The edited volume Ancient Maya Commerce: Multidisciplinary Research at Chunchucmil, spearheaded by Scott Hutson, is the culmination of 14 years of field investigations by a multidisciplinary team of experts. This volume provides detailed, in-depth discussions that draw on multiple variables, literally from the ground up, that convincingly demonstrate Chunchucmil was a port of trade with a central marketplace in the Early Classic period (AD 400–600). Hutson and Bruce Dahlin point out in Chapter 1 that recognition and acceptance of market exchange have come late to Maya studies due to lack of agreement and gaps in knowledge of ancient Maya lifeways. The authors in this volume examine some of the more understudied topics that factored into this delay, but which are fundamental to interpreting market exchange practices. In addition, a major thread throughout the volume is that the identification of market exchange requires multiple lines of evidence. To this end, the 13 chapters in the volume juxtapose studies of commoner household practices, characteristics of the natural environment and settlement and population densities to identify market exchange at Chunchucmil. Importantly, the authors seek to move the field beyond the identification of market exchange by addressing questions about the economic, social and political impact of the practice at the site and beyond. The combination of research strategies and lines of inquiry espoused here make for a stand-out research programme from which others can draw inspiration.
Hutson has organised the 13 chapters in this volume into several cohesive sections that flow naturally from one to the next. The first section includes Chapters 2–5, which focus on site mapping (Chapter 2), settlement patterns and densities (Chapters 3 and 5), excavation sampling strategy (Chapter 3), site chronology (Chapter 4) and population estimates (Chapter 5). In these chapters we learn that the Chunchucmil site centre lacks the typical Maya architectural trappings of regal–ritual centres. This led Hutson et al. (Chapter 5), in part, to suggest that a more corporate-based style of political organisation was in place at the site. The detailed discussion of the extensive mapping programme, architectural typology and sampling strategy demonstrates that the research team has allowed for sampling errors, which adds a high degree of confidence to their estimated Early Classic population density for urban Chunchucmil (an area of 15.1 km2) of between 31,000 and 48,000 people. This equates to an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people per km2, which makes Chunchucmil one of the most densely occupied sites in the Maya lowlands.
The information provided in the first section sets the foundation for the second grouping of chapters (Chapters 6–9), in which the authors explore the characteristics of the natural environment to understand how or if such a large and dense population could support themselves. David Hixson and colleagues (Chapter 6) outline the features of the four major ecozones within a 2,500 km2 region, demonstrating that the region is rich in a variety of resources that are unevenly distributed across the landscape. Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach and Timothy Beach's (Chapter 7) chemical analysis of water in the region found that access to it or its quality would not have been major limiting factors to food production. Low rainfall and thin or absent soil over a large portion of the greater Chunchucmil area had more potential to affect plant production rates, as Timothy Beach and a team of specialists (Chapter 9) found in an impressive multivariable study of soils in each of the four ecozones. They conclude that the soilscape would probably not have been able to support the projected population of Early Classic Chunchucmil given our current knowledge of ancient Maya agricultural practices. Adding stress to resource availability are an estimated 30,000 people who lived in smaller centres within the greater Chunchucmil area (Chapter 8).
With the coupling of high populations and the projected inability to be self-sufficient food producers, the authors in Chapters 10 and 11 explore household activities to understand what the people of Chunchucmil had to offer in a market exchange system, and examine material evidence for market exchange at the site. Dahlin and colleagues (Chapter 10) offer an interesting, albeit mostly speculative (as they admit), take on the potential role of perishable materials in market exchange at Chunchucmil. This discussion is in part driven by a small assemblage of tools made of durable materials that indicate crafting or raw-material processing at the site. Most of the raw materials used by the Maya were organic and are rarely preserved in the Maya lowlands. Consequently, their contribution to Maya market exchange practices has been understudied. This fact makes the discussion in Chapter 10 a valuable addition to the volume. In Chapter 11, Hutson et al. present multiple lines of contextual and empirical evidence that indicate market exchange practices in household consumption and a physical marketplace venue in the site centre.
The final two chapters focus on exploring the broader organisation and significance of both market exchange and the marketplace venue. Traci Ardren and colleagues (Chapter 12) take a macroscale view of Chunchucmil as a port of trade within the region. They examine the political networks involved in bringing obsidian to the site and evidence indicating Chunchucmil was a major provider of obsidian in the northern Yucatan. Well highlighted in this chapter are the multiple social and political connections and complexities entangled in market exchange practices. In the final chapter, Hutson addresses remaining questions about market exchange at the site, the most intriguing of which addresses who might have managed the central marketplace. Initially discussed in Chapter 3, Hutson returns to the interpretation of corporate networks at play in Chunchucmil. He suggests political and social units may have worked in cooperation with each other to create trade networks and utilise the central marketplace. Most Classic Maya sites have evidence for a distinct ruling class, which would place Chunchucmil into a category of its own. Hutson's discussion and interpretations raise important questions, however, about market exchange administration that can and are being asked at other ancient Maya sites.
