An Inhabitant’s Perspective of Material Urban Structure at Chunchucmil

Summary

Maya urban archaeology is progressively addressing how to ‘people the past’, using data exploration techniques. The Chunchucmil map (Hutson and Magnoni 2017) offers an exemplary spatial data resource. Chunchucmil features here as a testing ground for showcasing the interpretive research advances enabled by Boundary Line Type (BLT) Mapping.

BLT Mapping resulted from establishing a common frame of reference to make radical comparisons between Maya and contemporary urban patterns. The anticipation of the step increase in knowledge about the spatial layout of Maya cities achieved by LiDAR surveys, makes comparative research on Maya urbanism highly relevant. Here I will examine sections of Chunchucmil’s built environment to evaluate the interpretive contribution of BLT Mapping analyses to internal comparisons of urban configurations.

The methodology explores an inhabitant’s perspective on urban life and development. BLT Mapping conceptualises urban built environments as compositions of materialised boundaries. The boundaries fix focus on the small scale urban morphology of spatial-material properties, which are mapped as socio-spatial characteristics. Topographical information is not used to explain top-down how general patterns came to exist, but to explore how everyday inhabitation of Chunchucmil’s urban space is structured by opportunities and experiences afforded by spatial morphology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21298