Location, Location, Location: An Economic and Social Approach to Stone Houses in the Ancient Puuc District of Bolonchen, Yucatán, Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Bolonchen Regional Archaeological Project: 25 Years of Research in the Puuc" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Domestic architecture in the Puuc Hills shows an unusually high incidence of vaulted buildings, often considered to be the residences of higher status community members. The factors guiding their placement within communities are understudied, however. This is unfortunate since the siting of such expensive stone houses with respect to the built and natural environment is highly informative with regard to the social composition of settlement units and their main economic activities. This report summarizes our attempt to understand these factors in the southeastern Distrito de Bolonchen using a combination of intensive fieldwork and GIS analysis. Our ability to study domestic architecture in the eastern Puuc is now much improved thanks to lidar coverage of the region, coupled with extensive ground survey, permitting identification of a variety of domestic forms. Perhaps the most important factors dictating house location are the limestone outcrops or “altillos” and cone karst hills that provided construction surfaces, building materials as stone and sascab; besides, their contours can be used to define coresidential units. In addition, features related to the main economic activities performed by households, such as quarries and kilns, as well as nearby cultivable land, can also be used to differentiate larger settlement units.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• The Bolonchen Regional Archaeological Project: 25 Years of Research in the Puuc

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38178.0