FRIDAY KEYNOTE
M. Charlotte Arnauld
Cities of the Maya People in the Rainforest
The ancient Maya cities were places of daily sociopolitical and economic interaction, like all cities, yet with a high proportion of agricultural activities. As fixed places of concentrated population in the lowland rainforest with scattered and seasonal resources, the clustering of Maya settlements caused structural tensions between the place of residence and the place of subsistence production for the peasants, and similarly, for the elites, between the royal court (the ceremonial center) and their own estates. During the Classic period, with a favorable climate, these tensions were resolved through seasonal mobility, partial relocations, and, above all, specific construction strategies and neighborhood-level social dynamics. During the Terminal Classic period, these dynamics led to acute sociopolitical tensions between kings and nobles and, following the collapse of dynasties, to gradual urban transformations, until the lowland urban system was almost completely relocated during the eleventh century.
SATURDAY SYMPOSIUM
Arianna Campiani
Co-authors: Lisa M. Johnson, Rodrigo Liendo Stuardo
Households, Neighborhoods, and the Dynamics of Urbanism at Lakamha'
This talk will discuss ongoing spatial analyses in conjunction with archaeological findings surrounding the study of urbanism at Palenque, a politically powerful center in the Western Maya region. In our theoretical and methodological approach, we examine the city through time, focusing on its urban form as the result of collective actions and local decision making (bottom up) as well as centralized political authorities (top down), and we assess the impact on social practices in the establishment of a cityscape. Using recent LiDAR data and the ongoing archaeological information derived from excavated residential structures and their patios, we seek to explore the links between the development and activities of the single household, the neighborhood, and larger political processes. Thanks to the unique characteristics of the Palenque urban environment, our collaborative efforts aim to provide a comprehensive approach able to contribute new information on the dynamics of urbanism at Lakamha'.
Travis Stanton
The Making of Deer Mountain: The Politics of City Building at Coba, Quintana Roo, Mexico
During the Late Classic period, the city of Coba was one of the largest and most powerful cities in the Maya lowlands. While previous research at the site did not uncover much evidence of settlement prior to the sixth century CE, recent data suggest that there was a sizable Early Classic town around the Coba Lake system prior to Late Classic urbanization processes starting. This paper will discuss these recent data and how they fit into the broader settlement dynamics across the region. Data suggest that foundational events in the Nohoch Mul group, called Deer Mountain on a recently found monument, were integrally tied into how the sixth-century changing political landscape in northern Quintana Roo impacted the three-century dominance of Coba as an urban center.
Adrian S.Z. Chase
The Maya Mountain Metropolis of Caracol, Belize
Today, cities are ubiquitous; however, Mesoamerica represents one of the few places worldwide where cities independently emerged and thrived. Unlike cities today, some Maya cities intermixed their fields with their public and residential spaces to create garden cities. At its height around 700 CE, over 100,000 people called the city of Caracol, Belize home. The city’s causeway system and distributed system of public plazas tied together over 200 square kilometers of agricultural terraces and residential plazuela groups. Initial settlement at Caracol focused on three important district nodes with an early East-West causeway that formed the backbone of Ux Witza’ – “Three Mountain Place” the city’s Mayan name. By combining pedestrian and lidar surveys, archaeological excavation, and computational analyses; forty years of research by the Caracol Archaeological Project have provided information about the city’s urban services, governance, infrastructure, and residential life. This research demonstrates how the city of Caracol grew over time and how that growth led to a multi-centric, infrastructural system of districts and public plazas that fostered a system of widespread wealth and residential well-being.
Francisco Estrada-Belli
Redefining Maya Urbanism in the Central Maya Lowlands Through Lidar Data: Organizational Patterns of Settlement and Agriculture in Urban and Rural Areas
For the past 15 years, airborne lidar mapping has been revolutionizing Maya archaeology, providing increasingly widespread settlement data to address long-standing questions regarding the spatial extent, organization, and population of ancient cities at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of data from the Central Maya Lowlands consistently yields higher population estimates at both local and regional scales. Simultaneously, emerging patterns reveal a high degree of sophisticated planning in the arrangement of infrastructure across both residential and agricultural zones. These findings challenge the traditional dichotomy of urban versus rural life. Rather than viewing the city as a concentrated hub of authority and the hinterland as a detached constellation of independent communities, lidar-derived settlement data suggests a model of Maya urbanism where urban and rural zones are intricately connected through networks of elite residential nodes.
Michael Callaghan
Co-authors: Brigitte Kovacevich, Karla J. Cardona, Rodrigo Guzman, Scott Macrae, Jeffrey Brzezinski, George Micheletti, Daniel Pierce
El Mirador's Urbanism Reconsidered: Mapping and Archaeological Excavation of the UCF El Mirador Lidar Project (2022-2025)
Mirador, located in the northern Petén region of Guatemala, is one of the largest and most significant Preclassic Maya sites, offering insights into the emergence of complex society in Mesoamerica. Its monumental architecture, including triadic complexes, E-groups, defensive walls, causeways, quarries, aguadas, and agricultural features reflect a high degree of organization and planning during the Middle and Late Preclassic periods. While the site and region are critical for understanding cultural development and change among the Maya, they are challenging to study owing to their isolation in the Maya Biosphere reserve. This paper will discuss results of the University of Central Florida's lidar analyses and excavations from 2022-2025 as they relate to urbanism in the Mirador area. The research was funded by Fundación Patrimonio Cultural y Natural Maya (Pacunam) and began with digitization of lidar data from 512 km2 of the region surrounding the site of El Mirador with subsequent ground-truthing in 2022 and 2023. Excavation began in summer 2025 with a focus on ritual structures and plazas in the epicenter of El Mirador, including the Leon E-group complex. Using mapping and excavation data, this presentation will address issues related to urban landscapes, settlement hierarchy, architectural variability, landscape modification, and demographic reconstruction in the Mirador area.