All of a Piece: The Politics of Growth and Collapse in Classic Period Maya Kingdoms (original) (raw)

The political processes that lead to the growth of complex, state organized, societies are often taken to be dramatically different from the processes that lead to the collapse of such systems. Periods of growth are interpreted as the product of fully functioning and healthy political regimes and societies, while periods of political collapse and demographic dissolution are interpreted as the result of one or another systemic pathology. Thus the "Maya Collapse" of the Southern Lowlands in the 9th century AD has been interpreted as the result of warfare raging out of control, climatic change, peasant revolts, invasions of peoples from outside the Southern Lowlands, or some nuanced combination of these prime movers. Bringing together epigraphic data and the results of our archaeological research in the Piedras Negras and Yaxchilan kingdoms, we will argue, instead, that the growth and collapse of the Classic period kingdoms of the Usumacinta Basin was all of a piece. It is our argument that the very political processes that allowed the dynasties of Piedras Negras and Yaxchilan to establish themselves in small nucleated capitals and slowly extend their control over an ever growing territory lead in a logical -though by no means inevitable -way to their eventual collapse.