Archaeological landscape, settlement dynamics, and sociopolitical organization in the Chactún area of the central Maya Lowlands

Abstract

Until recently, an extensive area in the central lowlands of the Yucatán peninsula was completely unexplored archaeologically. In 2013 and 2014, during initial surveys in the northern part of the uninhabited Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in eastern Campeche, Mexico, we located Chactún, Tamchén and Lagunita, three major Maya centers with some unexpected characteristics. Lidar data, acquired in 2016 for a larger area of 240 km2, revealed a thoroughly modified and undisturbed archaeological landscape with a remarkably large number of residential clusters and widespread modifications related to water management and agriculture. Substantial additional information was obtained through field surveys and test excavations in 2017 and 2018. While hydraulic and agricultural features and their potential for solving various archaeologically relevant questions were discussed in a previous publication, here we examine the characteristics of settlement patterns, architectural remains, sculpted monuments, and ceramic evidence. The early Middle Preclassic (early first millennium BCE) material collected in stratigraphic pits at Tamchén and another locale constitutes the earliest evidence of colonization known so far in a broader central lowland area. From then until the Late Classic period, which was followed by a dramatic demographic decline, the area under study witnessed relatively constant population growth and interacted with different parts of the Maya Lowlands. However, a number of specific and previously unknown cultural traits attest to a rather distinctive regional development, providing novel information about the extent of regional variation within the Maya culture. By analyzing settlement pattern characteristics, inscriptional data, the distribution of architectural volumes and some other features of the currently visible archaeological landscape, which largely reflects the Late Classic situation, we reconstruct several aspects of sociopolitical and territorial organization in that period, highlighting similarities with and differences from what has been evidenced in the neighboring Río Bec region and elsewhere in the Maya area.

Beneath the surface, below the line: Exploring household differentiation at Las Cuevas using Gini coefficients

“…Due to the large sample size of residential structures, only plazuela groups were digitized for the larger Las Cuevas region. Structure and plazuela areas were obtained through the Calculate Geometry function, while volume calculations were run using a custom Python script provided by Chase and colleagues (2023), building on existing methodologies (Chase 2017; Ebert et al 2016; Šprajc et al 2022; Stanton et al 2020). Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients (raw and corrected) were computed for each of the three units of analysis in Excel and R, based on Shryock and Siegel (1976), and a bootstrapping procedure was used to find the 95 percent confidence interval for the generated data (see Chase et al, 2023).…”

Machine learning-ready remote sensing data for Maya archaeology

“…Buildings include various types of raised structures such as temple-pyramids, palace-like buildings, ball courts, single or multi-room houses and residential complexes. Aguadas are mostly clay-lined depressions capable of holding water through the dry season see also 35 .…”

“…The original intention for collecting the ALS data in the area around Chactún, one of the largest ancient Maya urban centres known so far in the central lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula, was to better understand the water management, agriculture, settlement dynamics and socio-political organisation of the ancient Maya living in this area 11 , 35 .…”

Understanding and calculating household size, wealth, and inequality in the Maya Lowlands

“…As part of this Compact Special Section, the lead author created a Python script for calculating volume (available in the supplementary data) to standardize this approach, with authors using ArcMap 10.8.1, 10.8.2, or ArcPro 2.9 on Windows 10 or 11 for analysis. At least four prior analyses of volume, each with its own method, have been used in the Maya area (Chase 2017:34; Ebert et al 2016:289; Šprajc et al 2022:7; Stanton et al 2020:6–7). The new method provided here combines aspects of these approaches to measure volume on uneven surfaces.…”