MULTISCALAR MODEL OF RURAL HOUSEHOLDS AND COMMUNITIES IN LATE CLASSIC COPAN MAYA SOCIETY

AnnCorinne Freter

26 citations0/0 files storedAncient Mesoamerica

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Historical Studies in Central America Latin American history and culture Archaeology and ancient environmental studies

Abstract

A variety of models contribute to our understanding of Classic Maya sociopolitical structure. Few, however, consider the variability that existed within Maya systems, and the temporal and spatial scales of analysis have often been limited, especially with respect to the commoner segment of society. One model that has focused attention on this component of the Maya is thesian otot, described by Charles Wisdom (1940The Chorti Indians of Guatemala. University of Chicago Press) and introduced for the Copan Maya by William Fash (1983 Deducing Social Organization from Classic Maya Settlement Patterns: A Case Study from the Copan Valley. InCivilization in the Ancient Americas: Essays in Honor of Gordon R. Willey. University of New Mexico Press and Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University). Based on data from a 135-km2regional settlement survey and excavations of the Copan Valley in Honduras, it is argued that this model, in conjunction with other, broader models of Classic Maya society, offers a useful perspective from which to construct a multiscalar model of ancient Copan social organization. The variability amongsian otot, particularly in terms of economic production, is considered. The ceramic data from Copan suggest that ceramic production among commoner units was communal, and the possibility for community cooperatives is raised. Finally, the dynamic scale and productive relations among the commoners are considered in light of broader sociopolitical changes in the processual history of the Copan polity. It is concluded that the intersection of social, political, and economic institutional frameworks needs to be more comprehensively investigated from varied scales, both temporal and settlement, to appreciate fully the diversity of Maya social organization during the Late Classic/Terminal Classic transition.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 26 citations exist upstream.

References

1982Household Archaeology 1996ARCHAEOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE ORGANIZATION OF DOMESTIC LABOR: Household Practice and Domestic Relations 1991Site-Planning Principles and Concepts of Directionality among the Ancient Maya 2000Beyond Kinship 1988The Mesoamerican Urban Tradition 1967A Refinement of the Concept of Household: Families, Co‐residence, and Domestic Functions1 1960Historical Implications of a Pattern of Dates at Piedras Negras, Guatemala 1994How the Maya Built Their World

Cited by

2020Pottery, practice, and place: A communities of practice approach to commoner interaction in the Late to Terminal Classic Belize River Valley 2017IDENTIFYING DOMESTIC CERAMIC PRODUCTION IN THE MAYA LOWLANDS: A CASE STUDY FROM UXBENKA, BELIZE 2014Housing in Premodern Cities: Patterns of Social and Spatial Variation

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.