Recent Multidisciplinary Investigations in the Mirador Basin, Guatemala

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Recent Multidisciplinary Investigations in the Mirador Basin, Guatemala" at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Recent multidisciplinary archaeological investigations in the Mirador Basin of northern Guatemala have determined the presence of an extraordinary concentration of large and early Maya sites in a circumscribed area. These sites are connected by a dendritic web of causeways that were an integral part of early state formation within the geographically and geologically defined system. Such infrastructure facilitated economic, social, and political development and stability in the Middle and Late Preclassic periods as evident by the quantity and density of Preclassic Maya sites and associated structures, architectural monumentality, uniform economic, political and religious ideologies, the development of integrated agricultural and hydraulic logistics systems, and exchanges of goods and commodities that allowed for the formation of an early state system in northern Guatemala. The primary focus of the investigations are (1) the origins of complex societies in this region and related environmental and geological phenomenon; (2) the cultural, political, and economic dynamics that sustained and maintained the system; (3) the causes and implications of the demographic degradation and collapse of a what was a vibrant and dynamic society; and (4) the conservation, protection, and economic sustainability of the tropical forest system and the associated cultural resources within the basin.