Liberty on the periphery: How Actuncan, Belize escaped the Classic Maya collapse (for a time)

Summary

In recent years, scholars working in the Classic period Maya periphery questioned traditional narratives of the 9th century Maya collapse by pointing to settlements along the periphery of the lowlands that appear to have maintained relative cultural and demographic stability. However, this generalization obscures dramatic sociopolitical changes these communities implemented to remain successful through the collapse. In this paper, I argue that populations on the periphery relied on a locally contingent set of factors that included global connections and local particularities to build successful collapse-era communities. I focus particularly on the contingencies that allowed the site of Actuncan to flourish as its neighbors failed. Located on the eastern Maya periphery of western Belize, Actuncan is situated within a fertile landscape along the major Belize River trade corridor. This location provided economic security that may have sustained the site during the collapse era. Additionally, the peripheral location may have allowed for variances from the orthodoxy of Classic period political organization, which provided Actuncan flexibility as the core sites failed. In sum, Actuncan’s location along the periphery provided political and economic conditions the local population exploited to build a successful community under precepts that foreshadow the underlying structures of the Postclassic Maya.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• People without Collapse: Peripheries as Active Participants in Cultural Transformations

Keywords

Spatial Coverage