Settlement Pattern and Land Use Dynamics at Naachtun: Shaping an Agrarian Maya Town

Summary

The classic Maya site of Naachtun is actually composed by a monumental and public core zone of 35 hectares surrounded by an extensive residential area of about 175 hectares. The study of its settlement pattern along with geoarchaeological works focused on agrarian strategies specifically have shown the role of vacant spaces in shaping the settlement as an agrarian town. Mainly dedicated to agriculture since the beginning of Naachtun’s occupation in the Early Classic period and maintained until the abandonment, these vacant spaces can be used (with others parameters) to identify neighborhoods and evaluate the importance of the agrarian constraint in urbanization and spatial layout of this town. In this paper, we will first present the up-to-date analysis on inner-city neighborhoods dynamics during all the Classic period. Then, we will compare the residential density, composition and spatial organization of these neighborhoods with the first data observed, at a larger scale, in the Naachtun hinterland on the basis of the 140 km² LiDAR survey.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21354