Rags and Riches: Wealth Inequality at Late Classic Uxul, Campeche

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Many recent studies about the distribution of wealth in ancient Mesoamerican cities are revealing new insights into the ways socioeconomic processes were organized. Measures of inequality, like the Gini index, reveal patterns of wealth distribution and socioeconomic stratification, permitting research into the relationships between the rich and the poor. In this paper, using evidence from household contexts, I discuss the distribution of wealth and its implications at the Maya Lowlands site of Uxul, Campeche. A Gini index based on construction volume is used to examine wealth inequality at the site during the Late Classic. Modern economic models help reveal the nature of socioeconomic processes that were been responsible for these distributions. The paper goes on to examine the ways in which wealth inequality impacted the daily lives of the rich and the poor in Uxul, focusing on how their access to different types of resources was affected. Artifact assemblages reveal whether certain object categories were restricted for specific layers of society. A study of the origins of obsidian, using pXRF, shows whether people had access to the same exchange systems. The access people enjoyed to public spheres and services in terms of proximity and visibility is studied using GIS.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23534