The Mirador Basin: New Investigations and Conservation Programs

Major research programs in the Mirador Basin of northern Guatemala and southern Campeche, Mexico, have provided new data relevant to the origins, dynamics, and collapse of complex societies in the Maya Lowlands. Data suggests that the origins of sedentary societies began earlier than previously thought, and that the dynamics of complexity included complex agricultural sophistication, elaborate communication and trade systems, logistics development, and vast political, economic, and social dominance within the circumscribed region primarily in the Middle and Late Preclassic periods of Maya civilization. Furthermore, the factors that gave rise to socio-political complexity were damaged by a multitude of issues, including climate change, inept leadership, and a conspicuous consumption of resources resulting in the collapse of the major centers of the Basin near the end of the Late Preclassic period (ca. A.D. 150). Subsequent research has demonstrated the roles and activities of subsequent inhabitants in the monumental sites within the Basin and clarify the settlement distribution and formation of Maya societies living within the ruins of the ancient Kan kingdom. New conservation strategies for art and architecture at several major sites within the Basin have also provided protective measures and consolidation practices that have proven useful and productive.