Social Inequality and Cohesion through Rural-Urban Feasts at the Lowland Maya site of La Corona

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Lowland Maya feasts were critical for communal cohesion but also marked social distinctions among participants through differential display of status symbols and contributions. For these reasons they provide important insight on patterns of socioeconomic inequality and integration. In this paper I present material analyses data from Late Classic period (AD 250-900) feasting deposits to discern patterns of socioeconomic inequality across the settlement density continuum. I specifically discuss data from settlement clusters that likely represented neighborhoods in rural, peri-urban, and urban settlement density zones in the La Corona region in northwest Peten, Guatemala. While commensal events were critical in community formation and identity building, they also played a pivotal role in marking internal distinctions in neighborhoods.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40209.0