A Preliminary Investigation into the Political Economy of Santa Cruz, an Associated Community with Ichmul de Morley, Yucatan, Mexico

Summary

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

This paper centers on the analysis of shell, lithics, and ceramics recovered from the ancient Maya community of Santa Cruz, located 3 km south of the secondary site of Ichmul de Morley in northern Yucatán. Ichmul de Morley appears to have had an expansive growth during the Late and Terminal Classic periods that might have encouraged local development of nearby communities to which it was associated. We would like to identify the degree of sociopolitical integration at Santa Cruz within the landscape dominated by the political economy of Chichen Itza, easily the largest city in the vicinity. Santa Cruz seems to have been a community where economic activities were diversified and perhaps organized into specialized workshops, a pattern seen at other neighboring sites such as Xuenkal. The analysis of materials recovered through systematic surface collections may represent a good sample to identify aspects of production and multicrafting based on the type, function, and abundance of imported foreign items such as shell, chert, and obsidian artifacts. Future excavations at Santa Cruz aimed at differentiating residential and productive areas may increase our understanding of the varied economic strategies of communities affiliated to secondary centers such as Ichmul de Morley.

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): 23724