Socioeconomic integration of the Classic Maya state: Political and domestic economies in a residential neighborhood.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study researches the foundations and development of sociopolitical complexity through an examination of household economic patterns in the Maya Lowlands. The Classic period Maya state was a refined and stratified society marked by intense economic production and interaction. Archaeological research gathered evidence for the utilization of subsistence goods and fine crafts across a residential neighborhood at the site of Chau Hiix, Belize. Patterns in the data were explored for links to the overarching Maya polity and the administration of economic processes at strategic points in Maya history.
Field research included survey and testing of multiple residential structures. Excavations provided an assemblage of residential material culture with numerous characteristics of economic interaction. Analyses focus on ceramic, lithic, shell, and paleobotanical data. These different classes of data, in conjunction with the longevity of occupation at the site, provide insight into the development and transformation of domestic and political economies in the Maya Lowlands.
Conclusions show that Maya political advancement from chiefdom to state initially coincided with restricted household access to socially symbolic ceramics. Subsequent changes in the production and consumption of chipped stone at the household scale suggest domestic production processes were associated with political processes. Consumption patterns exhibit signs of administrative restriction but direct political intervention, such as the coercion of household production by political elites, is not found. Overall, transformations in patterns of production and consumption show that residential household participation in the political economy fluctuated, suggesting their access to those elements was restricted socially or politically. In addition, domestic processes of subsistence production were reorganized over time. Changes in domestic subsistence patterns may have resulted from political administration but in some cases, such as in the production of agricultural crops, administration of economic processes is not clear from the residential data alone.