The Yalahau Regional Settlement Pattern Survey (YRSPS) addresses the complex negotiations that constituted ancient Maya society through an investigation of the distribution of settlement across the Yalahau region of northern Quintana Roo, Mexico. This paper begins with a brief culture-historical background of the Yalahau region where occupation ranges from the Middle Preclassic period (700-200 b.c.) to the Postclassic period (a.d. 1100-1521). The region had its peak occupation during the Terminal Preclassic period (75 b.c./a.d. 100-a.d. 400), and this paper explores how monumental architecture, through its size and the rituals conducted in and around it, materialized an enduring sense of community identity during this time period. In so doing, this paper examines the tensions within and between communities as sociopolitical strategies are negotiated and contested in the continually messy process of constituting society.
We use ceramic and obsidian data from the ancient Maya port site of Vista Alegre to discuss long-distance exchange during the Terminal Classic (c. AD 850–1100) period. This is a time often associated with increased international trade relations and the growth of Chichen Itza as a dominant regional power in the northern Maya lowlands. Critical to the increased volume of international trade were the merchants who transported goods along the coast of Yucatan in large trading canoes. By combining a macroscopic assessment of the ceramics with visual, XRF, and INAA analyses of the obsidian artifacts, we gain insight into the various socioeconomic forces at work moving goods around the Peninsula. Given the paucity of Terminal Classic settlement in the interior Yalahau region, Vista Alegre appears to be an isolated site during this period, approximately 40 km from the nearest coastal neighbor. This allows us to focus on coastal exchange as the sole means by which goods arrived at the site. Our preliminary data contribute to the growing literature on the role market economies played in the Maya area, and the increased opportunities this afforded coastal peoples as circum-peninsular trade became more common through time.
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