Crafting, Ritual, and the Constitution of Rural Complexity: Household and Community Practices of Distinction and Affiliation at Chunhuayum, Yucatán

Summary

As Maya archaeology has shifted away from urban-centric perspectives, recent research demonstrates that hinterland populations, like urbanites, were involved in diverse and shifting practices enabling them to build and negotiate complex relationships. Using a community approach, this paper examines non-agrarian activities practiced during the late Early and Late Classic (ca. 500 – 850 AD) by residents of Chunhuayum, a small yet socioeconomically diverse farming settlement located in northwest Yucatan. Through domestic assemblages and architecture, I argue that shell and chert craft production, and suprahousehold rituals, enabled three households to distinguish themselves more markedly from their neighbors while simultaneously partaking in the constitution of a local community. These activities, and their resulting relations of mutually constituting affiliation and distinction, are also related to nearby centers’ faltering political clout and population decline. Reframing discussions of complexity to focus on the micro-levels of human interaction within a lower-order rural settlement, this research counters enduring assumptions about rural populations and contributes to a more inclusive and nuanced understanding of ancient Maya social complexity, in which hinterland people were diverse, active participants in local and regional historical processes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22587