Preclassic Standardized Complexes in the Middle Usumacinta Region

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Aguada Fénix and the Middle Usumacinta Region: Interregional Interactions and Social Transformations in the Middle Preclassic Period" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the Middle Usumacinta region, located in southeastern Mexico, multiple standardized architectural complexes dated from the Middle Preclassic (1000–00 BC) have been detected with the use of lidar technology. Of these complexes, three belong to the Middle Formative Chiapas (MFC) pattern, at least 89 have been classified into the Middle Formative Usumacinta (MFU) pattern, and 59 more could be associated with this pattern. The degree of architectural standardization, the differences in proportions, and the spatial distribution of the complexes suggest that during the Middle Preclassic, a phenomenon of political and ideological integration was gestated in the region. Regional settlement pattern data was analyzed using analytical tools in geographic information systems (GIS) and digital elevation models (DEM) created from lidar data. This study consisted of the analysis of the distribution of the standardized complexes, their proximity to water bodies, and their correlation with geomorphological units. Subsequently, different GIS analyses were used to classify the complexes into archaeological sites. This classification served to propose a rank-size site hierarchy based on the area of the plazas and the volumes of the structures. Finally, this rank-size proposal was used to perform several spatial analyses, such as territoriality, mobility, visibility, and subsistence.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Aguada Fénix and the Middle Usumacinta Region: Interregional Interactions and Social Transformations in the Middle Preclassic Period   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39630.0