Classic Maya Housholds in Northern Peten, Guatemala: An Overview

Summary

The Northern Peten is composed by a complex network of monumental sites that proliferated in the Preclassic during a time period that witnessed the maximal centralization of power in the area. Afterward, during the Classic period, this region experimented a cultural shift and a reoccupation forming a different political panorama. However, little is still known about the Classic Maya settlements of Northern Peten especially about their households. Recent archaeological investigations at Naachtun and El Mirador have recovered intriguing new data for Late Classic Maya residential architecture. Preliminary results demonstrate that Late Classic residential units in Northern Peten were built on top of Preclassic constructions or next to older buildings. This paper focuses on residential units through the analysis of settlement structure, architecture and ceramics that evidences the traces of activities that their inhabitants left behind at this particular region. Also, this paper seeks to provide a comparative perspective of elite and commoner households in order to examine the roles of domestic ritual, household economies, and sociopolitical networks in a regional context.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Excavating the House: Residential Architecture in the Maya Area

Keywords

Spatial Coverage