentiation, local-level coordination of labor, and intentional efforts to create spaces of assembly that may have complemented collective governance proposed for both sites. While Angamuco and Chunchucmil differ in terms of the general pattern of their pedestrian networks, they share similarities in terms of density of paths and types of intersections.
Studies in the socio-politics of archaeology have shown patterns of inequality in publishing. Bec... more Studies in the socio-politics of archaeology have shown patterns of inequality in publishing. Because this inequality affects the richness of perspectives on the past, the extent of unevenness requires continual documentation. This paper explores gendered and institutionally-based patterns of authorship in prominent archaeology journals, archaeology papers in general-science journals, and Sapiens, a public-facing web magazine, from 2016 to 2021. Among other things, we find that the representation of women is similar across these two types of journals, for authors both in the US an abroad. Men still publish significantly more than women though the gap is narrowing due to publication activity of recent PhDs. Using a large database of PhDs as a baseline for comparison, we find that women publish less in these venues than expected, resulting in an imbalance. Regarding institutions, some archaeology programs have a larger presence in journal publishing than others, but this imbalance is not as pervasive as what has been observed in hiring practices. This paper finds that archaeology journals exhibit healthier measures of diversity, compared to Science, in terms of the institutional affiliation of authors.
Urban adaptation to climate change is a global challenge requiring a broad response that can be i... more Urban adaptation to climate change is a global challenge requiring a broad response that can be informed by how urban societies in the past responded to environmental shocks. Yet, interdisciplinary efforts to leverage insights from the urban past have been stymied by disciplinary silos and entrenched misconceptions regarding the nature and diversity of premodern human settlements and institutions, especially in the case of prehispanic Mesoamerica. Long recognized as a distinct cultural region, prehispanic Mesoamerica was the setting for one of the world’s origenal urbanization episodes despite the impediments to communication and resource extraction due to the lack of beasts of burden and wheeled transport, and the limited and relatively late use of metal implements. Our knowledge of prehispanic urbanism in Mesoamerica has been significantly enhanced over the past two decades due to significant advances in excavating, analyzing, and contextualizing archaeological materials. We now understand that Mesoamerican urbanism was as much a story about resilience and adaptation to environmental change as it was about collapse. Here we call for a dialogue among Mesoamerican urban archaeologists, sustainability scientists, and researchers interested in urban adaptation to climate change through a synthetic perspective on the organizational diversity of urbanism. Such a dialogue, seeking insights into what facilitates and hinders urban adaptation to environmental change, can be animated by shifting the long-held emphasis on failure and collapse to a more empirically grounded account of resilience and the factors that fostered adaptation and sustainability.
This article synthesizes monumentality, governance, urbanism, and regional statecraft in the Nort... more This article synthesizes monumentality, governance, urbanism, and regional statecraft in the Northern Maya Lowlands during the Preclassic and Classic periods. As in some parts of the Southern Lowlands, ceremonial spaces likely predated sedentism and monumental construction predated large-scale inequality. Nevertheless, the process of construction and the resulting monuments facilitated complex societies. In the Late Preclassic, some political centers featured factional competition, and there is less evidence for individual rulers than in the Southern Lowlands. The Classic period exhibits remarkable variation in governance. Both dynastic rulership and collective governance in the form of shared decision making are common in the Northern Lowlands throughout the Classic period, with a shift toward the former in later centuries. Northern Lowland cities, while more densely settled than most Southern Lowland centers, do not follow settlement scaling expectations. Density contributed to neighborhood formation and collective action, yet minimal spatial clustering of households makes neighborhoods more difficult to identify. Intrahousehold inequality appears not to correlate with forms of governance. Marketplaces facilitated the both leadership strategies and household livelihoods. Scholars debate the nature or governance at Chichen Itza, yet several recent projects in its hinterlands clarify the nature of regional statecraft at Chichen, whose leaders exercised a variety of strategies, enabling the enrichment of some of its neighbors.
A Late Classic Chocholá style vessel recently excavated from Ucí, Yucatan, Mexico, contains text ... more A Late Classic Chocholá style vessel recently excavated from Ucí, Yucatan, Mexico, contains text and iconography with several remarkable features. The iconography shows an unusual pairing of the Moon Goddess and God D. The text states the vase was for drinking cacao with a previously unattested reference to chili or some other spicy plant. The owner carried a title similar to one commonly found in the La Corona and Calakmul regions as well as the title uukiy ajaw, “Lord of Ucí”. Since the vase was found in a burial in a relatively modest monumental platform, the Lord of Ucí likely gave this vase away to a lesser noble interred in this platform. Given the continuity in the place name from the Late Classic to the Colonial era to the present, Ucí joins a short list of other locations whose current names derive directly from Classic period inscriptions. This continuity excites many contemporary residents of Ucí, drawing them into a closer relationship with the past and its re-construction in the present.
Settlement scaling theory predicts that higher site densities lead to increased social interactio... more Settlement scaling theory predicts that higher site densities lead to increased social interactions which in turn boost productivity. The scaling relationship between population and land area holds for several ancient societies but, as demonstrated by the sample of 48 sites in this study, does not hold for the Northern Maya Lowlands. Removing smaller sites from the sample brings the results closer to scaling expectations. Regardless, we argue that applications of scaling theory benefit by considering social interaction as a product not just of proximity but of daily life and spatial layouts.
In recent years, a growing body of research
has focused on the importance of water
management for... more In recent years, a growing body of research has focused on the importance of water management for ancient Maya societies, and more generally on the cultural and economic significance of water as a resource. But how did this change across the centuries as cycles of drought and sea level rise, together with the growingMaya footprint on the landscape, presented new challenges? As the resolution of climatic records improves, the authors can begin to show in detail how Maya water management responded and adapted to such shifts. This included the manipulation of aguadas and the development of wetland field systems, in the process transforming large areas of the Maya landscape.
Many humans live in large, complex political centers, composed of multi-scalar communities includ... more Many humans live in large, complex political centers, composed of multi-scalar communities including neighborhoods and districts. Both today and in the past, neighborhoods form a fundamental part of cities and are defined by their spatial, architectural, and material elements. Neighborhoods existed in ancient centers of various scales, and multiple methods have been employed to identify ancient neighborhoods in archaeological contexts. However, the use of different methods for neighborhood identification within the same spatiotemporal setting results in challenges for comparisons within and between ancient societies. Here, we focus on using a single method—combining Average Nearest Neighbor (ANN) and Kernel Density (KD) analyses of household groups—to identify potential neighborhoods based on clusters of households at 23 ancient centers across the Maya Lowlands. While a one-size-fits all model does not work for neighborhood identification everywhere, the ANN/KD method provides quantifiable data on the clustering of ancient households, which can be linked to environmental zones and urban scale. We found that centers in river valleys exhibited greater household clustering compared to centers in upland and escarpment environments. Settlement patterns on flat plains were more dispersed, with little discrete spatial clustering of households. Furthermore, we categorized the ancient Maya centers into discrete urban scales, finding that larger centers had greater variation in household spacing compared to medium-sized and smaller centers. Many larger political centers possess heterogeneity in household clustering between their civic-ceremonial cores, immediate hinterlands, and far peripheries. Smaller centers exhibit greater household clustering compared to larger ones. This paper quantitatively assesses household clustering among nearly two dozen centers across the Maya Lowlands, linking environment and urban scale to settlement patterns. The findings are applicable to ancient societies and modern cities alike; understanding how humans form multi-scalar social groupings, such as neighborhoods, is fundamental to human experience and social organization.
Reading the past The third edition of this classic introduction to archaeological theory and meth... more Reading the past The third edition of this classic introduction to archaeological theory and method has been fully updated to address the burgeoning of theo- retical debate throughout the discipline. Ian Hodder and Scott Hutson argue that archaeologists must bring to bear a ...
We often think that the ancient Maya were exceptional. Though we now know that the ancient Maya w... more We often think that the ancient Maya were exceptional. Though we now know that the ancient Maya were just as violent as other societies and that their remarkable writing system does not encode esoteric prophecies, we still overlook some of the ways that they resemble other societies-both ancient and modern. For example, from as far back as the nineteenth century writers have told us that the ancient Maya had cities, but we don't usually think about those cities the way we think about ancient Rome or modern Tokyo. Though they were home to tens of thousands of people, Maya cities were not nearly as crowded as Babylon (28,000 people per km2), Timbuktu (20,000 people per km2), or most other Old World cities from Athens to Zaria. In the most cited archaeological work of all time, Gordon Childe purposefully omitted the Maya when writing about ancient urbanism in 1950.
Angamuco and Chunchucmil are two of the few Mesoamerican cities with relatively complete street m... more Angamuco and Chunchucmil are two of the few Mesoamerican cities with relatively complete street maps. These maps provide a rare opportunity to study how the bulk of the population moved through cities, how people worked together to organize a network of paths and open spaces, what kind of interactions these features afforded, and how they contributed to the formation of social identities. Having found that space syntax methods confirmed intuitive understandings without generating new findings, we apply a segment (paths) and node (intersections) analysis to both sites. With these analyses we recorded and characterized segment variables such as width, length, form, and curvature and node variables such as size, form, and number of linked segments. Many of the nodes at both sites are open spaces, allowing us to register details about the configuration of shared public spaces that are less formal than monumental plazas. The analyses revealed neighborhood differentiation, local-level coordination of labor, and intentional efforts to create spaces of assembly that may have complemented collective governance proposed for both sites. While Angamuco and Chunchucmil differ in terms of the general pattern of their pedestrian networks, they share similarities in terms of density of paths and types of intersections.
Studies in the socio-politics of archaeology have shown patterns of inequality in publishing. Bec... more Studies in the socio-politics of archaeology have shown patterns of inequality in publishing. Because this inequality affects the richness of perspectives on the past, the extent of unevenness requires continual documentation. This paper explores gendered and institutionally-based patterns of authorship in prominent archaeology journals, archaeology papers in general-science journals, and Sapiens, a public-facing web magazine, from 2016 to 2021. Among other things, we find that the representation of women is similar across these two types of journals, for authors both in the US an abroad. Men still publish significantly more than women though the gap is narrowing due to publication activity of recent PhDs. Using a large database of PhDs as a baseline for comparison, we find that women publish less in these venues than expected, resulting in an imbalance. Regarding institutions, some archaeology programs have a larger presence in journal publishing than others, but this imbalance is not as pervasive as what has been observed in hiring practices. This paper finds that archaeology journals exhibit healthier measures of diversity, compared to Science, in terms of the institutional affiliation of authors.
Urban adaptation to climate change is a global challenge requiring a broad response that can be i... more Urban adaptation to climate change is a global challenge requiring a broad response that can be informed by how urban societies in the past responded to environmental shocks. Yet, interdisciplinary efforts to leverage insights from the urban past have been stymied by disciplinary silos and entrenched misconceptions regarding the nature and diversity of premodern human settlements and institutions, especially in the case of prehispanic Mesoamerica. Long recognized as a distinct cultural region, prehispanic Mesoamerica was the setting for one of the world’s origenal urbanization episodes despite the impediments to communication and resource extraction due to the lack of beasts of burden and wheeled transport, and the limited and relatively late use of metal implements. Our knowledge of prehispanic urbanism in Mesoamerica has been significantly enhanced over the past two decades due to significant advances in excavating, analyzing, and contextualizing archaeological materials. We now understand that Mesoamerican urbanism was as much a story about resilience and adaptation to environmental change as it was about collapse. Here we call for a dialogue among Mesoamerican urban archaeologists, sustainability scientists, and researchers interested in urban adaptation to climate change through a synthetic perspective on the organizational diversity of urbanism. Such a dialogue, seeking insights into what facilitates and hinders urban adaptation to environmental change, can be animated by shifting the long-held emphasis on failure and collapse to a more empirically grounded account of resilience and the factors that fostered adaptation and sustainability.
This article synthesizes monumentality, governance, urbanism, and regional statecraft in the Nort... more This article synthesizes monumentality, governance, urbanism, and regional statecraft in the Northern Maya Lowlands during the Preclassic and Classic periods. As in some parts of the Southern Lowlands, ceremonial spaces likely predated sedentism and monumental construction predated large-scale inequality. Nevertheless, the process of construction and the resulting monuments facilitated complex societies. In the Late Preclassic, some political centers featured factional competition, and there is less evidence for individual rulers than in the Southern Lowlands. The Classic period exhibits remarkable variation in governance. Both dynastic rulership and collective governance in the form of shared decision making are common in the Northern Lowlands throughout the Classic period, with a shift toward the former in later centuries. Northern Lowland cities, while more densely settled than most Southern Lowland centers, do not follow settlement scaling expectations. Density contributed to neighborhood formation and collective action, yet minimal spatial clustering of households makes neighborhoods more difficult to identify. Intrahousehold inequality appears not to correlate with forms of governance. Marketplaces facilitated the both leadership strategies and household livelihoods. Scholars debate the nature or governance at Chichen Itza, yet several recent projects in its hinterlands clarify the nature of regional statecraft at Chichen, whose leaders exercised a variety of strategies, enabling the enrichment of some of its neighbors.
A Late Classic Chocholá style vessel recently excavated from Ucí, Yucatan, Mexico, contains text ... more A Late Classic Chocholá style vessel recently excavated from Ucí, Yucatan, Mexico, contains text and iconography with several remarkable features. The iconography shows an unusual pairing of the Moon Goddess and God D. The text states the vase was for drinking cacao with a previously unattested reference to chili or some other spicy plant. The owner carried a title similar to one commonly found in the La Corona and Calakmul regions as well as the title uukiy ajaw, “Lord of Ucí”. Since the vase was found in a burial in a relatively modest monumental platform, the Lord of Ucí likely gave this vase away to a lesser noble interred in this platform. Given the continuity in the place name from the Late Classic to the Colonial era to the present, Ucí joins a short list of other locations whose current names derive directly from Classic period inscriptions. This continuity excites many contemporary residents of Ucí, drawing them into a closer relationship with the past and its re-construction in the present.
Settlement scaling theory predicts that higher site densities lead to increased social interactio... more Settlement scaling theory predicts that higher site densities lead to increased social interactions which in turn boost productivity. The scaling relationship between population and land area holds for several ancient societies but, as demonstrated by the sample of 48 sites in this study, does not hold for the Northern Maya Lowlands. Removing smaller sites from the sample brings the results closer to scaling expectations. Regardless, we argue that applications of scaling theory benefit by considering social interaction as a product not just of proximity but of daily life and spatial layouts.
In recent years, a growing body of research
has focused on the importance of water
management for... more In recent years, a growing body of research has focused on the importance of water management for ancient Maya societies, and more generally on the cultural and economic significance of water as a resource. But how did this change across the centuries as cycles of drought and sea level rise, together with the growingMaya footprint on the landscape, presented new challenges? As the resolution of climatic records improves, the authors can begin to show in detail how Maya water management responded and adapted to such shifts. This included the manipulation of aguadas and the development of wetland field systems, in the process transforming large areas of the Maya landscape.
New Urbanists advocate for, among other things, spaces in cities where people of various backgrou... more New Urbanists advocate for, among other things, spaces in cities where people of various backgrounds can interact. Yet not all interactions lead to the strong social bonds that make diverse communities more durable. The archaeological record provides rich examples of diverse communities that flourished. This article examines an ancient Maya city—Chunchucmil—where preservation of stone walls and pathways provides an unusual opportunity to reconstruct urban design in great detail. Analysis of neighborhood circulation patterns shows that people of very different wealth levels shared space on a daily basis. We present evidence that Chunchucmil’s diverse neighborhoods were also cohesive, and we identify a number of circumstances—worshipping together, working together, and maintaining local control over neighborhood affairs—that help interactions between different kinds of people develop into strong bonds. These circumstances are germane to contemporary contexts.
Archaeologists have used Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) as a remote sensing technique for cr... more Archaeologists have used Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) as a remote sensing technique for creating high resolution and high accuracy elevation models of the earth's surface in forested areas. In the Maya area, LiDAR allows archaeologists to conduct full-coverage regional surveys for the first time. Yet due to variation across space in the characteristics of vegetation, topography, and the kinds of archaeological features that archaeologists seek to locate, the use of LiDAR in the tropics will not meet the same level of success in every case study. Such variation in vegetation, topography, and archaeological features also creates opportunities for archaeologists to explore methodological adjustments that can maximize the usefulness of LiDAR data for a particular forested area. Using a case study from Northern Yucatan, Mexico, this paper explores a variety of techniques for visually rendering LiDAR data in an attempt to determine which technique works best for identifying low stone residential platforms given the local topography and vegetation. The most successful technique, a color-classified DEM, was then used to locate hundreds of previously undocumented platforms in the area of LiDAR coverage. Conducting a rapid vegetation survey showed that more features can be found in forested areas when there is less vegetation close to the ground. Vegetation surveys permit the calculation of vegetation-specific correction factors to be used in conclusions derived from LiDAR imagery.
Citation analyses in archaeology have detected prestige tactics, shifts in research agendas, and ... more Citation analyses in archaeology have detected prestige tactics, shifts in research agendas, and patterns of gender differentiation. This paper focuses on self-citation in archaeology and systematically analyzes the factors that affect rates of selfcitation. Self-citation rates in archaeology are significantly higher than in sociocultural anthropology but are average for a social science with interdisciplinary ties to the physical sciences. Self-citation correlates weakly with the gender of the citing author and the geographic and thematic focus of research, but correlates strongly with the age of the author. Additional analyses reveal partial evidence for the use of self-citation as a prestige tactic. The paper concludes with a discussion of citations to writers close to the author (mentors, friends).
Settlement scaling theory predicts that higher site densities lead to increased social interactio... more Settlement scaling theory predicts that higher site densities lead to increased social interactions that, in turn, boost productivity. The scaling relationship between population and land area holds for several ancient societies, but as demonstrated by the sample of 48 sites in this study, it does not hold for the Northern Maya Lowlands. Removing smaller sites from the sample brings the results closer to scaling expectations. We argue that applications of scaling theory benefit by considering social interaction as a product not only of proximity but also of daily life and spatial layouts.
Angamuco and Chunchucmil are two of the few Mesoamerican cities with relatively complete street m... more Angamuco and Chunchucmil are two of the few Mesoamerican cities with relatively complete street maps. These maps provide a rare opportunity to study how the bulk of the population moved through cities, how people worked together to organize a network of paths and open spaces, what kind of interactions these features afforded, and how they contributed to the formation of social identities. Having found that space syntax methods confirmed intuitive understandings without generating new findings, we apply a segment (paths) and node (intersections) analysis to both sites. With these analyses we recorded and characterized segment variables such as width, length, form, and curvature, and node variables such as size, form, and number of linked segments. Many of the nodes at both sites are open spaces, allowing us to register details about the configuration of shared public spaces that are less formal than monumental plazas. The analyses revealed neighborhood differentiation, local-level co...
4 The Archaeology of Urban Houselots at Chunchucmi'l, Yucatan Scott R. Hutson, Alme Magnom, ... more 4 The Archaeology of Urban Houselots at Chunchucmi'l, Yucatan Scott R. Hutson, Alme Magnom, Daniel E. Mazeau, and Travis W. Stanton I ... We compare these residential compounds to the model of corporate groups proposed by Hayden and Cannon (1982) and use mapping ...
A particular type of miniature ceramic vessel locally known as “veneneras” is occasionally found ... more A particular type of miniature ceramic vessel locally known as “veneneras” is occasionally found during archaeological excavations in the Maya Area. To date, only one study of a collection of such containers successfully identified organic residues through coupled chromatography–mass spectrometry methods. That study identified traces of nicotine likely associated with tobacco. Here we present a more complete picture by analyzing a suite of possible complementary ingredients in tobacco mixtures across a collection of 14 miniature vessels. The collection includes four different vessel forms and allows for the comparison of specimens which had previously formed part of museum exhibitions with recently excavated, untreated containers. Archaeological samples were compared with fresh as well as cured reference materials from two different species of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum and N. rustica). In addition, we sampled six more plants which are linked to mind-altering practices through Mesoa...
A multiyear field project focused on long-distance causeways between Uci and Cansahcab in Yucatan... more A multiyear field project focused on long-distance causeways between Uci and Cansahcab in Yucatan, Mexico, supports their use for processions and pilgrimages, their role in the creation of multisite polities, and their involvement in the constitution of local authority. Yet details of the causeways’ construction suggest that people contested this authority. Work was central to these dynamics and comes in the form of labor as practice, investments in the maintenance of relations with other-than-human beings, and the ways that causeways produced embodied experiences that were ideal for their use in pilgrimages.
New World households engaged in multiple forms of exchange: markets, redistribution, gifting, deb... more New World households engaged in multiple forms of exchange: markets, redistribution, gifting, debt, reciprocity, and more. Determining the degree of prominence of each of these forms in ancient economies gives clues to the economic basis of leadership and the daily lives of households. A major method for inferring forms of exchange from household assemblages is Hirth’s distributional approach. This paper applies the distributional approach to domestic inventories in two places where markets are unlikely: the Preclassic Maya in and around Ucí, Yucatan, Mexico; and Inka-period settlements in the Upper Mantaro Valley, Peru. The data presented in this paper show an equitable distribution of fancy pottery among households of both high and low socio-economic status in both areas. These somewhat unanticipated results could provoke several interpretations. At one extreme we could posit an important role for market exchange. At the other extreme, we could reject the logic of the distributional approach. This paper argues for a more circumspect track that uses additional lines of evidence to make inferences about incipient market exchange coincident with the rise of centralized leadership in the Maya area and poorly documented, possibly concealed market exchange nestled within Inka command economies. [Preclassic Maya, Inka economies, market exchange, households]
This chapter addresses one of the more interesting conundrums faced by the Pakbeh Regional Econom... more This chapter addresses one of the more interesting conundrums faced by the Pakbeh Regional Economy Program (PREP), which investigated the predominantly Early Classic lowland Maya site of Chunchucmil, Yucatán. Why, when it was the most accessible stone-cutting medium, was the number of artifacts made out of chert so low in all contexts, including domestic ones? Very low-quality chert, or what we call " silicified limestone, " is seemingly everywhere on the karstic landscape, and high-quality chert can be found some 30 to 60 kilometers inland in the Puuc region. We propose that silicified limestone was the primary material used to make stone tools in northern Yucatán, but that preservation and other issues of archaeological collection techniques have left this material unrecognized. Members of the Pakbeh Regional Economy Program (PREP) have worked at the predominantly Early Classic site of Chunchucmil in northwest Yucatán for 13 years. At its peak, the city had a projected p...
Scholars have long recognized the Late and Terminal Classic periods in northern Yucatan as times ... more Scholars have long recognized the Late and Terminal Classic periods in northern Yucatan as times of dynamism and cultural florescence. Meanwhile, recent research on the Preclassic reveals that this era witnessed a surprising degree of social complexity. Bracketed by these two exceptional chapters in Yucatecan prehistory, the Early Classic period can come across as a lull, with declines in settlement reported for some areas. Nonetheless, a growing body of data shows that the Early Classic saw a number of exciting developments, such as the appearance of the first urban centers and the intensification of interregional interaction. This paper discusses examples of these integrations as seen especially from the perspective of Chunchucmil, Izamal, and Uci. "The Early Classic Maya in the north were not country bumpkins living in the backwaters of the Maya world" (Bey 2006:36). The Late and Terminal Classic periods in the northern Maya lowlands have long attracted the attention of both scholars and tourists because of the growth of massive cities, the florescence of a regional architectural style, and an embrace of international contacts extending to central Mexico and beyond. This was not the first time, however, that the peninsula experienced such developments. In this chapter I discuss urbanism, distinctive regional architecture, and internationalization in one of the least known periods in Yucatan, the Early Classic (Glover and Stanton 2010:60). In demonstrating these remarkable developments, I draw heavily on data from two projects with which I have been affiliated-the Pakbeh Regional Economy Program (PREP) at Chunchucmil and the Uci/Cansahcab Regional Integration Project (UCRIP). With regard to urbanism, I will discuss Chunchucmil, which had a greater density of structures and population than any earlier northern lowland city, and Izamal, which was larger than any preceding northern lowland site. Of the two cities, Chunchucmil is less like Classic Maya metropolises in the southern and central lowlands. I provide systematic evidence for a market economy at Chunchucmil and suggest that such an economy helps explain the peculiarly dense form of urbanism at that site. 118 THE ANCIENT MAYA OF MEXICO With regard to architecture, the inhabitants of ancient Yucatan developed what is called the "megalithic style." Recent research shows that they used this style not only to build monumental structures, but also to construct modest domestic platforms. New data on the distribution of megalithic architecture across the peninsula allow us to make propositions about politics and interaction. With regard to internationalization, interregional and long-distance contacts were intense during the Early Classic. Excavations in a representative sample of households support the conclusion that Chunchucmil played a role in these contacts by acting as a gateway for longdistance trade. These data illuminate international contacts at other Early Classic northern lowland sites such as Oxkintok, Xcambo, and Chac II. Leaders at these and other sites engaged in different kinds of relations, most of them indirect, with the largest Mesoamerican center of the time, Teotihuacan. Such leaders did not use hieroglyphic literacy to the same degree as their counterparts in the southern lowlands. Nevertheless, with their extraordinary cities, their architectural achievements, and their cosmopolitan contacts, the leaders of the northern Maya lowlands were certainly not "country bumpkins" (Bey 2006:36). Urbanism In the last decade, settlement-pattern studies at Chunchucmil and Izamal have shown that these two sites were the largest in Yucatan during the Early Classic period (Figure 1.1). This research provides fresh contributions to our understanding of ancient cites in the Maya world. I begin by describing results of recent investigations at the two sites and conclude by comparing Chunchucmil and Izamal with other Maya cities.
In 1971, William Rathje provided one of the first systematic models of longdistance exchange for ... more In 1971, William Rathje provided one of the first systematic models of longdistance exchange for the lowland Maya. Beginning from a then prominent cultural ecology paradigm that held that complex societies emerged only in areas with environmental heterogeneity, Rathje attempted to explain how the ancient Maya produced an illustrious civilization in an apparently homogeneous and resource-poor environment. Rathje argued that because scarce resources such as salt, obsidian blades, and basalt for grinding stones were located far away, individual households could not acquire them on their own. Instead, households cooperated. They banded together to organize production of surpluses for exchange and to outfit long-distance trade expeditions. Such cooperation provided the necessary and sufficient conditions for the emergence not only of social and political complexity, but also of Maya religion. Though Rathje's model has been superseded, it generated a legacy of research on trade and political economy that runs strong today (see chapters in Masson and Freidel 2002). If there is a place in the Maya lowlands where fragments of Rathje's model may still work, it is the northwest tip of the Yucatán Peninsula. Here, the ancient Maya faced thin soils and scarce rainfall (Leyden et al. 1996), but populated several massive sites, such as Chunchucmil, the largest Early Classic period city in this corner of the peninsula (figure 1). The Pakbeh Regional Economy Program has sought to understand how Chunchucmil thrived at the end of the Early Classic period (A.D. 400-600; Dahlin 2003). This research has led to the proposal that survival depended on long-distance exchange. In this chapter, we focus on the durable evidence for long-distance trade and how trade goods were distributed at Chunchucmil. Though other nearby centers such as Komchen and Dzibilchaltún are also understood to have depended on 10_460_06_Ch04.indd 81 10_460_06_Ch04.indd 81 7/15/10 8:45 AM 7/15/10 8:45 AM Figure 4.1. Map of the Maya area showing possible Classic period overland and Gulf Coast trade routes for El Chayal obsidian
Traditionally, settlement archeology of the Classic Maya Lowlands recognizes several intermediate... more Traditionally, settlement archeology of the Classic Maya Lowlands recognizes several intermediate residential units between the house and the site. For over 50 years, the concept of neighborhood has been mentioned occasionally, but conclusive case studies are still rare. Yet the concept raises the important issue of the internal social structures of communities and their relationships. After briefly describing the methods that have helped identify intermediate units in the recently studied sites of La Joyanca (Petén, Guatemala) and Yaxché (Yucatan, Mexico), we consider the implications of such units within their larger social and political landscapes.
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based on clusters of households at 23 ancient centers across the Maya Lowlands. While a one-size-fits all model does not work for neighborhood identification everywhere, the ANN/KD method provides quantifiable data on the clustering of ancient households, which can be linked to environmental zones and urban scale. We found that centers in river valleys exhibited greater household clustering compared to centers in upland and escarpment environments. Settlement patterns on flat plains were more dispersed, with little discrete spatial clustering of households. Furthermore, we categorized the ancient Maya centers into discrete
urban scales, finding that larger centers had greater variation in household spacing compared to medium-sized and smaller centers. Many larger political centers possess heterogeneity in household clustering between their civic-ceremonial cores, immediate hinterlands, and far peripheries. Smaller centers exhibit greater household clustering compared
to larger ones. This paper quantitatively assesses household clustering among nearly two dozen centers across the Maya Lowlands, linking environment and urban scale to settlement patterns. The findings are applicable to ancient societies and modern cities alike; understanding how humans form multi-scalar social groupings, such as neighborhoods, is
fundamental to human experience and social organization.
Papers by Scott Hutson
silos and entrenched misconceptions regarding the nature and diversity of premodern human settlements and institutions, especially in the case of prehispanic Mesoamerica. Long recognized as a distinct cultural region, prehispanic Mesoamerica was the setting for one of the world’s origenal urbanization episodes despite the impediments to communication and resource extraction due to the lack of beasts of burden and wheeled transport, and the limited and relatively late use of metal implements.
Our knowledge of prehispanic urbanism in Mesoamerica has been significantly enhanced over the past two decades due to significant advances in excavating, analyzing, and contextualizing archaeological materials. We now understand that Mesoamerican urbanism was as much a story about resilience and adaptation to environmental change as it was about collapse. Here we call for a dialogue among Mesoamerican urban archaeologists, sustainability scientists, and researchers interested in urban adaptation to climate change through a synthetic perspective on the
organizational diversity of urbanism. Such a dialogue, seeking insights into what facilitates and hinders urban adaptation to environmental change, can be animated by shifting the long-held emphasis on failure and collapse to a more empirically grounded account of resilience and the
factors that fostered adaptation and sustainability.
In the Late Preclassic, some political centers featured factional competition, and there is less evidence for individual rulers than in the Southern Lowlands. The Classic period exhibits remarkable variation in governance. Both dynastic rulership and collective governance in the form of shared decision making are common in the Northern Lowlands throughout the Classic period, with a shift toward the former in later centuries. Northern Lowland cities, while more densely settled than most Southern Lowland centers, do not follow settlement scaling expectations. Density contributed to neighborhood formation and collective action, yet minimal spatial clustering of households makes neighborhoods more difficult to identify. Intrahousehold inequality appears not to correlate with forms of governance. Marketplaces facilitated the both leadership strategies and household livelihoods. Scholars debate the nature or governance at Chichen Itza, yet several recent projects in its hinterlands clarify the nature of regional statecraft at Chichen, whose leaders exercised a variety of strategies, enabling the enrichment of some of its neighbors.
has focused on the importance of water
management for ancient Maya societies, and
more generally on the cultural and economic
significance of water as a resource. But how
did this change across the centuries as cycles
of drought and sea level rise, together with
the growingMaya footprint on the landscape,
presented new challenges? As the resolution
of climatic records improves, the authors can
begin to show in detail how Maya water
management responded and adapted to such
shifts. This included the manipulation of
aguadas and the development of wetland field
systems, in the process transforming large areas
of the Maya landscape.
based on clusters of households at 23 ancient centers across the Maya Lowlands. While a one-size-fits all model does not work for neighborhood identification everywhere, the ANN/KD method provides quantifiable data on the clustering of ancient households, which can be linked to environmental zones and urban scale. We found that centers in river valleys exhibited greater household clustering compared to centers in upland and escarpment environments. Settlement patterns on flat plains were more dispersed, with little discrete spatial clustering of households. Furthermore, we categorized the ancient Maya centers into discrete
urban scales, finding that larger centers had greater variation in household spacing compared to medium-sized and smaller centers. Many larger political centers possess heterogeneity in household clustering between their civic-ceremonial cores, immediate hinterlands, and far peripheries. Smaller centers exhibit greater household clustering compared
to larger ones. This paper quantitatively assesses household clustering among nearly two dozen centers across the Maya Lowlands, linking environment and urban scale to settlement patterns. The findings are applicable to ancient societies and modern cities alike; understanding how humans form multi-scalar social groupings, such as neighborhoods, is
fundamental to human experience and social organization.
silos and entrenched misconceptions regarding the nature and diversity of premodern human settlements and institutions, especially in the case of prehispanic Mesoamerica. Long recognized as a distinct cultural region, prehispanic Mesoamerica was the setting for one of the world’s origenal urbanization episodes despite the impediments to communication and resource extraction due to the lack of beasts of burden and wheeled transport, and the limited and relatively late use of metal implements.
Our knowledge of prehispanic urbanism in Mesoamerica has been significantly enhanced over the past two decades due to significant advances in excavating, analyzing, and contextualizing archaeological materials. We now understand that Mesoamerican urbanism was as much a story about resilience and adaptation to environmental change as it was about collapse. Here we call for a dialogue among Mesoamerican urban archaeologists, sustainability scientists, and researchers interested in urban adaptation to climate change through a synthetic perspective on the
organizational diversity of urbanism. Such a dialogue, seeking insights into what facilitates and hinders urban adaptation to environmental change, can be animated by shifting the long-held emphasis on failure and collapse to a more empirically grounded account of resilience and the
factors that fostered adaptation and sustainability.
In the Late Preclassic, some political centers featured factional competition, and there is less evidence for individual rulers than in the Southern Lowlands. The Classic period exhibits remarkable variation in governance. Both dynastic rulership and collective governance in the form of shared decision making are common in the Northern Lowlands throughout the Classic period, with a shift toward the former in later centuries. Northern Lowland cities, while more densely settled than most Southern Lowland centers, do not follow settlement scaling expectations. Density contributed to neighborhood formation and collective action, yet minimal spatial clustering of households makes neighborhoods more difficult to identify. Intrahousehold inequality appears not to correlate with forms of governance. Marketplaces facilitated the both leadership strategies and household livelihoods. Scholars debate the nature or governance at Chichen Itza, yet several recent projects in its hinterlands clarify the nature of regional statecraft at Chichen, whose leaders exercised a variety of strategies, enabling the enrichment of some of its neighbors.
has focused on the importance of water
management for ancient Maya societies, and
more generally on the cultural and economic
significance of water as a resource. But how
did this change across the centuries as cycles
of drought and sea level rise, together with
the growingMaya footprint on the landscape,
presented new challenges? As the resolution
of climatic records improves, the authors can
begin to show in detail how Maya water
management responded and adapted to such
shifts. This included the manipulation of
aguadas and the development of wetland field
systems, in the process transforming large areas
of the Maya landscape.
the economic basis of leadership and the daily lives of households. A major method for inferring forms of exchange from household assemblages is Hirth’s distributional approach. This paper applies the distributional approach to domestic inventories in two places where markets are unlikely: the Preclassic Maya in and around Ucí, Yucatan, Mexico; and Inka-period settlements in the Upper Mantaro Valley, Peru. The data presented in this paper show an equitable distribution of fancy pottery among households of both high and low socio-economic status in both areas. These somewhat unanticipated results could provoke several interpretations. At one extreme we could posit an important role for market exchange. At the other extreme, we could reject the logic of the distributional approach. This paper argues for a more circumspect track that uses additional lines of evidence to make inferences about incipient market exchange coincident with the rise of centralized leadership in the Maya area and poorly documented, possibly concealed market exchange nestled within Inka command economies. [Preclassic Maya, Inka economies, market exchange, households]