The rural survey of Ek Balam, Yucatan, Mexico
Description
Settlement research in the Maya area has historically focused on the exploration of major centers, yielding invaluable information on the nature of Maya states and the elites that ruled them. Recently, however, a number of projects have begun to combine settlement data from both large sites and their surrounding hinterlands in an effort to gain a more complete view of Classic Maya centers and the polities they ruled. Consistent with this new approach, my dissertation presents a survey of ancient settlement patterns near the Late/Terminal Classic site of Ek Balam, Yucatan. Established to complement ongoing archaeological work in the site center, the primary goal of this project was to study the social and political organization of the broader Ek Balam polity, and the ideological, economic, and environmental factors that influenced that organization. To do so I focused my investigation of four interrelated issues: (1) general rural demography; (2) the distribution and variety of rural elite communities; (3) the frequency and distribution of nonelite communities; (4) evidence for contact between the rural population and people from outside of the Ek Balam polity Systematic survey of land exposed by cattle pastures and swidden fields in an 8-x-10-km transect west of Ek Balam revealed an ancient rural population of significant size and diversity. Ceramic material from surface collections and test excavations allowed the evaluation of rural demographic shifts from the Middle Preclassic period through Postclassic times. At the height of Ek Balam's power, four functionally distinct types of sites---secondary and tertiary elite centers, nonelite villages and farmsteads---represented important components in the rural settlement hierarchy, and their form and distribution reflect a relatively centralized, integrated political structure. In particular, the association of third tier elite communities with important natural resources indicates direct management of economic production by the state, while the dearth of artifacts from neighboring Chichen Itza suggests central control of trade and social interaction with foreigners. Finally, although traditionally regarded as an undifferentiated underclass, my data from nonelite communities points to a more complicated system of social ranking among the humblest Maya than previously documented