From Household to Polity: (Dis)integration along the Ucí-Cansahcab Causeway in the Northern Maya Lowlands

Summary

Over the past decade, the Ucí-Cansahcab Regional Integration Project (UCRIP) has utilized multiples scales of analysis, from broad household excavations to large swathes of LiDAR collection, to examine the social processes of community (dis)integration of a polity in the northern Maya Lowlands. This polity, headed by Ucí, was integrated by an 18-km-long inter-site causeway system by the Terminal Preclassic and connected the emerging regional capital with three secondary sites. Extensive test pitting from monumental and household contexts at Ucí and other sites, both on and off the causeway, allow for comparing economic practices and household identities during this political shift. Recent excavations from Ucí clarify the chronology of the regional capital and indicate an apex during the Terminal Preclassic as well as a relatively robust "Protoclassic" ceramic presence, such as experimental forms and decorative embellishments. The presence of a structure with iconography indicating rulership and a high quality of life of the households at the secondary site of Ucanha underscores the successful integration of this region during this period. However, by the first few centuries into the Early Classic Ucanha experiences a decline, although Ucí does not, thereby showing integration and disintegration are variable even at the regional scale.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Integrating and Disintegrating in Central Yucatán: Archaeological Approaches to Social Change at Multiple Scales

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15963