Household Remains of the Humblest Maya

Abstract

AbstractEight small rural sites with 27 associated structures have been intensively excavated in the Copán Valley Honduras, as part of a larger program of settlement analysis. These excavations, which include peripheral spaces around structures, provide what is currently our best sample of rural domestic household remains of Maya "commoners" or "producers," who have been largely ignored by a tradition of archaeological research focused on major centers. Data derived from this research have both methodological and substantive implications for understanding prehistoric Maya settlement systems at Copán and elsewhere. An ambitious program of obsidian hydration analysis not only effectively dates these particular sites, but indicates that our concepts concerning demographic and political processes associated with the Maya "collapse" at Copán must be radically changed.