Organization of Late Classic Maya Polities in Rosario Valley, Mexico

Summary

This presentation focuses on intra and inter polity organization of the Late Classic (600-900AD) Maya polities in the Rosario Valley, Mexico. Past approaches have generally used civic-ceremonial architecture to investigate settlement hierarchy, here however, the focus is turned to interaction. This approach explores how the strength of interactions between settlements can be used to explore political hierarchy. To measure the strength of interactions, a formula borrowed from the law of gravity is applied to calculate the degree of possible interaction based on the population of settlements and the distances between them. Following this, these webs of interaction are used to distinguish the core, peripheral and marginal areas of each polity, as well as the potential interactions between different polities. The results from this interaction based analysis differ from those based on the civic-ceremonial architecture. This suggests that bureaucratic administration based on civic-ceremonial centers may not have been the case in the Rosario Valley. The results also imply that one important function of civic-ceremonial architecture could relate to enhancing interaction within the region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15728