Chocolate, Manioc, and Maize: Kante’t’u’ul and Chachaklu’um in Motul de San José’s Realm

Summary

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

Between 2013 and 2015, the Periphery of Motul de San José Archaeological Project conducted fieldwork at two subsidiary sites, Kante’t’u’ul and Chachaklu’um, located within 5 km of Motul de San José, the primary Late Classic center in this zone along the northern shore of Lake Peten Itza. Paleoethnobotanical and chemical residue analyses have highlighted the variety of resources exploited by the residents of these sites, from cacao orchards to corn infield gardens to root crop cultivation. These resources may have moved between sites, and especially from the subsidiary sites to Motul via two means (minimally): market exchange or tribute payments. The spatial distribution of these resources at the three sites provides hints to the economic integration of the polity, whether through either or both means of movement of goods. In his most recent work, *Against the Grain, Scott (2017) argues that rising political elites relied on seed grains like maize to expand their taxation, but discouraged root crops because the latter were not easily found and counted, nor light for transport or easily storable. The implications of Scott’s ideas for the evidence from Motul and its periphery will be explored.

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): 31957