The Spatial Distribution of Wealth throughout the Neighborhoods of the Late Classic Maya Polity of Lower Dover, Belize

Summary

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

The formation of neighborhoods and their integration into polities necessarily involves changes to the wealth of their inhabitants, especially as certain economic activities such as craft production intensify. For example, households that were among the first in a community, especially in low-density agricultural communities such as those of the ancient Maya, probably had more extensive property rights that afforded a greater accumulation of wealth-indicating items. Alternatively, households established later in time were often located in marginal zones with access to fewer resources, unless patronized by an emerging elite. This poster diachronically reconstructs the spatial distribution of wealth across the political landscape as three small Maya communities dating to the Middle Preclassic (1000-300 BC) were integrated as neighborhoods into the Late Classic (AD 600-900) polity of Lower Dover, Belize. Specifically, we address whether wealthier commoner households clustered concentrically around older minor centers and how this pattern changed with the emergence of politico-economic entities such as specialized production areas and the civic-ceremonial center of Lower Dover. In sum, the economic effects of communities’ political integration (into a newer, larger polity) upon their pre-existing patterns of wealth distribution is the central topic of this poster.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25327