Investigating the Presence of Neighborhoods in Classic Maya Dispersed Settlement Patterns

Summary

Classic Maya settlement patterns can be characterized as dispersed or ‘low density’. Yet among the dispersed house groups scattered across the landscape, patterns of residential clustering can often be discerned. These settlement clusters likely resulted from an array of different forms of interaction which collectively acted as centripetal forces bringing people together. For this reason, Maya residential clusters probably represent extended corporate groups or neighborhoods. Unlike their nucleated urban counterparts in other early states, Maya dispersed settlement patterns present difficulties when defining cluster membership and determining where to effectively ‘draw the lines’ around possible neighborhoods. This presentation explores ways to better delineate dispersed neighborhoods at a micro-regional level through the application of various spatial analyses which have been traditionally used to discern political boundaries and polity affiliation at a regional scale. These techniques are applied to the hinterland settlement patterns of the Late/Terminal Classic (AD 600-900) Maya polity of Lower Dover, Belize, to investigate the presence of neighborhoods and patterns of interaction between households. The results suggest the presence of several distinct neighborhoods structured around large intermediate elite residential and ceremonial centers.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16915