Maya Political Economy: A Spatial, Temporal, and Contextual Analysis of Jade Deposits throughout the Southern Lowlands

Part of the Blue Creek Central Precinct project

Author(s): Christina Marroquin

Year: 2009

Summary

Jade is a valuable tool for studying Maya political economy because it is not only geologically rare but socially and ritually significant. Control of jade acquisition, production, and distribution became a measure of the power, prestige, and authority of the increasingly competitive polity elites. However, there is no catalog of jade artifacts for the Maya region. Therefore, this study compiles jade data from eight Southern Lowland sites with well-documented collections, creating a publicly available catalog of 19,250 contextually secure jade artifacts. Many of the data fields present new typologies with normalized data, permitting regional analysis that previously had been impossible due to site-specific naming conventions. Since jade utilization is intricately linked to the Maya political economy, changes in utilization over time likely correlate to sociopolitical changes

Cite this Record

Maya Political Economy: A Spatial, Temporal, and Contextual Analysis of Jade Deposits throughout the Southern Lowlands. Christina Marroquin. 2009 ( tDAR id: 366228) ; doi:10.6067/XCV8HH6H8T

Keywords

Culture
Maya

Material
Mineral

Site Name
Blue Creek

Site Type
Agricultural or Herding • Archaeological Feature • Ball Court • Burial Pit • Commercial or Industrial Structures • Domestic Structure or Architectural Complex • Domestic Structures • Funerary and Burial Structures or Features • Isolated Burial • Non-Domestic Structures • Plaza • Pyramid • Resource Extraction / Production / Transportation Structure or Features • Settlements • Structure • Temple • Tomb • Water-Related

Investigation Types
Archaeological Overview • Collections Research • Methodology, Theory, or Synthesis • Research Design / Data Recovery Plan • Systematic Survey

General
Blue Creek

Temporal Keywords
Aguas Turbias Ceramic Complex, Late Classic I Period (A.D. 600–750) • Cool Shade Ceramic Complex, Early Middle Preclassic Period (1000/800–650 B.C.) • Dos Bocas Ceramic Complex, Late Classic II Period (A.D. 750–830/850) • Leguas Ceramic Complex, Late Preclassic Period (350 B.C.–A.D. 100) • Linda Vista Ceramic Complex, Terminal Late Preclassic Period (A.D. 100/150–250) • Postclassic Period (after A.D. 1000) • Rio Bravo Ceramic Complex, Terminal Classic Period (A.D. 830/850–1000) • Rio Hondo Ceramic Complex, Early Classic Period (A.D. 250–600) • San Felipe Ceramic Complex, Middle Preclassic Preclassic ( 650–350 B.C.)

Spatial Coverage

min long: -88.888; min lat: 17.868 ; max long: -88.848; max lat: 17.897 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Stephen Reichardt

File Information

  Name Size Creation Date Date Uploaded Access
marroquin-thesis-maya-political-economy-1.pdf 3.14mb Aug 28, 2011 10:38:20 AM Public