Lowland Maya Territories: Local Dynamics in Regional Landscapes

Postclassic Maya territories are considered by many to have been stable, but internally variable political units, retaining their integrity through time despite their incorporation into larger multi-polity networks. Given their temporal stability, territories were social and economic entities that transcended geopolitics alone. As cultural constructions, territories played an important part in structuring and shaping politics, identities, economics, and ritual practices. During the Classic and Preclassic periods, we suggest that territories were in flux, reacting and changing to both internal and external stimuli. This dynamism is exemplified by shifting political capitals, settlement patterns and migration patterns through time within regional landscapes. In this session, we examine the ways archaeologists investigate the dynamics of Maya territories including macro-analyses of regional surveys, aerial remote sensing, ceramic spheres, art and architectural styles, migration patterns, settlement patterns and hierarchies, as well as micro-analyses of site dynamics such as architectural histories, household demographics, and exchange relations. The papers in this session illustrate the importance of multi-scalar and multi-evidential perspectives to understand the boundaries and organizations of territories, how the locus of political power changed through time, and what factors contributed to their perseverance or assimilation.