Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T12:12:10.138Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Community Resilience and Urban Planning during the Ninth-Century Maya Collapse: A Case Study from Actuncan, Belize

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2019

David W. Mixter Open the ORCID record for David W. Mixter [Opens in a new window]
David W. Mixter*
Affiliation:
Environmental Studies Program and Department of Anthropology, Binghamton University, PO Box 6000, Binghamton, NY13902-6000, USA Email: dmixter@binghamton.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

To remain in place in the immediate aftermath of the ninth-century Maya collapse, Maya groups employed various resilient strategies. In the absence of divine rulers, groups needed to renegotiate their forms of political authority and to reconsider the legitimizing role of religious institutions. This kind of negotiation happened first at the local level, where individual communities developed varied political and ideological solutions. At the community of Actuncan, located in the lower Mopan River valley of Belize, reorganization took place within the remains of a monumental urban centre built 1000 years before by the site's early rulers. I report on the changing configuration and use of Actuncan's urban landscape during the process of reorganization. These modifications included the construction of a new centre for political gatherings, the dismantling of old administrative buildings constructed by holy lords and the reuse of the site's oldest ritual space. These developments split the city into distinct civic and ritual zones, paralleling the adoption of a new shared rule divorced from cosmological underpinnings. This case study provides an example of how broader societal resilience relies on adaptation at the local level.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , May 2020 , pp. 219 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, R.E.W., 1973. The collapse of Maya civilization: a review of previous theories, in The Classic Maya Collapse, ed. Culbert, T.P.. Albuquerque (NM): University of New Mexico Press, 21–34.Google Scholar
Adams, R.M., 1978. Strategies of maximization, stability, and resiliance in Mesopotamian society, settlement, and agriculture. Proceedings of the Amercian Philosophical Society 22(5), 329–35.Google Scholar
Aimers, J.J., 2007. What Maya collapse? Terminal Classic variation in the Maya Lowlands. Journal of Archaeological Research, 15, 329–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aimers, J.J. & Rice, P.M., 2006. Astronomy, ritual, and the interpretation of ‘E-Group’ architectural assemblages. Ancient Mesoamerica 17, 79–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andres, C.R. & Pyburn, A.K., 2004. Out of site: the Postclassic and Early Colonial periods at Chau Hiix, Belize, in The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands: Collapse, transition, and transformation, eds Demarest, A.A., Rice, P.M. & Rice, D.S.. Boulder (CO): University Press of Colorado, 402–23.Google Scholar
Ashmore, W., 1989. Construction and cosmology: politics and ideology in lowland Maya settlement patterns, in Word and Image in Maya Culture, eds Hanks, W.F. & Rice, D.S.. Salt Lake City (UT): University of Utah Press, 272–86.Google Scholar
Ashmore, W., 1991. Site-planning principles and concepts of directionality among the ancient Maya. Latin American Antiquity 2, 199–226.Google Scholar
Ashmore, W., 1998. Monumentos politicos: sitio, asentamiento, y paisaje alrededor de Xunantunich, Belice [Political monuments: site, settlement, and landscape around Xunantunich, Belize], in Anatomia de una Civilizacion: Aproximaciones Interdisciplinarias a la Cultura Maya [Anatomy of a civilization: interdisciplinary approaches to Maya culture], eds Ciudad Ruiz, A., Fernándex Marquínez, Y., García Campillo, J.M., Iglesias Ponce de León, A.J., García-Gallo, A.L. & Sanz Casto, L.T.. (Publicaciones de la SEEM 4.) Madrid: Sociedad Española de Estudios Mayas, 161–83.Google Scholar
Ashmore, W. & Sabloff, J.A., 2002. Spatial order in Maya civic plans. Latin American Antiquity 13, 201–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashmore, W. & Sabloff, J.A., 2003. Interpreting ancient Maya civic plans: reply to Smith. Latin American Antiquity 14, 229–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashmore, W., Yaeger, J. & Robin, C., 2004. Commoner sense: Late and Terminal Classic social strategies in the Xunantunich area, in The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands: Collapse, transition, and transformation, eds Demarest, A.A., Rice, P.M. & Rice, D.S.. Boulder (CO): University Press of Colorado, 302–23.Google Scholar
Aveni, A.F. & Hartung, H., 1989. Uaxactun, Guatemala, Group E and similar assemblages: an archaeoastronomical reconsideration, in World Archaeoastronomy, ed. Aveni, A.F.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 441–61.Google Scholar
Awe, J.J., 2013. A journey on the Cahal Pech time machine: an archaeological reconstruction of the dynastic sequence at a Belize Valley Maya polity. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 10, 33–50.Google Scholar
Bey, G.J. III, Hanson, C.A. & Ringle, W.M., 1997. Classic to Postclassic at Ek Balam, Yucatan: architectural and ceramic evidence for defining the transition. Latin American Antiquity 8(3), 237–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bey, G.J. III & May Ciau, R., 2014. The role and realities of popol nahs in northern Maya archaeology, in The Maya and Their Central American Neighbors: Settlement patterns, architecture, hieroglyphic texts, and ceramics, ed. Braswell, G.E.. London: Routledge, 335–55.Google Scholar
Brown, M.K., 2011. Postclassic veneration at Xunantunich, Belize. Mexicon 33, 126–32.Google Scholar
Butzer, K.W., 2012. Collapse, environment, and society. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109(10), 3632–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chase, A.F. & Chase, D.Z., 1995. External impetus, internal synthesis, and standardization: E Group assemblages and the crystalization of Classic Maya society in the Southern Lowlands, in The Emergence of Lowland Maya Civilization: The transition from the Preclassic to Early Classic, ed. Grube, N.. (Acta Mesoamericana 8.) Berlin: Verlag Anton Saurwein, 87–101.Google Scholar
Chase, D.Z. & Chase, A.F., 2006. Framing the Maya collapse: continuity, discontinuity, method, and practice in the Classic to Postclassic southern Maya Lowlands, in After Collapse: The regeneration of complex Societies, eds Schwartz, G.M. & Nichols, J.J.. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press, 168–87.Google Scholar
Chase, D.Z., Chase, A.F. & Haviland, W.A., 1990. The Classic Maya city: reconsidering the ‘Mesoamerican urban tradition’. American Anthropologist 92(2), 499–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahlin, B.H., Jensen, C.T., Terry, R.E., Wright, D.R. & Beach, T., 2007. In search of an ancient Maya market. Latin American Antiquity 18(4), 363–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demarest, A.A., 2004. Ancient Maya: The rise and fall of a rainforest civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Demarest, A.A., Rice, P.M. & Rice, D.S. (eds), 2004. The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands: Collapse, transition, and transformation, Boulder (CO): University Press of Colorado.Google Scholar
Donohue, L., 2014. Excavations at Structures 26 and 27 in Actuncan's E-Group, in Actuncan Early Classic Maya Project: Report of the Sixth Season, ed. LeCount, L.J.. Belmopan: Belize Institute of Archaeology, 131–53 (on file).Google Scholar
Doyle, J.A., 2012. Regroup on ‘E-Groups’: monumentality and early centers in the Middle Preclassic Maya Lowlands. Latin American Antiquity 23, 355–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doyle, J.A., 2017. Architecture and the Origins of Preclassic Maya Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Estrada-Belli, F., 2011. The First Maya Civilization: Ritual and power before the Classic period. New York (NY): Routledge.Google Scholar
Fahsen, F. & Grube, N., 2005. The origins of Maya writing, in Lords of Creation: The origins of sacred Maya kingship, eds Fields, V.M. & Reents-Budet, D.. Los Angeles/London: Los Angeles County Museum of Art/Scala, 75–9.Google Scholar
Fash, B.W., Fash, W.L., Lane, S., Larios, R., Schele, L., Stomper, J. & Stuart, D., 1992. Investigations of a Classic Maya council house at Copán, Honduras. Journal of Field Archaeology 19(4), 419–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faulseit, R.K. (ed.), 2016. Beyond Collapse: Archaeological perspectives on resilience, revitalization, and transformation in complex societies, Carbondale (IL): Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Fletcher, R., 2011. Low-density, agrarian-based urbanism: scale, power, and ecology, in The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies, ed. Smith, M.E.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 285–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freidel, D.A., 1986. The monumental architecture, in Archaeology at Cerros, Belize, Central America. Volume 1: An Interim Report, eds Robertson, R.A. & Freidel, D.A.. Dallas (TX): Southern Methodist University, 1–22.Google Scholar
Freidel, D.A., 2008. Maya divine kingship, in Religion and Power: Divine kingship in the ancient world and beyond, ed. Brisch, N.. (Oriental Institute Seminars 4.) Chicago (IL): Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 191–206.Google Scholar
Freidel, D.A., Chase, A.F., Dowd, A.S. & Murdock, J. (eds), 2017. Maya E Groups: Calendars, astronomy, and urbanism in the early Lowlands. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Freidel, D.A. & Schele, L., 1988. Kingship in the Late Preclassic Maya Lowlands: the instruments and places of ritual power. American Anthropologist 90, 547–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freidel, D.A., Schele, L. & Parker, J., 1993. Maya Cosmos: Three thousand years on the shaman's path. New York (NY): William Morrow.Google Scholar
Freidel, D.A. & Shaw, J.M., 2000. The lowland Maya civilization, historical consciousness and environment, in The Way the Wind Blows: Climate, history and human action, eds McIntosh, R.J., Tainter, J.A. & McIntosh, S.K.. New York (NY): Columbia University Press, 271–300.Google Scholar
Fulton, K.A., 2019. Community identity and shared practices at Actunan, Belize. Latin American Antiquity 30(2), 266–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halperin, C.T., 2014. Ruins in pre-Columbian Maya urban landscapes. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 24(3), 321–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammond, N. & Gerhardt, J.C., 1990. Early Maya architectural innovation at Cuello, Belize. World Archaeology 21(3), 1461–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, R.D., 1998. Continuity and disjunction: the Pre-Classic antecedents of Classic Maya architecture, in Function and Meaning in Classic Maya Architecture, ed. Houston, S.D.. Washington (DC): Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 49–122.Google Scholar
Hansen, R.D., 2012. The first cities – the beginnings of urbanization and state formation in the Maya Lowlands, in Maya: Divine kings of the rain forest, ed. Grube, N.. Potsdam: h.f.ullmann, 50–65.Google Scholar
Hansen, R.D., Howell, W.K. & Guenter, S.P., 2008. Forgotten structures, haunted houses, and occupied hearts: ancient perspectives and contemporary interpretations of abandoned sites and buildings in the Mirador Basin, Guatemala, in Ruins of the Past: The use and perception of abandoned structures in the Maya Lowlands, eds Stanton, T.W. & Magnoni, A.. Boulder (CO): University Press of Boulder, 25–64.Google Scholar
Harrison-Buck, E., 2007. Materializing Identity Among the Terminal Classic Maya: Architecture and Ceramics in the Sibun River Valley, Belize. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Boston University.Google Scholar
Heindel, T., 2016. Initial excavations at Structure 23 in Actuncan's E-Group, in Actuncan Archaeological Project: Report of the Eighth Season, eds LeCount, L.J. & Mixter, D.W.. Belmopan: Belize Institute of Archaeology, 40–51 (on file).Google Scholar
Helmke, C., Ball, J.W., Mitchell, P.T. & Taschek, J.T., 2008. Burial BVC88-1/2 at Buenavista del Cayo, Belize: resting place of the last king of Puluul? Mexicon 30, 43–9.Google Scholar
Houk, B.A., 2015. Ancient Maya Cities of the Eastern Lowlands. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Houk, B.A. & Zaro, G., 2011. Evidence for ritual engineering in the Late/Terminal Classic site plan of La Milpa, Belize. Latin American Antiquity 22(2), 178–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Houston, S.D. & Stuart, D., 1996. Of gods, glyphs and kings: divinity and rulership among the Classic Maya. Antiquity 70, 289–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Houston, S.D. & Stuart, D., 2001. Peopling the Maya court, in Royal Courts of the Classic Maya, Volume 1: Theory, comparison, and synthesis, eds Inomata, T. & Houston, S.D.. Boulder (CO): Westview Press, 54–83.Google Scholar
Hutson, S., 2016. The Ancient Urban Maya: Neighborhoods, inequality, and built form. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Iannone, G., 2005. The rise and fall of an Ancient Maya petty court. Latin American Antiquity 16, 26–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iannone, G., Chase, A.F., Chase, D.Z., et al. , 2014. An archaeological consideration of long-term socioecological dynamics on the Vaca Plateau, Belize, in The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context: Case studies in resilience and vulnerability, ed. Iannone, G.. Boulder (CO): University Press of Colorado, 271–300.Google Scholar
Iannone, G., Houk, B.A. & Schwake, S.A. (eds), 2016. Ritual, Violence, and the Fall of the Classic Maya Kings. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inomata, T., 2001. King's people: Classic Maya courtiers in a comparative perspective, in Royal Courts of the Classic Maya, Volume 1: Theory, comparison, and synthesis, eds Inomata, T. & Houston, S.D.. Boulder (CO): Westview Press, 27–53.Google Scholar
Inomata, T., 2006. Plazas, performance, and spectators: political theaters of the Classic Maya. Current Anthropology 47, 805–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inomata, T. & Triadan, D., 2000. Craft production by Classic Maya elites in domestic settings: data from rapidly abandoned structures at Aguateca, Guatemala. Mayab 13, 57–66.Google Scholar
Inomata, T. & Triadan, D., 2013. The Terminal Classic period at Ceibal and in the Maya Lowlands, in Millenary Maya Societies: Past crises and resilience, eds Arnauld, M.-C. & Breton, A.. Online at: www.mesoweb.com/publications/MMS/4_Inomata-Triadan.pdfGoogle Scholar
Inomata, T., Triadan, D., Aoyama, K., Castillo, V. & Yonenobu, H., 2013. Early ceremonial constructions at Ceibal, Guatemala, and the origins of lowland Maya civilization. Science 340, 467–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jamison, T.R., 2010. Monumental building programs and changing political strategies at Xunantunich, in Classic Maya Provincial Politics: Xunantunich and its hinterland, eds LeCount, L.J. & Yaeger, J.. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press, 124–44.Google Scholar
Jamison, T.R., 2013. Excavations at Structure 19, in Actuncan Early Classic Maya Project: Report of the Fifth Season, ed. LeCount, L.J.. Belmopan: Belize Institute of Archaeology, 15–33 (on file).Google Scholar
Jones, G.D., 1998. The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom. Stanford (CA): Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Keller, A.H., 2006. Roads to the Center: The Design, Use, and Meaning of the Roads to Xunantunich, Belize. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
King, E.M. (ed.), 2015. The Ancient Maya Marketplace: The archaeology of transient space. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Lamoureux-St-Hilaire, M., Macrae, S., McCane, C.A., Parker, E.A. & Iannone, G., 2015. The last groups standing: living abandonment at the ancient Maya center of Minanha, Belize. Latin American Antiquity 26(4), 550–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landa, D. de, [1566] 1941. Relación de las Cosas de Yucatan (Trans. Tozzer, A.M.) [An account of things in Yucatán]. (Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 18.) Cambridge (MA): The Museum.Google Scholar
Laporte, J.P., 1989. Alternativas del Clásico Temprano en la Relación Tikal-Teotihuacan: Grupo 6C-XVI, Tikal, Petén, Guatemala [Early Classic Fluctuations in the Tikal-Teotihuacan Relationship: Group 6C-XVI, Tikal, Petén, Guatemala]. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.Google Scholar
LeCount, L.J., 2004. Looking for a needle in a haystack: The Early Classic period at Actuncan, Cayo District. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 1, 27–36.Google Scholar
LeCount, L.J., Keller, A.H. & Blitz, J.H., 2011. Common house, elite house, council house: report of the 2010 field season. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 8, 19–30.Google Scholar
LeCount, L.J., Mixter, D.W. & Simova, B.S., 2017. Preliminary thoughts on ceramic and radiocarbon data from Actuncan's E-Group excavations, in Actuncan Early Classic Maya Project: Report of the ninth season, ed. LeCount, L.J.. Belmopan: Belize Institute of Archaeology, 27–48 (on file).Google Scholar
LeCount, L.J., Walker, C.P., Blitz, J.H. & Nelson, T.C., 2019. Land tenure systems at the ancient Maya site of Actuncan, Belize. Latin American Antiquity 30(2), 245–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LeCount, L.J., Wells, E.C., Jamison, T.R. & Mixter, D.W., 2016. Geochemical characterization of inorganic residues on plaster floors from the palace complex at Actuncan, Belize. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 5, 453–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LeCount, L.J. & Yaeger, J., 2010. Conclusions: placing Xunantunich and its hinterland settlements in perspective, in Classic Maya Provincial Politics: Xunantunich and its hinterlands, eds LeCount, L.J. & Yaeger, J.. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press, 337–70.Google Scholar
LeCount, L.J., Yaeger, J., Leventhal, R.M. & Ashmore, W., 2002. Dating the rise and fall of Xunantunich, Belize. Ancient Mesoamerica 13, 41–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leventhal, R.M. & Ashmore, W., 2004. Xunantunich in a Belize Valley context, in The Ancient Maya of the Belize Valley: Half a century of archaeological research, ed. Garber, J.F.. Gainesville (FL): University of Florida Press, 168–79.Google Scholar
Low, S.M., 2000. On the Plaza: The politics of public square and culture Austin (TX): University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Marcus, J., 1993. Ancient Maya political organization, in Lowland Maya Civilization in the Eighth Century A.D., eds Sabloff, J.A. & Henderson, J.S.. Washington (DC): Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 111–83.Google Scholar
Masson, M.A., Hare, T.S. & Peraza Lope, C., 2006. Postclassic Maya society regenerated at Mayapán, in After Collapse: The regeneration of complex societies, eds Schwartz, G.M. & Nichols, J.J.. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press, 188–207.Google Scholar
Masson, M.A. & Mock, S.B., 2004. Ceramics and settlement patterns at Terminal Classic-period lagoon sites in northeastern Belize, in The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands: Collapse, transition, and transformation, eds Demarest, A.A., Rice, P.M. & Rice, D.S.. Boulder (CO): University Press of Colorado, 367–401.Google Scholar
McAnany, P.A., 2012. Terminal Classic Maya heterodoxy and shrine vernacularism in the Sibun Valley, Belize. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 22(1), 115–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAnany, P.A. & Gallareta Negrón, T., 2010. Bellicose rulers and climatological peril? Retrofitting twenty-first-century woes on eighth-century Maya society, in Questioning Collapse: Human resilience, ecological vulnerability, and the aftermath of empire, eds McAnany, P.A. & Yoffee, N.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 142–75.Google Scholar
McAnany, P.A. & Yoffee, N. (eds), 2010. Questioning Collapse: Human resilience, ecological vulnerability, and the aftermath of empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McGovern, J.O., 2004. Monumental Ceremonial Architecture and Political Autonomy at the Ancient Maya City of Actuncan, Belize. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Mendelsohn, R. & Keller, A.H., 2011. 2010 excavations at Group 4, in Actuncan Early Classic Maya Project: Report of the third season, eds LeCount, L.J. & Keller, A.H.. Belmopan: Belize Insitute of Archaeology, 33–46 (on file).Google Scholar
Mixter, D.W., 2011. The 2010 excavations on Structure 41, in Actuncan Early Classic Maya Project: Report of the third season, eds LeCount, L.J. & Keller, A.H.. Belmopan: Belize Institute of Archaeology, 47–67 (on file).Google Scholar
Mixter, D.W., 2016. Surviving Collapse: Collective Memory and Political Reorganization at Actuncan, Belize. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Washington University, St. Louis.Google Scholar
Mixter, D.W., 2017a. Collective remembering in archaeology: a relational approach to ancient Maya memory. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 24(1), 261–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mixter, D.W., 2017b. Political change expressed in public architecture: the Terminal Classic Maya civic complex at Actuncan, Belize. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 14, 65–75.Google Scholar
Mixter, D.W., Fulton, K.A., Bussiere, L.H. & LeCount, L.J., 2014. Living through collapse: an analysis of Maya residential modifications during the Terminal Classic period at Actuncan, Cayo, Belize. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 11, 55–66.Google Scholar
Mixter, D.W., Jamison, T.R. & LeCount, L.J., 2013. Actuncan's noble court: new insights into political strategies of an enduring center in the upper Belize River valley. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 10, 91–103.Google Scholar
Navarro-Farr, O.C., 2016. Dynamic transitions at El Perú-Waka’: late Terminal Classic ritual repurposing of a monumental shrine, in Ritual, Violence, and the Fall of the Classic Maya Kings, eds Iannone, G., Houk, B.A. & Schwake, S.A.. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida, 243–69.Google Scholar
Neff, L.T., 2010. Population, intensive agriculture, labor value, and elite-commoner political power relations in the Xunantunich hinterland, in Classic Maya Provincial Politics: Xunantunich and its hinterland, eds LeCount, L.J. & Yaeger, J.. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press, 250–71.Google Scholar
Okoshi-Harada, T., 2012. Postclassic Maya ‘barrios’ in Yucatán: an historical approach, in The Neighborhood as a Social and Spatial Unit in Mesoamerican Cities, eds Arnauld, M.C., Manzanilla, L.R. & Smith, M.E.. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press, 287–303.Google Scholar
Pendergast, D.M., 1986. Stability through change: Lamanai, Belize, from the ninth to the seventeenth century, in Late Lowland Maya Civilization, eds Sabloff, J.A. & Andrews, E.W., V. Albuquerque (NM): University of New Mexico Press, 223–49.Google Scholar
Powis, T.G., Healy, P.F. & Hohmann, B.H., 2009. An investigation of Middle Preclassic structures at Pacbitun. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 6, 169–77.Google Scholar
Proskouriakoff, T., 1962. Civic and religious structures of Mayapan, in Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico, ed. Pollock, H.E.D.. (Carnegie Institution of Washington publication 619.) Washington (DC): Carnegie Institution of Washington, 87–164.Google Scholar
Pugh, T.W., Rice, P.M. & Cecil, L.G., 2009. Zacpetén Group 719, the last noble residence, in The Kowoj: Identity, migration, and geopolitics in the Late Postclassic Petén, Guatemala, eds Rice, P.M. & Rice, D.S.. Boulder (CO): University Press of Colorado, 192–216.Google Scholar
Redman, C.L., 2005. Resilience theory in archaeology. American Anthropologist 107(1), 70–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reents-Budet, D., 2001. Classic Maya concepts of the royal court: an analysis of renderings on pictoral ceramics, in Royal Courts of the Classic Maya, Volume 1: Theory, comparison, and synthesis, eds Inomata, T. & Houston, S.D.. Boulder (CO): Westview Press, 195–233.Google Scholar
Reese-Taylor, K., 2002. Ritual circuits in Maya civic center design, in Heart of Creation: The Mesoamerican world and the legacy of Linda Schele, ed. Stone, A.. Tuscaloosa (AL): The University of Alabama Press, 143–65.Google Scholar
Reese-Taylor, K. & Koontz, R., 2001. The cultural poetics of power and space in ancient Mesoamerica, in Landscape and Power in Ancient Mesoamerica, eds Koontz, R., Reese-Taylor, K. & Headrick, A.. Boulder (CO): Westview Press, 1–28.Google Scholar
Rice, P.M. & Rice, D.S., 2018. Classic-to-Contact-Period continuities in Maya governance in central Petén, Guatemala. Ethnohistory 65(1), 25–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ringle, W.M., 1999. Pre-Classic cityscapes: ritual politics, in Social Patterns in Pre-Classic Mesoamerica, eds Grove, D.C. & Joyce, R.A.. Washington (DC): Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 183–223.Google Scholar
Ringle, W.M., 2004. On the poltical organization of Chichen Itzá. Ancient Mesoamerica 15, 167–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ringle, W.M. & Bey, G.J. III, 2001. Post-Classic and Terminal Classic courts of the northern Maya Lowlands, in Royal Courts of the Ancient Maya, Volume 2: Data and case studies, eds Inomata, T. & Houston, S.D.. Boulder (CO): Westview, 266–307.Google Scholar
Robin, C., 2013. Everyday Life Matters, Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robin, C., Meierhoff, J., Kestle, C., Blackmore, C., Kosakowsky, L.J. & Novotny, A.C., 2012. Ritual in a farming village, in Chan: An ancient Maya farming community, ed. Robin, C.. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida, 113–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, W.T. & Webster, D., 1988. The Mesoamerican urban tradition. American Anthropologist 90(3), 521–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saturno, W.A., Rossi, F.D. & Beltrán, B., 2018. Changing stages: royal legitimacy and the architectural development of the Pinturas Complex at San Bartolo, Guatemala, in Pathways to Complexity: A view from the Maya Lowlands, eds Brown, M.K. & Bey, G.J. III. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida, 315–35.Google Scholar
Schele, L. & Freidel, D.A., 1990. A Forest of Kings: The untold story of the ancient Maya. New York (NY): William Morrow.Google Scholar
Schele, L. & Freidel, D.A., 1991. The courts of creation: ballcourts, ballgames, and portals to the Maya otherworld, in The Mesoamerican Ballgame, eds Scarborough, V.L. & Wilcox, D.. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press, 289–315.Google Scholar
Schwartz, G.M., 2006. From collapse to regeneration, in After Collapse: The regeneration of complex societies, eds Schwartz, G.M. & Nichols, J.J.. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press, 3–17.Google Scholar
Schwarz, K.R., 2009. Eckixil: understanding the Classic to Postclassic survival and transformation of a Peten Maya village. Latin American Antiquity 20, 413–41.10.1017/S1045663500002789CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwarz, K.R., 2013. Through the rearview mirror: rethinking the Classic Maya collapse in the light of Postclassic rural social transformation. Journal of Social Archaeology 13, 242–65.Google Scholar
Simova, B.S., 2018. Ritual spaces and social integration: trench excavations in E-Group plaza, Plaza F, in Actuncan Archaeological Project: Report of the tenth season, eds Mixter, D.W. & LeCount, L.J.. Belmopan: Belize Institute of Archaeology, 49–69 (on file).Google Scholar
Simova, B.S., 2019. Construction of ritual spaces: continued excavations in E-Group plaza, Plaza F, in Actuncan Archaeological Project: Report of the eleventh season, eds Mixter, D.W. & LeCount, L.J.. Belmopan: Belize Institute of Archaeology, 47–70 (on file).Google Scholar
Simova, B.S. & Mixter, D.W., 2016. On-going excavations at Structure 26 in Actuncan's E-Group, in Actuncan Archaeological Project: Report of the eighth season, eds LeCount, L.J. & Mixter, D.W.. Belmopan: Belize Institute of Archaeology, 9–39 (on file).Google Scholar
Simova, B.S., Mixter, D.W. & LeCount, L.J., 2015. The social lives of structures: ritual resignification of the cultural landscape at Actuncan, Belize. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology, 12, 193–204.Google Scholar
Simova, B.S., Wells, E.C., Mixter, D.W. & LeCount, L.J., 2018. Exploring changes in activities in Maya E-Groups: archaeological and geochemical analysis of E-Group plaster floors at Actuncan, Belize. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 15, 27–37.Google Scholar
Smith, M.E., 2003. Can we read cosmology in ancient Maya city plans? Comment on Ashmore and Sabloff. Latin American Antiquity 14, 221–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, M.E., 2005. Did the Maya build architectural cosmograms? Latin American Antiquity 16, 217–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, M.E., 2007. Form and meaning in the earliest cities: a new approach to ancient urban planning. Journal of Planning History 6(1), 3–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, M.E., 2011. Classic Maya settlement clusters as urban neighborhoods: a comparative perspective on low-density urbanism. Journal de la Société des Américanistes 97(1), 51–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanton, T.W. & Freidel, D.A., 2003. Ideological lock-in and the dynamics of formative religions in Mesoamerica. Mayab 16, 5–14.Google Scholar
Stanton, T.W. & Magnoni, A. (eds), 2008. Ruins of the Past: The use and perception of abandoned structures in the Maya Lowlands. Boulder (CO): University Press of Colorado.Google Scholar
Szymański, J., 2014. Between death and divinity: rethinking the significance of triadic groups in ancient Maya culture. Estudios de Cultura Maya 44, 119–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tainter, J.A., 1988. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Terry, R.E., Fernández, F.G., Parnell, J.J. & Inomata, T., 2004. The story in the floors: chemical signatures of ancient and modern Maya activities at Aguateca, Guatemala. Journal of Archaeological Science 31, 1237–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yaeger, J., 2008. Charting the collapse: Late Classic to Postclassic population dynamics in the Mopan Valley, Belize. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 5, 15–21.Google Scholar
Yaeger, J., 2010. Shifting political dynamics as seen from the Xunantunich palace, in Classic Maya Provincial Politics: Xunantunich and its hinterland, eds LeCount, L.J. & Yaeger, J.. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press, 145–60.Google Scholar
Źrałka, J. & Hermes, B., 2012. Great development in troubled times: the Terminal Classic at the Maya site of Nakum, Peten, Guatemala. Ancient Mesoamerica, 23(01), 161–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar