Lowland Maya Territories: Local Dynamics in Regional Landscapes

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

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.

Other Keywords
Maya • Territories • Politics • Political Organization • Territory • Geopolitics • settlement • Mesoamerica • Material Culture • Epigraphy

Geographic Keywords
Mesoamerica • Central America

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-14 of 14)

  • Documents (14)
Documents
  1. Between earth and sky: the social and political construction of ancient lowland Maya territories (2015)
  2. Crossing Ancient and Modern Borders: Territoriality in the Three Rivers Region (2015)
  3. El Tintal in the Late Classic and Territorial Implications (2015)
  4. Holy lords and holy lands: territory in Classic Maya inscriptions (2015)
  5. Incorporation and Independence in the Preclassic Western Maya Lowlands: Integrating Local and Regional Traditions at Rancho Búfalo, Chiapas, Mexico (2015)
  6. The Land of the Windy Water Lords: Secondary Centers in the Motul de San Jose Polity, Guatemala (2015)
  7. A Multiproxy Investigation of Maya Socio-political Territories: A Case Study from the Yalahau Region, northern Quintana Roo, Mexico (2015)
  8. Not That Stable, Not That Durable, But Very Dynamic: Political Geography and Geopolitical Dynamics in the Río Champotón Drainage, Campeche, Mexico (2015)
  9. Preclassic Maya Territories and Boundaries (2015)
  10. Preclassic Roots of Well-Trodden Routes in the Central Maya Lowlands of Belize (2015)
  11. Shifting Allegiances at Yaxuna during the Early to Late Classic: Territory and the Loss of Independent Rule (2015)
  12. Territorial Boundaries and the Northwestern Peten: the View from Jaguar Hill (2015)
  13. Territorial Organization in the Upper Belize River Valley: Multi-Scalar Settlement Patterns at Baking Pot (2015)
  14. With Turkeys on Spears and Maize on Arrows: Defining and Defending the Province of Chetumal (2015)