Late Classic Lowland Maya Political Organization and Central-Place Analysis: New insights from the Upper Belize Valley
- 1 September 1991
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Ancient Mesoamerica
- Vol. 2 (02) , 149-165
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0956536100000481
Abstract
Between 1984 and 1989, the San Diego State University Mopan–Macal Triangle Project carried out six extended seasons of fieldwork oriented toward documenting the internal sociobehavioral structure and organization of a representative Classic period community in the southern Maya Lowlands. The project also undertook to delineate the spatial boundaries of several such contiguous communities and to test a selected set of alternative models for Classic period political organization at the local and regional levels. This article summarizes our approach to understanding political organization and presents our preliminary conclusions: a model of the so-called segmentary state type as recently espoused by several researchers best approximates the reality of internal political organization at the single polity level during the Late Classic period of the southern Maya Lowlands.Keywords
This publication has 21 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Classic Maya City: Reconsidering the “Mesoamerican Urban Tradition”American Anthropologist, 1990
- Household and Community in the Mesoamerican Past. Richard R. Wilk and Wendy Ashmore, editors. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1988. xii + 305 pp., illustrations, tables, index. $32.50 (cloth).American Antiquity, 1990
- Peer Polity Interaction and Socio-Political Change. Colin Renfrew and John F. Cherry, editors. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1986. viii + 179 pp., biblio., index. $42.50 (cloth).American Antiquity, 1988
- The Dynamics of Apocalypse: A Systems Simulation of the Classic Maya Collapse. John W. G. Lowe. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1985. vii + 275 pp., figures, tables, appendices, references, index. $22.50 (cloth).American Antiquity, 1987
- The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya ArtAfrican Arts, 1986
- Spatial Patterns and Regional Growth among Classic Maya CitiesAmerican Antiquity, 1981
- Pre-Hispanic Maya AgricultureJournal of Interdisciplinary History, 1980
- Urban Anthropology: Cities in their Cultural Settings.Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, 1978
- Exchange Systems among the Ancient MayaAmerican Antiquity, 1972
- Late Classic Finds at Baking Pot, British Honduras. William R. BullardJr. and Mary Ricketson Bullard. Art and Archaeology Occasional Papers No. 8, Royal Ontario Museum, University of Toronto, Toronto, 1965. 74 pp., 17 figs., 23 pls. $3.00.American Antiquity, 1966