Economy and Sociopolitical Change at Classic Period Carcol, Belize

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Embedded Economies" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Maya economic systems were neither static nor simplistic. Research at Caracol, Belize, has shown that the site’s Late Classic inhabitants received the bulk of their goods and services from markets that were embedded within the city. Whereas some researchers have postulated the existence of a dual economic system for the Maya in which quotidian and prestige goods operated within different realms, the goods that were distributed through Caracol’s Late Classic period markets do not support the division of the economic system into two units, tradewares and ritual items had widespread distribution in residential groups at the site. The urban landscape of Caracol manifests continuous agricultural terracing dotted with numerous residential groups. The site’s causeways join the outlying public architecture to the city’s central hub providing ready passage across the site. The large plazas at these outlying nodes permitted not only easy access to goods and services but the assembly of numerous people. Thus, the Late Classic period economic system and markets served to integrate the site’s inhabitants. However, Caracol’s socioeconomic system was dynamic and changed dramatically in the subsequent Terminal Classic period, when greater socioeconomic divisions existed and elite and non-elite members of society accessed largely different material items.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Ancient Maya Embedded Economies   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32714