E-Groups and the Origins of Ancient Maya Exchange

Summary

Many communities in the Maya Lowlands began when residents banded together to create E-Groups by leveling bedrock, paving over large plazas, and building modest pyramidal architecture. This presentation traces the spread of E-Groups after 700 BC as a product of two trends: the replication of a primordial place characterized by solar movement and a central living mountain, and the social and commercial gathering of peoples to exchange goods and ideas on a regular basis. The people producing and exchanging things in E-Group communities built their practices into the architecture of the E-Group itself. The physical remnants of activities such as freshwater shell consumption, lithic biface reduction, and solid figurine making was purposefully deposited in the fill of buildings to imbue them with the lifeblood of exchange. Potters in the Middle and Late Preclassic periods (e.g., Mamom and Chicanel spheres) clearly shared information over vast distances, perhaps by traveling to and from different E-Group gatherings, judging by similar paste recipes, formal changes and surface decoration techniques. E-Groups, then, can be viewed as the matrix from which Maya Lowland exchange arose and flourished during the time of the Classic divine rulers.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Nuts and Bolts of the Real "Business" of Ancient Maya Exchange (Part 2)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage