Economic Integration across Political Boundaries in Highland Chiapas

Summary

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

This paper examines the integration of small polity economies in highland Chiapas, and the ways in which polity size and proximity were factors. This region formed part of the western frontier of the Maya linguistic and cultural area, and has been characterized as a relatively autonomous economic and political periphery. Beginning in the Late Classic period, a network of small polities proliferated throughout highland Chiapas. We draw on our excavations at the multiple sites political centers in the Jovel Valley in the western Chiapas highlands, as well as our excavations at the larger center of Tenam Puente. We observe that economic integration between highland polities manifested more highly with respect to geographic distance as opposed to polity size, with a higher degree of economic integration between polities within the Jovel Valley and a relatively low degree of economic integration between the Jovel Valley and Tenam Puente. Furthermore, we consider whether the degree of economic integration between polities shifted from the Late Classic to the Early Postclassic periods, as the sociopolitical turmoil of lowland Maya polities to the north and east began to affect long-distance exchange and alliance networks.

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): 31959