Paths towards Complexity in the Maya Lowlands: Implications of Architectural Change at Cahal Pech

Summary

The elucidation of how permanent settlements and social complexity evolved in the Maya lowlands has been a long-standing question among Mayanists. Recently, it has been proposed that the first permanent architecture in the Pasion River region (i.e., Ceibal) emerged as ritual complexes around 1000 B.C. rather than villages with permanent households (i.e., Inomata and colleagues 2013). Nevertheless, Middle Preclassic evidence from the Belize Valley (i.e., Cahal Pech) has depicted a different scenario. At Cahal Pech, the first permanent architecture consisted of households, which were changing through time in both form and function until becoming public buildings at the end of the Middle Preclassic. This evidence suggests that there were different paths towards permanent settlement and the emergence of social complexity in the Maya lowlands. Despite of these different paths, communities were not isolated as throughout the Middle Preclassic there was an increasing interaction among the regions of the Maya lowlands witnessed by similar architectural forms and other material culture.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Exploring Two Thousand Years of Human Habitation in the Belize Valley: Situating Cahal Pech in Lowland Maya Prehistory

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