Hostname: page-component-669899f699-b58lm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-02T13:48:06.581Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Residential size and volume differentiation across urban zones at El Perú-Waka', Peten, Guatemala

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2024

Damien B. Marken Open the ORCID record for Damien B. Marken [Opens in a new window]
Damien B. Marken*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Criminal Justice, and Sociology, Commonwealth University-Bloomsburg, Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, United States
*
Corresponding author: Damien B. Marken; Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Located at the western edge of the Classic Maya heartland, El Peru-Waka' was one of the most densely aggregated urban cores in the Lowlands. With households packed next to each other, it can be difficult to define where one ends and another begins. Nevertheless, survey and excavation data suggest that differences in household provisioning and generational cycling created considerable variation in household wealth across the city. This paper employs household area (m2) and volume (m3) to calculate Gini coefficients for the El Peru-Waka' urban core and immediate hinterlands to quantify household differentiation across the urban landscape. Comparison of the coefficients for the total study area with those for individual urban zones (core, periurban, hinterland) demonstrate that while El Perú-Waka' exhibits high overall household differentiation, this differentiation is considerably muted within a given urban zone. This demonstrates the impact of settlement location on differences in household size and architectural investment.

Resumen

Resumen

Ubicado en el borde occidental del área central del clásico maya, El Perú-Waka' fue uno de los núcleos urbanos más densamente agregados de las tierras bajas. Con hogares abarrotados uno al lado del otro, puede ser difícil definir dónde termina uno y comienza otro. Sin embargo, los datos de reconocimientos, mapeo, y excavaciones sugieren que las diferencias en el aprovisionamiento de los hogares y el ciclo generacional crearon una variación considerable en la riqueza de los hogares en toda la ciudad. Este documento emplea el área (m2) y el volumen (m3) de los hogares para calcular los coeficientes de Gini para el núcleo urbano de El Perú-Waka' y las zonas de influencia inmediatas para cuantificar la diferenciación de los hogares en el paisaje urbano. La comparación de los coeficientes para el área total de estudio con los de las zonas urbanas individuales (núcleo, periurbano, periférico) demuestra que, si bien El Perú-Waka' exhibe una alta diferenciación general entre los hogares, esta diferenciación se reduce considerablemente dentro de cada zona urbana. Esto demuestra el impacto de la ubicación de los asentamientos en las diferencias en el tamaño de, y la inversión arquitectónica en, los hogares.

Type
Compact Section: Ancient Maya Inequality
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , Fall 2023 , e5
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Arnauld, M. Charlotte, Lemonnier, Eva, Forné, Mélanie, Sion, Julien, and Alvarado, Erick Ponciano 2017 Early to Late Classic Population Mobility in the Maya Site of La Joyanca and Hinterlands, Northwest Petén, Guatemala. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 45:15–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashmore, Wendy (editor) 1981a Lowland Maya Settlement Patterns. School of American Research, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Ashmore, Wendy 1981b Some Issues of Method and Theory in Lowland Maya Settlement Archaeology. In Lowland Maya Settlement Patterns, edited by Ashmore, Wendy, pp. 37–69. School of American Research Advanced Seminar Series. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Boremanse, Didier 1998 Hach Winik: The Lacandon Maya of Chiapas, Southern Mexico. IMS Monograph 11. Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany.Google Scholar
Canuto, Marcello A., Estrada-Belli, Francisco, Garrison, Thomas, Houston, Stephen D., Acuña, Mary Jane, Kováč, Milan, Marken, Damien, Nondédéo, Philippe, Auld-Thomas, Luke, Castanet, Cyril, Chatelain, David, Chiriboga, Carlos R., Drápela, Tomáš, Lieskovský, Tibor, Tokovinine, Alexandre, Velasquez, Antolín, Fernández Díaz, Juan C., and Shresta, Ramesh 2018 Airborne Laser Scanning of Northern Guatemala: A Reckoning with Ancient Lowland Maya Complexity. Science 361:eaau0137. doi: 10.1126/science.aau0137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canuto, Marcello A., Auld-Thomas, Luke, Yagi, Hiroaki, and Barrientos Q., Tomás 2023 Gini Coefficient at La Corona: The Impacts of Variation in Analytical Unit and Aggregation Scale. Ancient Mesoamerica. doi: 10.1017/S0956536123000111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chase, Adrian S.Z. 2016 Districting and Urban Services at Caracol, Belize: Intra-Site Boundaries in an Evolving Maya Cityscape. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 13:15–28.Google Scholar
Chase, Adrian S.Z. 2017 Residential Inequality among the Ancient Maya: Operationalizing Household Architectural Volume at Caracol, Belize. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 14:31–39.Google Scholar
Chase, Adrian S.Z. 2021 Urban Life at Caracol, Belize: Neighborhoods, Inequality, Infrastructure and Governance. Ph.D. dissertation, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe.Google Scholar
Chase, Arlen F., and Chase, Diane Z. 2016 Urbanism and Anthropogenic Landscapes. Annual Review of Anthropology 45:361–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chase, Adrian S.Z., Thompson, Amy E., Walden, John P., and Feinman, Gary M. 2023 Understanding and Calculating Household Size, Wealth, and Inequality in the Maya Lowlands. Ancient Mesoamerica. doi: 10.1017/S095653612300024X.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clancy, Flora S. 2015 Public Spaces in the Ancient Maya City: A History. In Maya Imagery, Architecture, and Activity: Space and Spatial Analysis in Art History, edited by Spencer, Kaylee R. and Werness-Rude, Maline, pp. 210–228. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Douglass, John 2002 Hinterland Households: Rural Agrarian Household Diversity in Northwest Honduras. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Eppich, Keith 2020 Commerce, Redistribution, Autarky, and Barter: The Multitiered Urban Economy of El Perú-Waka', Guatemala. In The Real Business of Ancient Maya Economies, edited by Masson, Marilyn A., Freidel, David A., and Demarest, Arthur A., pp. 149–171. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Eppich, Keith, Marken, Damien B., and Menéndez, Elsa Damaris 2023 A City in Flux: The Dynamic Urban Form and Function of El Perú-Waka'. In Building an Archaeology of Maya Urbanism: Planning and Flexibility in the American Tropics, edited by Marken, Damien B. and Charlotte Arnauld, M., pp. 105–147. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Feinman, Gary M., Faulseit, Roland K., and Nicholas, Linda M. 2018 Assessing Wealth Inequality in the Pre-Hispanic Valley of Oaxaca: Comparative Implications. In Ten Thousand Years of Inequality: The Archaeology of Wealth Differences, edited by Kohler, Timothy A. and Smith, Michael E., pp. 262–288. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Fletcher, Roland 2009 Low-Density, Agrarian-Based Urbanism: A Comparative View. Insights 2(4):2–19.Google Scholar
Fletcher, Roland 2012 Low-Density, Agrarian-Based Urbanism: Scale, Power, and Ecology. In The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies, edited by Smith, Michael E., pp. 285–320. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Freidel, David A., Escobedo, Héctor L., and Guenter, Stanley 2007 A Crossroads of Conquerors. In Gordon R. Willey and American Archaeology: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Sabloff, Jeremy A. and Fash, William L., pp. 187–208. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Gillespie, Susan D. 2000 Rethinking Ancient Maya Social Organization: Replacing “Lineage” with “House.” American Anthropologist 102(3):467–484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawken, Scott, and Fletcher, Roland 2021 A Long-Term Archaeological Reappraisal of Low-Density Urbanism: Implications for Contemporary Cities. Journal of Urban Archaeology 3:29–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Houk, Brett A. 2015 Ancient Maya Cities of the Eastern Lowlands. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Hutson, Scott R. 2016 The Ancient Urban Maya: Neighborhoods, Inequality, and Built Form. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Isendahl, Christian 2012 Agro-Urban Landscapes: The Example of Maya Lowland Cities. Antiquity 86:1112–1125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isendahl, Christian, and Smith, Michael E. 2013 Sustainable Agrarian Urbanism: The Low-Density Cities of the Mayas and Aztecs. Cities 31:132–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, Jane 1969 The Economy of the City. Penguin Books, Middlesex.Google Scholar
Kohler, Timothy A., and Smith, Michael E. (editors) 2018 Ten Thousand Years of Inequality: The Archaeology of Wealth Differences. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landau, Kristin 2015 Spatial Logic and Maya City Planning: The Case for Cosmology. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 25(1):275–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liendo Stuardo, Rodrigo 2002 La organización de la producción agrícola en un centro maya del clásico: Patrón de asentamiento en la región de Palenque, Chiapas, México. INAH, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Marken, Damien B. 2011 City and State: Urbanism, Rural Settlement, and Polity in the Classic Maya Lowlands. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.Google Scholar
Marken, Damien B. 2015 Conceptualizing the Spatial Dimensions of Classic Maya States: Polity and Urbanism at El Perú-Waka', Petén. In Classic Maya Polities of the Southern Lowlands, edited by Marken, Damien B. and Fitzsimmons, James, pp. 123–166. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Marken, Damien B., and Charlotte Arnauld, M. 2023a Building an Archaeology of Lowland Maya Urbanism. In Building an Archaeology of Maya Urbanism: Planning and Flexibility in the American Tropics, edited by Marken, Damien B. and Charlotte Arnauld, M., pp. 5–49. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Marken, Damien B., and Charlotte Arnauld, M. (editors) 2023b Building an Archaeology of Maya Urbanism: Flexibility and Planning in the American Tropics. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Marken, Damien B., and Fitzsimmons, James L. (editors) 2015 Classic Maya Polities of the Southern Lowlands: Integration, Interaction, Dissolution. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marken, Damien B., and Murtha, Timothy 2017 Maya Cities, People and Place: Comparative Perspectives from El Peru and Tikal. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 14:177–187.Google Scholar
Marken, Damien B., Pérez, Juan Carlos, Navarro-Farr, Olivia, and Eppich, Keith 2019a Ciudad del Ciempiés: Urbanismo, límites y comunidad en El Perú-Waka', Petén, Guatemala. In XXXII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2018, edited by Arroyo, Bárbara, Salinas, Luis Méndez, and Álvarez, Gloria Ajú, pp. 531–546. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Guatemala City.Google Scholar
Marken, Damien B., Ricker, Matthew C., Rivas, Alex, and Maxson, Erika 2019b Urbanismo de bajo densidad en las tierras bajas mayas: El caso de El Perú-Waka', Petén, Guatemala. Estudios de Cultura Maya 54:11–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Simon 2020 Ancient Maya Politics. Cambridge University Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montgomery, Shane, and Moyes, Holley 2023 Beneath the Surface, Below the Line: Exploring Household Differentiation at Las Cuevas Using Gini Coefficients. Ancient Mesoamerica. doi: 10.1017/S0956536123000068.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, Christian E., and Drennan, Robert D. 2018 Letting the Gini Out of the Bottle: Measuring Inequality Archaeologically. In Ten Thousand Years of Inequality: The Archaeology of Wealth Differences, edited by Kohler, Timothy A. and Smith, Michael E., pp. 39–66. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Rice, Prudence, and Pugh, Timothy 2017 Early Urban Planning, Spatial Strategies, and the Maya Gridded City of Nixtun-Ch'ich, Petén, Guatemala. Current Anthropology 58(5):576–603.Google Scholar
Ricketson, Oliver, and Ricketson, Edith B. 1937 Uaxactun, Guatemala, Group E: 1926–1931. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 477. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Robin, Cynthia 2003 New Directions in Classic Maya Household Archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research 11(4):307–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Michael E., Ortman, Scott G., Lobo, José, Ebert, Claire E., Thompson, Amy E., Prufer, Keith M., Stuardo, Rodrigo Liendo, and Rosenswig, Robert M. 2021 The Low-Density Urban Systems of the Classic Period Maya and Izapa: Insights from Settlement Scaling Theory. Latin American Antiquity 32:120–137. doi:10.1017/laq.2020.80CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Michael E., Kohler, Timothy A., and Feinman, Gray M. 2018 Studying Inequality's Deep Past. In Ten Thousand Years of Inequality: The Archaeology of Wealth Differences, edited by Kohler, Timothy A. and Smith, Michael E., pp. 3–38. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Smith, Monica L. 2019 Cities: The First 6,000 Years. Viking, New York.Google Scholar
Thompson, Amy E., Feinman, Gary M., and Prufer, Keith M. 2021 Assessing Classic Maya Multi-Scalar Household Inequality in Southern Belize. PLOS ONE 16(3):e0248169.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thompson, Amy E., Walden, John P., Chase, Adrian S.Z., Hutson, Scott R., Marken, Damien B., Cap, Bernadette, Fries, Eric C., Guzman Piedrasanta, M. Rodrigo, Hare, Timothy S., Horn, Sherman W. III, Micheletti, George J., Montgomery, Shane M., Munson, Jessica, Richards-Rissetto, Heather, Shaw-Müller, Kyle, Ardren, Traci, Awe, Jaime J., Kathryn Brown, M., Callaghan, Michael, Ebert, Claire E., Ford, Anabel, Guerra, Rafael A., Hoggarth, Julie A., Kovacevich, Brigitte, Morris, John, Moyes, Holley, Powis, Terry G., Yaeger, Jason, Houk, Brett A., Prufer, Keith M., Chase, Arlen F., and Chase, Diane Z. 2022 Ancient Lowland Maya Neighborhoods: Average Nearest Neighbor Analysis and Kernel Density Models, Environments, and Urban Scale. PLOS ONE 17(11):e0275916.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vogt, Evon. Z. 1965 Structural and Conceptual Replication in Zinacantan Culture. American Anthropologist 67(2):342–353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walden, John P., Ebert, Claire E., Hoggarth, Julie A., Montgomery, Shane M., and Awe, Jaime J. 2019 Modeling Variability in Classic Maya Intermediate Elite Political Strategies through Multivariate Analysis of Settlement Patterns. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 55:101074.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watanabe, John M. 2004 Some Models in a Muddle: Lineage and House in Classic Maya Social Organization. Ancient Mesoamerica 15:159–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webster, David, and Murtha, Timothy 2015 Fractious Farmers at Tikal. In Tikal: Paleoecology of an Ancient Maya City, edited by Lentz, David L., Dunning, Nicholas P., and Scarborough, Vernon L., pp. 212–237. Cambridge University Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilk, Richard R. 1997 Household Ecology: Economic Change and Domestic Life among the Kekchi Maya in Belize. Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb.Google Scholar
Wilk, Richard R., and Ashmore, Wendy (editors) 1988 Household and Community in the Mesoamerican Past. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Willey, Gordon R. 1965 Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Maya Lowlands. Handbook of Middle American Indians 2:360–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wong, D.W. 2009 Modifiable Areal Unit Problem. In International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, edited by Kitchin, Rob and Thrift, Nigel (editors in chief), pp. 169–173. Elsevier, Amsterdam and Boston.CrossRefGoogle Scholar