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Paper Information:
This paper may be of particular interest to:  Practicing and Applied Anthropologists     Students
Type: Paper
Paper Title: HINTERLAND MAYA LANDSCAPE, FOOD PRODUCTION, AND SUBORDINATION IN THE THREE RIVERS REGION
Author: DAVID GOLDSTEIN (South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology), JON HAGEMAN (Northeastern Illinois University)   
Date/Time: Fri., 10:45 AM
Co-Author(s): DAVID GOLDSTEIN (South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology), JON HAGEMAN (Northeastern Illinois University) 
Abstract: Power can be mediated through consensual practice as much as through force or resistance. E.P. Thompson discussed this in his community based 'Moral Economy' of 18th Century England. The enforcement of traditional land use through protest, boycott, and other sanctions play against landlords attempting to 'capitalize' consensually managed and locally-made, affordable, staple resources. This retarded the entrance of state and market forces into land use in small holding settlements and villages. A similarly mediated land use was germane to maintaining social ties for the Late Classic Maya in the landscape of the Three Rivers Region of Belize. These ties transcend traditional thoughts of infield-outfield agriculture and household gardens. Paleoethnobotanical and ceramic evidence argue for periodic feasting and daily provisioning based on available resources of the bajos, forests, and farmland. Here the polychrome cylinders, carved stelae, and painted palaces of the overtly powerful living at the centers of La Milpa and Dos Hombres are absent. Instead, our area lies far outside these cities. Data from households and small-scale ceremonial centers evince a preference for an intensively managed landscape. Such practices had priority over extractive service or other enforced power relations with larger centers. By examining local landscapes and householding centers we see overt acceptance of consensual practice with limited acceptance of the core-periphery balance of exchange. We argue that the Late Classic Maya of the peripheral hinterlands were concerned with extremely local dynamics and daily practice. relative to interaction with regional scale power brokers

Program Number: 3-0355
Session Title: PATHWAYS TO POWER
Session Sponsor: Archaeology Division
Session Date/Time: Fri., 10:15 AM-12:00 PM
Organizer(s): LAURA LEVI (University of Texas-San Antonio), SONIA ALCONINI 
Chair(s): LAURA LEVI (University of Texas-San Antonio)  
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