Ethnoarchaeology of a Three Generation Yucatec Maya House Compound

Summary

Since our team began work at the Ancient Maya political center of Mayapán (1150-1450), we have increasingly relied on insights derived from working with the modern residents of the nearby village of Telchaquillo, Yucatán. We have successfully applied the Direct Historical Approach to explore the function and remains of house groups, food production, lime plaster production and ritual activity. During the 2015 season of the Economic Foundations of Mayapán Project, we had the opportunity to document a diverse and complex house group that had been home to multiple generations of the same family. We recorded and mapped numerous structures within the compound including multiple homes and associated residential structures occupied over the past 80 years, features related to livestock production and other domestic activities. We also recorded an impressive array of trees and plants producing a wide variety of agricultural and other products. We recorded family histories and linked them to the remains, revealing shifting land use patterns within the compound over time. This paper will present our initial findings of the study and discuss how the results relate to archaeological features and remains that we have spent the past 15 years recording at the nearby ancient center.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage