Maya Non-Elite Hinterland Household Responses to Terminal Classic Transformations

Summary

My research examines the responses of Maya hinterland households to Terminal Classic (AD 780-900) socioeconomic transformations. My fieldwork focuses on Floodplain North, one of five settlement clusters in the Rancho San Lorenzo Survey Area in Belize’s Mopan valley. While adjoining settlement clusters have been intensively studied, my excavations are the first at Floodplain North. To date I have completed 25 test excavations, sampling all of the mounds in the settlement cluster. Preliminary analysis indicates four households were occupied in the Early Postclassic (AD 900- 1200). This is unusual in the Mopan valley, as almost no other hinterland communities survived the Terminal Classic collapse. My research examines the resiliency of this settlement cluster in the wake of large-scale sociopolitical transformations. Yaeger (2000) concluded that the San Lorenzo cluster experienced an 85% population decrease from the Late-Terminal Classic periods and was abandoned during the Terminal Classic. My excavations demonstrate that some people chose to remain at the adjacent Floodplain North cluster. By examining the Terminal Classic assemblages and topographic locations of households that showed continued occupation into the Postclassic I suggest residents of Floodplain North, motivated by strategies promoting social stability and resilience, actively chose to remain in the Mopan Valley.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Spatial Coverage