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Household Inequality, Community Formation, and Land Tenure in Classic Period Lowland Maya Society

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Abstract

Access to social capital and valued resources modulates household decision-making as people seek to occupy the best-quality patches of land available. Prior occupancy, inheritance, and land tenure norms can constrain opportunities resulting in inequality between households. We examined processes of settlement development and structural inequality at two Classic Period (250–900 CE) Maya centers, Ix Kuku’il and Uxbenká, in Southern Belize. From the lens of human behavioral ecology (HBE), we evaluate the predictions of two population density models, the ideal free distribution (IFD) and the ideal despotic distribution (IDD), on household decision-making. To do so, we correlate the initial foundation date of households with nine measurable suitability variables as proxies for social and environmental resources. We conclude that at Uxbenká and Ix Kuku’il, social resources, such as the ability to mobilize labor, cooperation, and access to a transportation corridor, likely influenced where people chose to live. Environmental resources, including good farmland and access to perennial water sources, were widely distributed across the landscape and accessible to everyone. This study highlights the importance of social relationships on household decision-making, which is often difficult to detect in the archaeological record. The development and manifestation of institutionalized inequality are processes relevant to all societies past and present.

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Data Availability

All data used in this study are available in the main text and supplementary materials.

Notes

  1. Throughout this paper, what has been referred to as a “Settlement Group” in previous publications (Jordan and Prufer 2017, 2020; Prufer et al. 2015, 2017; Thompson et al. 2018) will be called “Plazuela” with letters indicating the sub-plazuela. For example, “Settlement Group 25 Plazuela E” is now “P 25E.” Plazuelas with an “X” in front of them were documented during survey at Ix Kuku’il, although a K-means cluster analysis has reassigned several of those plazuelas to the Uxbenká settlement system (Fig. 3; SI Table 1).

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Belize Institute of Archaeology (J. Morris, director) for permission to conduct research at Ix Kuku’il and Uxbenká. We are indebted to the many individuals who participated in fieldwork and analysis related to this study, a list to long to enumerate here. In particular, we thank J. Jordan, J. Thompson Jobe, B.J. Culleton, M. Williams, D. Enigk, C. Meredith, and P. Przystupa. We thank the co-directors of research at Uxbenká (led by K.M.P.) D.J. Kennett, B. Winterhalder, and R. Zarger. Three anonymous reviewers and L. Traxler, B. Houk, J. Boone helped make this paper stronger, although any errors remain the responsibility of the authors. This research would not have been possible without the support and collaboration of the people and leadership of the Mopan Maya communities of Santa Cruz (Uxbenká) and San Jose (Ix Kuku’il), and, respectively, the Uxbenká Kin Ajaw Association (UKAA) and the Green Creek Farmer’s Cooperative.

Funding

Data used in this study was funded by the National Science Foundation (BCS–DDIG-1649080, K.M. Prufer and A.E. Thompson; BCS-0620445, K.M. Prufer; HSD-0827305, K.M. Prufer), the Explorer’s Club of New York Exploration Fund (A.E. Thompson), the UNM Roger’s Research Award (A.E. Thompson), and the Alphawood Foundation (K.M. Prufer).

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  1. The Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, USA

    Amy E. Thompson

  2. Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Amy E. Thompson

  3. Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Keith M. Prufer

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Contributions

A.E.T. and K.M.P designed and conducted the study; A.E.T. analyzed the spatial data; K.M.P. and A.E.T. conducted the statistical analysis; A.E.T. wrote the paper, with contributions from K.M.P.; A.E.T. and K.M.P. revised the paper for publication; A.E.T. produced all figures and tables.

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Correspondence to Amy E. Thompson.

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Thompson, A.E., Prufer, K.M. Household Inequality, Community Formation, and Land Tenure in Classic Period Lowland Maya Society. J Archaeol Method Theory 28, 1276–1313 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-020-09505-3

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