The travels of Maya merchants in the ninth and tenth centuries AD: investigations at Xuenkal and the Greater Cupul Province, Yucatan, Mexico (original) (raw)

The travels of Maya merchants in the ninth and tenth centuries AD: investigations at Xuenkal and the Greater Cupul Province, Yucatan, Mexico

Traci Ardren and Justin Lowry

Abstract

The region between the Maya capital of Chichen Itza and its port site on the Gulf of Mexico was one of the most heavily traversed landscapes during the Classic period. Vast quantities of trade goods were conveyed inland from the coast on the backs of long-distance traders. This study explores the experiences of these traders as they transported raw materials such as shell and obsidian as well as finished ornaments to the urban center in exchange for salt from the northern salt beds of Yucatan. We utilize archaeological data from sites along this trade route with a focus on Xuenkal, where we have conducted excavations into the nature of regional changes during the expansion of Chichen Itza since 2004. Archaeological data coupled with view-shed and travel-time analyses provide a nuanced perspective on the travel experiences of the traders who maintained one important component of the Classic Maya economy.

Keywords

Traders; exchange; landscape; Maya; Chichen Itza; Xuenkal.

Introduction

Long-distance trade is well established as a central component of Classic Maya culture due to chemical and stylistic analyses of the varied materials that moved throughout southern Mesoamerica from 200 to 1200 CE. But relatively little attention has been paid to the people who transported these goods, despite images of traders in prehispanic books and Spanish ethnohistoric descriptions of Maya trading caravans (Colón 1959 [1502]; Morris 1931). The ancient Maya landscape was filled with a variety

of specialists who contributed unique skills within the greater cultural system. Longdistance traders form one set of specialists for whom we have a variety of data, from the distances and conditions under which they travelled, to the quantities and nature of the goods they transported. This article utilizes data from the northern Maya Cupul trade corridor, and especially the site of Xuenkal located at the midpoint between the urban center of Chichen Itza and its port facility along the Gulf of Mexico, to reconstruct the travels of Classic Maya traders. A focus on this particular aspect of the ancient northern Maya landscape illuminates the interrelationships between people, cultural practices and their environmental settings.

The coastal-inland interaction sphere

Despite a subsistence economy centered on maize agriculture, Classic Maya society was deeply dependent upon an extensive system of marine trade and transport. The Mesoamerican ‘holy trinity’ of corn, bean and squash agriculture was supplemented with marine proteins in the coastal zone while un-worked and worked marine shell products were traded deep into the interior of the lowlands, based on their recovery at many inland archaeological sites (Suárez 2007). The sea and sea products played a central role in ancient Maya cosmology, and items such as spondylus shell bivalves, stingray spines and shark teeth were required ritual items for elite members of Classic society, even those who lived many hundreds of kilometers from the coast. Yet, as Finamore and Houston stated recently, ‘the Maya thought about the sea more frequently than most of them encountered it physically’ (2010: 16), a reflection of the fact that the bulk of Maya settlement is landlocked deep in tropical jungle environments without easy access to the coast. Most scholars agree that the bulk of trade in exotic goods moved along the long expanse of easily navigable microenvironments such as estuaries, bays and barrier islands that characterize the Maya coastline.

Long-distance trade between major environmental areas in both daily commodities and exotic imports is well documented in the material record (Masson and Freidel 2002; McKillop 2005; Mock 1997). Critical utilitarian goods from the highlands of Guatemala and central Mexico, such as basalt grinding stones and obsidian blades, were traded throughout the entire lowland region. But most commodities, such as food, cloth and utilitarian ceramics, were available locally and long-distance trade was concerned most visibly with the movement of items necessary for ritual or elite status-enhancing performances. Both overland and sea transport relied upon human carriers; there were no domesticated pack animals in Classic times and depictions of ancient traders wearing heavy back racks full of items are known from elite pottery and native books (Fig. 1). Movement over long distances was greatly facilitated by long wooden dugout canoes, described by the Spanish at contact as holding up to twenty-five oarsmen plus cargo (Colón 1959 [1502]). Examples of these canoes have not been recovered archaeologically although McKillop (2007) found a wooden canoe paddle preserved in mangrove muck and images of canoes, oarsmen and traders are known from the murals of Chichen Itza (Fig. 2).

Figure 1 Maya trader gods (God L) with backrack, Madrid Codex (drawing by Justin P. Lowry).

A member of the fourth voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1502, Ferdinand Colón described a large seagoing canoe of Maya or Maya-related people encountered in the Bay Islands off modern Honduras:

By good fortune there arrived at that time a canoe long as a galley and eight feet wide, made of a single tree trunk like the other Indian canoes; it was freighted with merchandise from the western regions around New Spain. Amidships it had a palm-leaf awning like that which the Venetian gondolas carry; this gave complete protection against the rain and waves. Under this awning were the children and women and all the baggage and merchandise. There were twenty-five paddlers aboard, but they offered no resistance when our boats drew up to them.
(Colón 1959 [1502]: 231-2)

Figure 2 Traders and goods in canoes, Upper Temple of the Warriors, Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico (drawing by Justin P. Lowry based on watercolor by Anne Axtell Morris (1931)).

The Spanish description of goods onboard the canoe matches the material evidence found at Classic period sites. Colón mentions bolts of cotton and clothing, flint knives and other weapons, ceramic vessels, copper ornaments, stone (possibly jade) beads and cacao beans, all of which were fundamental components of the ancient trade between competing elite dynasties located in different environmental zones. Coastal canoe trade has been documented from the earliest periods of occupation in the Maya area at Late Preclassic (400 BCE-200 CE) sites such as Cerros and Komchen through European contact, although it reached a peak of intensity during the Terminal Classic period (800-1100 CE) (Andrews and Mock 2002; Freidel et al. 2002). It was at this time that the urban city of Chichen Itza grew to power through control of a commercialized economy built upon trade networks that extended throughout Mesoamerica coupled with the extraction of key local resources such as salt (Andrews et al. 1989; Cobos 2007).

The Cupul trade corridor

Since 2004, the Proyecto Arqueológico Xuenkal, or PAX, has investigated the cultural and environmental landscape of the area known in early ethnohistoric accounts as the Cupul region, a 4000 sq km corridor between the ancient city of Chichen Itza and the Gulf of Mexico coast (Fig. 3). Research in 1988 by the Cupul Survey Project identified the port facility for Chichen Itza, a small island site 200 m in diameter known as Isla Cerritos, 100 km north-northeast of the urban center (Andrews et al. 1989). Seventy-five other sites

Figure 3 Cupul survey region with archaeological sites, rank I-V. Adapted from the Cupul Survey Map (Andrews et al. 1989) with basemap SRTM elevation model (courtesy SRTM Team NASA/ JPL/NIMA).

were located through survey in the intervening plains leading to the mangrove forests of the Gulf, and the presence of non-local trade goods at many of these sites demonstrated the involvement of the region in long-distance, rather than down the line, exchange (McKillop 1996; Renfrew 1977). Three of these sites were of semi-urban proportions, eleven were towns of smaller proportions and the rest were rural settlements. Xuenkal, one of the semi-urban centers, is situated 60 km from the coast, mid-way between Chichen Itza and Isla Cerritos. It has proven to be a perfect location from which to explore the nature of economic and political changes in the region during the expansion of the polity centered at Chichen. Artifactual evidence for intensified craft production, architectural evidence for defensive features and a very high percentage of imported trade goods previously known primarily from Chichen Itza have provided a dynamic perspective on the political and economic transformations that occurred at this key settlement in the Cupul region during the Terminal Classic period (Ardren et al. 2010).

Finding ancient Maya traders in the Cupul region

Goods are moved by people and trade is essentially an extension of interpersonal relationships (Oka and Kusimba 2008). Previous scholarship has not established whether the scale and intensity of long-distance trade in the Maya region necessitated full-time specialists, perhaps a merchant class, although this has been suggested for later periods (Masson and Freidel 2002; McAnany 2010; Sabloff and Rathje 1975). There is little evidence that the majority of ancient Maya people ever traveled far from their original homes, although elites often visited neighboring dynasties for feasting, ballgame events and other royal ceremonies. Merchants were some of the only other members of society who regularly traveled any distance and thus had some familiarity with vastly different environmental zones and social settings. This specialized set of skills and local knowledge facilitated the movement of goods between temperate zones and tropical lowlands as well as in and out of large urban centers. By utilizing landscape and archaeological data from PAX in conjunction with the results of prior research within the Cupul region, we offer a more detailed exploration of the specialized knowledge and experiences of traders in this particular part of the Maya world.

Landscape analysis

Merchants who arrived at the coastal site of Isla Cerritos bound for the urban capital of Chichen Itza had to choose the route they would travel. Andrews et al. (1989: 94) suggested two likely routes based on the presence of ceramics associated with the capital. The decision to take the eastern or western route might have been made for many of the same reasons merchants choose a route today - considerations of ease, familiarity and supplies all play a part. These deliberations take place within a context of specialized knowledge about the landscape, including climate, fauna and topography.

An examination of the geological terrain through which ancient traders travelled is a valuable key to understanding their specialized knowledge. Between Isla Cerritos and Chichen Itza there are four distinct geological zones (Weidie 1985). The beach is a narrow

strip of sand and dunes; there is no fresh water and few other resources beyond those available in the sea. In the tidal zone of lagoons and marshes there are some fresh or brackish water sources although few were suitable for human consumption. The tidal zone in Yucatan is primarily comprised of mangrove forests and sawgrass with mucky soils and abundant wildlife that presented serious challenges to overland transport. These zones have naturally occurring channels that were augmented by historic people to facilitate the removal of timber by canoe and it has been suggested that some of these channels may have existed prior to European contact (Andrews 2008; Millet 1985).

Approximately 5−8 km5-8 \mathrm{~km} inland from the coast is the transition from the tidal zone to the higher elevation of the central northern geological zone, which has a drier climate. A slightly hilly karst landscape is the result of large diameter solution holes (natural depressions) in the limestone substrata. Fresh water is still scarce in this zone and a traveler would have to know available sources and plan a route accordingly. In some senses this zone was the most difficult to traverse as it has hilly terrain, open bedrock, little water and the first dense settlement of potentially hostile occupants. A large semi-urban pre-hispanic site, Panaba, was located within the central northern zone.

South of Panaba the elevation continued to rise slightly as travelers reached the central interior flatlands that surround greater Chichen Itza. This karst zone has generally smaller solution holes, larger areas of deep soil and a greater incidence of caverns. In pre-hispanic periods, this zone would have supported the highest forest on the peninsula with fresh water available in caverns and solution holes. Despite a sizable pre-hispanic population, plant and animal products from the high forest, such as birds, feathers, thatch and other housing materials, game animals, medicinal plants and tree fruits, were plentiful.

Our analysis of the Cupul regional landscape indicates the presence of pre-hispanic sites at the transition between each major geological zone. There are three sites at the most dramatic geological transition, from beach to tidal forest; Isla Cerritos, Paso de Cerro and Chinalco. The large semi-urban site of Panaba, now destroyed by modern settlement, was located at the transition from the central northern zone to the drier central interior zone. Together with the intermediate settlement San Ramon de los Cerros, these sites form a travel corridor through the most challenging environments faced by ancient traders. Choosing to travel from site to site maximized the safety and reliability of travel in a region of open yet seasonally inundated plains.

The sites listed above make up the northern component of the eastern corridor between the coast and Chichen Itza. This corridor continues south to the sites of Xlacah, Xuenkal, Ichmul de Morley and finally to Chichen Itza. Naturally flat topography coupled with the large pre-hispanic constructions of northern Yucatan provide a cultural landscape that is well suited to visibility studies and view-shed analysis reveals a component of the specialized knowledge held by travelers through this region. Our analysis suggests traders were able to sight a pathway of way-station settlements along the route from Isla Cerritos to Chichen. A person standing 2 m above the ground surface can see 5.1 km to the horizon, barring obstructions, because of the nature of the curvature of the earth. That same person at 10 m above the ground surface can see 11.3 km to the horizon, which is consistent with the experience of a pre-hispanic person standing at the summit of the largest mounds at San Ramon de los Cerros, Panaba and Xlacah. At 30m above the ground surface, which is possible given the architecture at Xuenkal and Chichen Itza, a person can see 19.6 km to

the horizon. These distances are based on the assumption that the object the person is sighting is at ground surface. If, however, one is sighting from Xuenkal to Chichen Itza, both of which have 30 m -high pyramids, it is possible to see as far as 39 km to the horizon, doubling the visible distance, based on the elevation provided by monumental architecture. Travelers could have planned each leg of their journey by utilizing monumental architecture at way-station sites along the travel corridor. These view-shed measurements are applicable during daylight hours and could have been augmented by the use of signal fires at night. As seen in Figure 4, given that there are seven way-station sites within the 100 km between Isla Cerritos to Chichen, a traveling merchant could sight each subsequent large settlement within the eastern travel corridor. The ability to utilize this navigational aid was still dependent upon specialized knowledge of approximate direction to gain the correct bearing and gauge distance.

Travel-time estimates also correlate with the way-station model proposed above. Based on personal experience, a young person carrying 20−25 kg20-25 \mathrm{~kg}, or a relatively light burden, can easily travel 20−25 km20-25 \mathrm{~km} per day in the northern Yucatecan plains (A. P. Andrews, pers. comm. 2010). For the purposes of this analysis we assume that a fit ancient trader could travel a maximum of 35 km per day on foot. Within these parameters a merchant could travel from Isla Cerritos to Chichen Itza along a direct route in three days (Fig. 5). Given the social landscape it is more appropriate to assume travelers would include settlements as part of their journey. From Chinalco, the beginning of the overland route on dry land, one could pass all the way to Panaba ( 25 km ) in a day easily carrying 25 kg of trade goods. On that same journey, the leg from Panaba to Xuenkal (36km) would be more challenging; however, one could rest in Xlacah and continue to Chichen the third day or stop in Xlacah, travel to Ichmul de Morley the third day and arrive in Chichen on the fourth. This straight travel-time analysis does not account for trading activities at each of the settlements along the corridor. While traders may have been able to make the trip from Isla Cerritos to Chichen in three days, and perhaps did so on their northern journey back to the coast from the capital when they were free of trade goods, the southern journey is more likely to have taken five days or more given the evidence for trade items at many of the sites along the route (see below). Familiarity might allow travel time through the

Figure 4 View-shed map of trade corridor indicating relative height of monuments at each site from Chichen Itza to Gulf of Mexico, horizontal axis compressed.

Figure 5 Eastern travel corridor from Isla Cerritos to Chichen Itza with foot travel estimates. Adapted from the Cupul Survey Map (Andrews et al. 1989) with basemap SRTM elevation model (courtesy SRTM Team NASA/JPL/NIMA).

region to be shortened, but the physical limitations of foot travel with a back rack or tumpline would have militated against shortening the trip to less than three days.

Archaeological evidence

Large wooden canoes were heavily laden when they arrived at the port facility of Isla Cerritos on the north coast of the Yucatan peninsula, given the quantity of trade items recovered from sites within the Cupul region. The island is located 500 m from the coast at the mouth of a long estuary and would have been easily visible to shallow water vessels moving along the coast of the peninsula (Andrews 1995: 16). Submerged evidence of docking facilities was discovered on the south side of the island by Andrews and indicates that canoes could have been unloaded and harbored (Andrews 1995: 17).

Given the high quantities of non-local materials found at Isla Cerritos, our current model of coastal trade in the Terminal Classic period hypothesizes that canoes were filled with trade goods from outside the peninsula when they arrived at Isla Cerritos and then returned to other parts of Mesoamerica filled with the primary natural resource of the peninsula, high-quality salt. At Isla Cerritos excavations revealed exotic materials that had previously been found only at Chichen Itza, such as gold ornaments from Central America and turquoise from northern Mexico or the southwestern United States (Andrews 1995: 23). Research on this small island site also documented vast quantities of more common non-local trade goods such as jade ornaments and basalt grinding stones from the highlands of Guatemala as well as high-fired Plumbate pottery that was manufactured many thousands of kilometers to the south in Chiapas, Mexico (Neff and Bishop 1988).

Merchants bringing goods to Chichen Itza from Isla Cerritos may have been housed in the large open buildings on the island known as gallery patios (Cobos 2007; Ruppert 1950). This civic architecture has been found only at these two closely related sites within the Cupul corridor, and would have been familiar to traders who frequented the urban capital. Gallery-patio architecture is open and accessible, with long rectangular rooms, supporting columns and a perishable roof.

To begin their journey to the regional capital, traders likely loaded the grinding stones, ceramics, shell and smaller precious ornaments into net bags which were secured to wooden back racks and tumplines, as seen in Postclassic period depictions of God L, the merchant deity (Fig. 1). God L is always shown wearing a wide-brimmed hat made of woven plant material and his body is often black, perhaps to indicate the effects of prolonged exposure to the sun (Taube 1992: 79). Tumpline transport limits the weight that can be carried to approximately 38−40 kg38-40 \mathrm{~kg} (Reina and Hill 1978: 208).

Once on the mainland, traders headed to Chichen Itza would first have passed through the small hamlet Paso de Cerro, where salt workers lived in small domestic structures and tended evaporative saltpans (Andrews 1995: 18). Andrews and colleagues found evidence of artificial walkways that cross the coastal swamp and lead to higher ground inland in the area around Paso de Cerro. One of these walkways led to a fresh water source east of the site, a feature of obvious importance to long-distance traders (Andrews 1995: 18). Three kilometers south of Paso de Cerro is a small site known as Chinalco that Andrews

described as a farming settlement that may have provided plant and animal products such as deer meat to the occupants of Isla Cerritos (Andrews 1995: 19).

When the traders reached the city of Xuenkal, mid-way along their journey to the capital, they deposited trade goods at twenty specialized craft production platforms within the site center. As a result of five seasons of fieldwork and excavation we have documented a shift in material culture and architecture closely associated with the expanding cultural influence of Chichen Itza within the Cupul region (Ardren et al. 2010; Manahan et al. in press). Settlement from this period at Xuenkal shifts from dispersed residences to large free-standing platforms clustered in the center of the urban settlement (Fig. 6). Terminal Classic platforms contain not only the greatest concentration of ceramics associated with Chichen Itza, but also long-distance trade goods such as Central Mexican obsidian and Plumbate pottery. The latest construction phase at these platforms is frequently an assortment of low, rectangular structures elevated slightly from the surface to support masonry constructions on their summit. Abundant middens with domestic ceramics, ground stone, faunal remains and craft debitage indicate these platforms were multicrafting residential areas (Ardren et al. in press).

Over 90 per cent of Terminal Classic period ceramics from Xuenkal are from the Sotuta ceramic complex believed to originate at Chichen and these materials are found across the site although in highest frequencies at the craft production platforms (Smith 1971). New Sotuta complex ceramic forms such as grater bowls suggest the introduction of new cuisines that certainly traveled to Xuenkal and other sites within the Cupul region in the hands and minds of merchants. Introduced ceramic forms made in local pastes are a clear indication of the influence traders had on daily domestic life outside the capital.

Production stage analysis of the shell artifacts conducted by Alejandra Alonso indicates that a majority of the materials found at Xuenkal are in the intermediate stage of production, with only small percentages of raw or finished materials present in the platform samples (Alonso et al. in press). Alonso also identified the origin of shell materials recovered from these workshops and found that, while the majority of materials were from the Caribbean, some came from as far away as the Pacific coast of Mexico (Alonso et al. in press: 8). Thus we suggest traders delivered unfinished commodities such as obsidian and chert cores, as well as shell forms and probably other perishable craft materials, to the craftspeople of Xuenkal, and may have received in return finished products for delivery to the ruling elite of the capital.

Given the lack of gallery-patio structures at Xuenkal and the high percentages of trade goods found at the Sotuta phase platforms, traveling merchants might have been housed near the workshop areas atop these platforms. The spatial organization of the modest structures on the summit of the platforms, which include multiple domestic buildings around open working areas filled with craft debris, suggests shared intra-familial or intradomestic economic activities. In the intensified economy of the Terminal Classic period, such spaces may not have been shared by members of the same extended family, but rather by those engaged in complementary economic activities, such as exchange and production.

Traders also left exotic objects such as Plumbate pottery, jade beads and copper ornaments at Xuenkal, perhaps in the hands of the Itza-affiliated elites who administered the site during this period, although the precise mechanisms of political governance at the site during the expansion of Chichen Itza have yet to be fully elucidated. An absence of

Figure 6 Terminal Classic period platforms at Xuenkal, Yucatan, Mexico (drawing by T. Kam Manahan and Justin P. Lowry).
gallery-patio architecture at Xuenkal suggests to us that the existing resident population at the site was absorbed, perhaps forcibly, into the political and economic sphere of Chichen without an effort to construct architectural frameworks or spaces that conveyed Chichen leadership. The architectural disjunction between Isla Cerritos/Chichen Itza and Xuenkal suggests a different cultural experience for traders who visited Xuenkal, where modest production spaces were emphasized over monumental gallery-patio complexes.

Upon reaching the northern periphery of Chichen Itza, traders would have encountered small settlements with familiar architecture as far as 2.5 km north of the heart of the city

(Cobos 2007: 334). These outlying centers had gallery-patio structures, and many of these settlements were connected to the urban core of Chichen by raised roads or causeways (Cobos 2007: 327). It is unclear whether outlying gallery-patio groups were used for housing traveling merchants or their wares but certainly the ideological message was clear: the merchants had arrived at their destination.

Those traders who arrived in the city of Chichen Itza around the year AD 900 would have encountered a massive amount of architectural construction. From the outlying settlements and causeways to the very center of the city itself, the leaders of the capital were constructing new performance spaces for collective rituals key to the urban identity of this particular city. Earlier traditions of long hieroglyphic texts and detailed portraits of kings gave way to new means of expressing political authority through extensive building programs that included massive architectural constructions and vast open plazas. Some of these architectural features would have been familiar to long-distance traders who might have seen similar skull racks, colonnaded halls and sculptured panels at the site of Tula in central Mexico or El Tajin on the southern Gulf coast, although the buildings at Chichen are a unique version of what has been called the pan-Mesoamerican style of the Epiclassic period (Kowalski 2007; Ringle et al. 1998). Likewise, traders would have recognized a set of ceramic forms used at these sites linked by long-distance trade and shared participation in a tradition of rituals of inclusion. In this period, frying pan, spiked and openwork censers were found throughout a string of Mesoamerican sites that never had these traditions before (Bey and Ringle 2007: 415). Likewise the use of griddle and grater-bowl domestic wares was introduced to Chichen from the cities of central Mexico, perhaps via the appetites of traders and merchants (Bey and Ringle 2007; Smith 1971).

In addition to new rituals and ways of eating, cities within the pan-Mesoamerican style of the Epiclassic may have been the origin of the traders themselves who brought goods long-distance into Chichen. The names of high-ranking men married to local elite women appear in hieroglyphic inscriptions of this period at Chichen and some have suggested that these men were not just warrior elite but also a merchant elite (Grube and Krochock 2007: 223). Ringle et al. (1998) have argued that the flow of exotic goods through the major cities of the Epiclassic, including Chichen Itza, was driven by the participation of the leaders of these cities in a shared religious cult of the Feathered Serpent, an order that may have relied upon merchants as members or key proselytizers. Given the dominance of military imagery in the elite artwork of Chichen, we suggest traders operated under the strict control of a military order or dominant governing structure rather than as the leaders of these cities, but further investigation of the lives of the ruling elite of Chichen Itza and other Epiclassic cities could shed important light on the question of how merchants participated in political control of the population.

Conclusions

Coastal trade was crucially important in ancient Maya civilization, both to elites who were dependent upon exotic prestige-enhancing goods, and also to the movement of basic commodities such as obsidian. Often this extensive system of trade and exchange has been reconstructed without attention to the individuals who were responsible for securing,

transporting and delivering such materials. The area between the urban capital of Chichen Itza and the coast was one of the most traveled trade routes of the Classic period, and the ancient settlement distribution reflects this. A study of the geological conditions and view sheds of the Cupul region shows the location of ancient sites facilitated foot travel through the region. Archaeological evidence from Xuenkal and other nearby sites demonstrates the relationship traders had with regional centers, not just the port site and capital.

A focus on the daily experiences of the specialists who moved trade goods throughout the Maya area adds a new dimension to the study of ancient economies. Travel conditions were an integral part of the establishment and maintenance of long-distance trade networks. The landscape through which traders moved was neither the determining factor nor an invisible component of these economic activities, but rather was culturally shaped and understood by individual merchants with a deep and specialized knowledge of their environment.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank all the members of the Proyecto Arqueológico Xuenkal, past and present, including Co-Director T. Kam Manahan, property owner Alejandro Patron Laviata and the citizens of Espita, especially Miguel Rosado Kuk. Field research was supported with funding from the National Science Foundation (grants OISE-0502306 and BCS-0852233), FAMSI (grant 05064), the Offices of the Provost and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Miami and Kent State University. Research was conducted under the auspices of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Dra. Nelly Garcia Robles, Presidente del Consejo de Arqueología. The comments of two anonymous reviewers greatly improved this manuscript; however, the authors retain all responsibility for errors of interpretation.

Traci Ardren
University of Miami tardren@miami.edu

Justin Lowry
State University of New York, Albany
JustinPLowry@gmail.com

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Traci Ardren (PhD, Yale University, 1997) is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Miami and Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. Her research focuses on issues of identity and other forms of symbolic representation in the archaeological record. With T. Kam Manahan she co-directs research at the ancient Maya archaeological site of Xuenkal, Yucatán, México, investigating the role of environmental resources and trade in the development of an economically dominant state centered at the urban center of Chichen Itzá.

Justin P. Lowry is a PhD candidate at the University at Albany, SUNY. His primary research focus is the application of GIS technology to the landscape of the ancient Maya. He is presently completing a dissertation on the Late Preclassic component of Xuenkal and is a staff member of the Proyecto Arqueologico Xuenkal.