Cobá y Tulum: adaptación al medio ambiente y control del medio social

Abstract

Los objetivos principales de este ensayo son dos: 1) informar sobre las investigaciones recientes realizadas en Coba y en Tulum con respecto al patrón de asentamiento; 2) derivar de la información anterior algunas reflexiones acerca del urbanismo entre los mayas antiguos. El recorrido de ambas zonas arqueológicas del estado de Quintana Roo nos ha proporcionado información mas detallada de diversos elementos fisiográficos que fueron considerados por los mayas prehispánicos en la distribución de sus asentamientos. En esta forma empezamos a definir con mayor precisión no solo los diversos sectores dedicarlos a la habitación sino también aquellos dedicados a Ia explotación del medio geográfico en ambos sitios.

Living in the City: Settlement Patterns and the Urban Experience at Classic Period Chunchucmil, Yucatan, Mexico

“…Less extensive albarrada systems have been reported from Terminal Classic Chichen Itza (Schmidt 1981), Uxmal (Barrera Rubio 1981), and Santa Barbara (Stanton et al 2003). In the Postclassic period, albarradas that were shared between residential groups (similar to Chunchucmil) and, in some cases, a few streets were present at Mayapan (Bullard 1952, 1954; Smith 1962) and East Coast sites like Tulum (Benavides Castillo 1981; Goñi Motilla 1993; Vargas et al 1985), Xcaret (Andrews and Andrews 1975; Con Uribe 1991), Xamanha (Goñi Motilla 1993; Silva Rhoads and Hernandez 1991), and Cozumel (Freidel and Sabloff 1984; Sierra Sosa 1994). Many of the bounded enclosures along the east coast were devoid of structures and seem to have contained agricultural fields.…”

“…At Chunchucmil, besides albarradas , there were also narrow, raised, winding causeways (less than 1 m high and .5–3 m wide), which we have called chichbes (Figures 5–7). At other sites these features have been referred to as “ andadores ,” or walkways (Benavides Castillo 1981; Goñi Motilla 1993; Vargas et al 1985), but we prefer the more neutral term of chichbeh , which does not explicitly refer to function. Chichbes were built like sacbes , with two parallel courses of roughly cut stones containing small rubble to provide a leveled surface, but unlike sacbes, they were narrower and tended to wind around residential groups similar to albarradas .…”

“…No other Classic period site had such a dense settlement and such an extensive network of boundary walls and streets. Only a few Postclassic sites in the northern lowlands, like Mayapan (Bullard 1952, 1954; Smith 1962) and on the East Coast (Benavides Castillo 1981; Sierra Sosa 1994; Vargas et al 1985) show a somewhat similar network of boundary walls enclosing residential groups. In these later sites, the enclosed residential groups were generally smaller, and streets were not as ubiquitous.…”

Walking Rural in Tzacauil, Yucatan, Mexico

“…Archaeological explorations of past Maya walking have focused, unsurprisingly, on the kinds of ordered walking associated with the so-called built environment of urban landscapes. The boundary walls and constructed walkways documented at Classic period Maya cities offer clear avenues into discussion of pedestrian movements (Benavides Castillo 1981; Benavides Castillo and Manzanilla 1987; Goñi Motilla 1993; Kurjack 1974; Magnoni et al 2012; Shaw 2008; Vargas et al 1985).…”

Ancient Maya Commerce: Multidisciplinary Research at Chunchucmil

“…In fact, around some residential groups a portion of the group is enclosed by an albarrada/callejuela and a portion by a chichbe. At other sites, features resembling chichbes appear to have served exclusively as walkways and are therefore called andadores (Benavides Castillo 1981;vargas Pacheco, Santillan, and vilalta 1985). Some of the chichbes at Chunchucmil may have been used as andadores, to facilitate walking.…”