GROUP 2G-1

The paper by Jon Hageman (2004) argues for the application of a lineage model to Late Classic Maya in northwestern Belize. His paper expands on the criteria for establishing lineage structures in the archaeological record and contributes to an understanding of the social organization of Maya living in the hinterland. Hageman argues that lineage is a useful concept to explore land tenure, power relations within and between social groups, and the importance of ancestor veneration among the pre-Hispanic Maya. How might the lineage be established as a form among the ancient Maya? What evidence would appear in the archaeological record? Hageman suggests that in pre-modern, pre-capitalist, pre-Hispanic Maya culture, traditions are strong and social life is conservative, especially in the hinterland. The archaeological record can test this hypothesis through hundreds and thousands of years. The tenacity to which a population adheres to tradition and the ability of that same population to rapidly engage in change need to be carefully evaluated through time and space in the Maya record. According to Hageman, whether lineage existed as an adaptive social strategy for the Classic Maya under specific social situations and in designated space and times can be established if the criteria of a lineage can be (1) enumerated and (2) found in the archaeological record. Hageman discusses how lineages might be formed, where, and why. He suggests that classic lineages act as corporate groups, hold economic resources, and frequently are associated with agricultural lands. Lineage members are in daily face-to-face contact, conscious of their group identity. The group espouses exogamous marriage, but this is an ideal rule and can be followed or not. Hageman also remarks that lineages are internally ranked; households within the lineage are ranked, and members of the lineage receive goods and access to resources differentially. Lineages are unilineal descent groups, but there is some contested and negotiable membership in the group. Ancestors are revered, and worship focuses on veneration of these lineage founders. With this definition of the lineage, Hageman explores what archaeological correlates of lineage would exist among the Late Classic Maya. The holding of corporate property is clearly evident in the archaeological record. Houses have been excavated; walls and other terraced boundaries are clear; the existence of living fences has been hypothesized; and distance between households can be considered another form of social exclusion. In the modern Yucatec Maya village of Coba, household compounds are bounded units. There are stone walls, barbed-wire fences, piles of stone to indicate the corner boundaries of yard areas, living fences, and recorded solar, or yard boundaries, filed in the delegación (mayor's office).

Hageman (2004) also notes that architectural differences may exist that establish distinct social groups. In Coba, houses are unique manifestations of the identity and social position of the family. Pole-and-thatch houses were traditionally those of farmers, and storekeepers occupied stone houses. Traditionally, pole-and-thatch houses had no windows, but the wealthier campesinos installed windows as a mark of their elevated position. Shed porches attached to pole-and-thatch houses marked higher status. When the porches were enclosed and made into an ancillary room, status was even higher. Separate kitchens and sleeping structures were a mark of higher status. The permutations and combinations of pole-and-thatch and stone buildings reflected the complex variation of rankings in the village, subtle and not so subtle reflections of social organization. But the village is not organized into lineages, although the ranking of households in some instances is profoundly tied to family (both husband's and wife's).

Hageman (2004) suggests that exogamy in the pre-Hispanic settlements might be established for certain with DNA testing, although the Maya populations are small and the materials for DNA testing are limited. Furthermore, lineages frequently adopt members or add members by non-biological means to the group. In Coba, exogamy is practiced on the family level, but name exogamy is not the universal rule. There are Cen Cens and May Mays living in the village, although it is suggested that the married pair was not from the same family and were not related (as far as anyone could tell).

Hageman (2004) adds that internal ranking of lineage members can be expressed in the residential units and in access to land. Although this, I believe, is difficult to establish in the archaeological record, it is much easier to establish in the living Maya community. In Coba, one family had three living brothers in the village. One lives in a “mansion” with a large stone house and several ancillary pole-and-thatch buildings located within an enormous solar or yard area. The older brother lives in a tiny stone house with an ancillary pole-and-thatch house. The yard area is minuscule, and the fortunes of this brother have gone from bad to worse. The third brother has constructed a stone structure, and the old pole-and-thatch house has been converted into a kitchen area. He recently hired masons to install a new, beautiful and expensive, wrought iron door. He lives next to his mother and father, and his solar is one-half of the land that was held by his father. Even with the division, his yard area is substantial, although it is not as large as that of his wealthier (and younger) brother. His father and mother's house is a modest pole-and-thatch structure. Two points can be made with this ethnographic information: (1) the head of the family may not have the largest house and (2) the organization of family is complicated and variable. Furthermore, if the volume of the house may not be the best measurement of rank, might the contents of the house be a more revealing measure? For the archaeologists, the household inventory as excavated (accounting for some loss of valued goods that have decayed) might be a better measure of rank than the size or volume of the dwelling. Size or volume might be a measure of rank, but then again, it might not.

Shrine sites, burial under the house floor, midden deposits, high quantities of vessel forms used for serving, large courtyard areas—all of these, in permutations and combinations, would reflect the ranking of the household members. However, one of the largest feasts I attended in Coba was a new corn festival where a large number of the villagers gathered to eat new corn on the cob and drink chocolate out of gourd cups. The husks of the corn and the gourds would biodegrade, and nothing would be left of the festival except the memory of it in the minds of the participants. Another large festival celebrated in Coba was the Chachac Rain ceremony. It was practiced in the forest; food was cooked, and you can still see the area where the pit ovens were located to cook nohua (giant tortillas). But no record is left as to who sponsored the ceremony and who exactly did what there. If by chance walled or bounded areas, unique architecture, remains for DNA testing, large and small compounds, shrines and/or burials in floors, and large numbers of cooking and serving vessels are found co-jointly, the house would be well defined, distinct from others, housing related members and participating in the veneration of ancestors and festivals associated with these activities among others. But the question remains: is this enough evidence to establish a unilinear descent group?

Hageman's (2004) discussion of the Barba Territory establishes that there are boundaries around the .5-km² area. The domestic architecture is homogenous within and varies from other architectural structures outside the zone. Houses within the compound vary, with one large house and three intermediate-size and other smaller units. The largest house, interpreted as the house of a lineage head, supports a shrine with two burials (one of which is an adult male). The burials date to the Early Classic (the male) and the Late Classic (the other unidentified fragmentary burial). He suggests that this house reflects lineage structure. I would agree that the house compound reflects a bounded family unit, that the house members were internally ranked, that ancestor worship would account for the shrine and the burials associated with it, and that lineage may be the organizational principle. However, I would suggest that the household might be organized with double-descent principles and cognitive kinship, and that the possibility of adoption and negotiated membership in the group by marriage might also be significant social phenomena. If, as Hageman reports, there were significant numbers of serving and cooking vessels at the site, the contributions of women in the feasting activities would be significant. When large feasts are held in the village of Coba, women gather, bring goods, and work hard to prepare and serve the food. The women may also be tied by blood and marriage; however, family members in the village are not organized by lineage structure. This is not to say that the lineage structure was not characteristic of the Classic Maya in the hinterland. What might be considered for the Maya is the range of kinship and marriage patterns, residential organizations, and territorial rights that allowed the Maya to adapt across time and space.

Finally, Hageman (2004) makes the point that the presence or absence of lineages in specific areas can enhance our understanding of the use of resources, response to political centralization (and its collapse), and social change at the core and in the hinterland. There is no evidence that the organizational principles in the core and the hinterland would necessarily be the same, although the two zones might share similar principles at specific times (Becker 2004). The discussion leads us to consider the advantage of distinct organizational principles used by the Maya to support their households under very different social demands across space and through time.

The discussion by T. Kam Manahan (2004) moves away from the household and brings focus to a discussion of larger Classic Maya polities. Dramatic changes at the end of the Classic and reorganization at the beginning of the Early Postclassic provide information on the impact of change on social units. Discussions of the Classic collapse have considered that households held together while the center deteriorated. Manahan's discussion of social organization in the Copan Valley challenges that view and opens analysis and interpretation to larger political frames. Manahan (2004) reviews the debate over lineage versus house characterizations of ancient Maya social organization, but the focus of the article is on the relationship between the smaller social group (house) and larger political units. He argues that social functions of the “house” resonate and respond to collapse at the core and that this response can be recovered in the archaeological record. Manahan argues that the centralized and decentralized states are extreme forms that may in fact coexist. Although his suggestion is in part true, it might also be argued that the strength or weakness of the core (the state) might be reflected in the organization of the hinterland (Becker 2004). Clearly, hierarchy and heterarchy may exist across space, in redundant residential plaza forms in the outlying zones and in the forms of larger palaces, temples, and pyramid structures near the core. The rise or fall of Classic Maya primary ruling dynasties would influence the status or lack of power of the outlying secondary elite.

While Manahan (2004) suggests that no single explanation may account for the diversity of data extrapolated from the archaeological record, he suggests that a continuum of social organizational principles guided ancient Maya group formation. Perhaps the core area operated under one set of social rules while the hinterland operated under another. This divergence of rules would account for the extreme variation that is found in Maya ruins across space and through time. In the ethnographic data from Coba, very different social rules are operating from family to family (resulting in significant and diverse forms). The social organization (and rules) from village to village in the Coba area is also very different. Coba has a set of founding families, immigrants from the outside who have come at different times and settled with different rules for village membership. Some became communal land holders (ejido members); others became guardians in the ruins and were appointed to their position by outsiders. Newcomers in the past decade have been restricted to small plots of land for their solar (yard area), whereas the earlier settlers had unlimited access to household plots. Several kilometers to the south, the village is small and comprises primarily a single extended family. This is the same pattern that has been followed several kilometers to the north in the village of Yax Laguna. To the east, two villages were the result of fission from villages and towns to the west and subsequently have seen an influx of migrants who are artisans, stimulating similar economic practices in some of the older founding family members. What does the ethnographic record indicate about the living Maya? I would suggest extreme variation, especially in the hinterland settlements. However, I would argue that, although Merida, Piste, Valladolid, and Cancun are distinct, as central places they share some similar administrative structures (political structures) and economic forms. The early work by Robert Redfield and Alfonso Villa Rojas (1962 [1934]) in Chan Kom and the later summary of settlement types in the Yucatan (Redfield 1941) speak to the issue of conceptual and organizational differences in hinterland and core. A more recent discussion of this transfiguration of rural–urban views is detailed in the work on Chan Kom focused on the conflict between milperos and migrants to Cancun (Re Cruz 1996).

Manahan (2004) notes that the Classic Maya house evolves from its early construction phase through remodeling, expansion, and rebuilding over hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of years. However, Classic Maya houses had been abandoned almost everywhere by approximately a.d. 800. What happened to the house, he asks, when action beyond its control caused political (and economic) upheavals? Why did the Maya fail to recover when they had responded to earlier trauma? Manahan suggests two responses to collapse at the core: the houses would either have strong bonds and survive or have weak ties and fragment. What is unique about the approach followed by Manahan is that he turns away from the Late Classic-period decline and uses the Postclassic to evaluate the pattern and direction of change. Two organizational models are suggested: (1) that the house continues in its basic material form or (2) the post-collapse structures are significantly and demonstrably different configurations. Manahan's testing of these possibilities builds a broader perspective for the understanding of social organization around Copan. Post-collapse archaeological findings in the Copan area suggest a break with the patterns that existed during the earlier Classic period. Located on the southern frontier, Copan is curiously tied to regions to the south. Very little Tohil-style pottery was recovered in the post-collapse period. For the earlier Classic period and the later Postclassic period, Copan turned to the south rather than to the north (the Peten) for its style. The post-collapse period shows a break with the household inventory and with the architectural design of the house. Manahan argues that what is in a sense unique to Copan is its multi-ethnic flavor, and this is reflected in the archaeological record and in the social pulse of the center and its hinterland. Manahan's discussion of the complexities of social forms and organization at Copan open a broader discussion and investigation of these phenomena for other Maya sites. Perhaps the influx of outsiders may not be as apparent as the implosion of non–Mayan ethnic and linguistic groups, but his study suggests the possibility or probability of movement into and out of Maya centers when political centralization faded. In addition, his study suggests that the material inventory of houses and their modification (or continuity) in time reflects the social order in Maya centers, including or excluding residential districts close to the core and those more distant from the center.

Finally, Manahan (2004) offers an approach to the understanding of ancient Maya social organization that not only is applicable to Copan but also applies to research at other sites in the Maya lowlands. He moves from the lowly house and a social bond on that micro level to the larger regional level and exposes the impact of interaction on the macro level. He argues that the survival or demise of the Maya house was ultimately tied to much larger political systems. This discussion is most timely for Maya campesino houses in the Yucatan Peninsula, where the house and its lands are currently under revision with the Mexican states transformation of the ejido structure. Ultimately, the house is the unit that fostered social ties, large and small. An understanding of its transformation, demise, or survival is critical to understanding what happened in the past, as well as what will occur in the future.

The discussion by Scott Hutson, Aline Magnoni, and Travis Stanton (2004) focuses on practice theory and the social organization in Early Classic residential groups at Chunchucmil, Yucatan. The argument suggests that relationships structure social organization, not rules. Following Robert Sharer's (1993:93) statement that there is no monolithic Classic Maya social organization, Hutson et al. promote the case of extreme variability among the Maya ruins but based on divergent relationships rather than divergent “rules.” It is the purpose, practices, and functions of social groups that design their form (Kroeber in Kuper 1982). Lineage structure and ancestor-worship rituals are designed to strengthen the purpose, practices, and functions of the group. How can purpose, practice, and function be described or identified? For Hutson et al., these are determined through relationships. For the archaeological record, the relationships are defined through excavations and analysis. Why would the rules that we are so fond of creating be misleading for analysis of cultural and social forms? According to Wittgenstein (1953), rules have sharp boundaries, and social organization does not. It is fluid; it responds to change and is messy. As normative scientists, we seek to form rules, patterns, and norms, but these are changing, especially under conditions of stress. Finding rules may not be the productive way to go to understand the social organization of the Maya—rather, it is the oddities, exceptions, diversity of patterns, and idiosyncratic forms that allow us to move closer to an understanding of the adaptive strategies available to the Maya. Charles Taylor (1999) suggests that practice creates a rhythm, a harmony, and an interactive dialogue that informs our actions and creates interactive behaviors. Pierre Bourdieu (1977) warns that we are fooled into thinking that people behave according to rules. The objectivist finds patterns, and these are proposed as rules, laws of social behavior. However, the rules are only temporary manifestations of an ongoing dialogue that by its very nature works continuously to change “rules” and negate them. Action, according to Bourdieu, is reaction; it is not adherence to the rule, but a response to the dynamic dialogue that requires counterpoint and improvisation. This does not imply that there are no rules. However, practice is strategic, and the rule will be forgotten if there is more to gain in breaking it.

This discussion by Hutson et al. (2004) is theoretically engaging, but can it be used to illuminate Classic Maya social organization? If we follow the direction of earlier discussions in this volume, we learn to focus more profoundly on relationships than on the static construction of rules. The relationships that were in place in the Early, Middle, and Late Classic periods and the transformation through these periods and the Postclassic provide a social context within which to view the nature of Maya social organization. Construction of “rules,” according to Hutson et al., greatly diminishes our capacity to evaluate the flexibility that the Maya used to adapt and adjust on the household level and to modify the economic and political order. Practice, replication, and transformation center our attention on interaction, isolation, relationships, and social networks (lateral and/or hierarchical) that were critical to the social experiments in which the Classic Maya were engaged. Locking onto lineage or looking at “house” structure and organization requires that the study of Maya social organization be fixed and static. The lineage as a genealogical map appears to be too rigid and static—based on blood and marriage. But we are beginning to recognize that “lineage” represents a group that has a messy side, with people being adopted into the group, people falling out of the group, and the male and female sides of the group taking different responsibilities and providing different degrees of status through time. A powerful woman marrying into the group can significantly modify the so-called male-dominated patriline. James Fox and John Justeson (1986) confirm the role of strong Maya women living in Piedras Negras, and other Maya sites show a similar pattern. Focus on the house structure, and fixed relationships contained within are also problematic. As discussed by Hutson et al. (2004), the house constructions at Chunchucmil show tremendous variation, a reflection of the struggle and strategies for attainment of leadership and control. Tim Ingold (2000) argues for the replacement of the genealogical model of kinship with the relational model. I would argue that the two kinship models have their place; however, the relational model, as Ingold argues, spotlights the formation and breakdown of relationships. In addition, lineage membership can be both invented and denied in a complex web of social networks. This dynamic model may reflect a greater understanding of Maya household organization and social order. The discussion by Hutson et al., focusing on the 'Aak Group, the Muuch Group, and the Kaab' Group at Chunchucmil, presents small, medium, and large household compounds and the ancestral burials and material remains associated with each. Construction activities at the three compounds suggest performances and architectural renovations that tied household members into practical relationships. However, and of considerable interest, modifications to the households were uneven. Buildings were altered in ways that suggested a smooth transition reinforcing genealogical “rules,” while other modifications were not foreseen and erased earlier modifications and the work of pervious household members. More significantly, while ancestors were crucial, they were buried and exhumed and redeposited. It appears that it was not the rigid line of descent that defined their position but how their remains and materials goods were mobilized in the practices engaged in by household members and the way in which they contributed to the web of relationships enjoyed by the Maya. Finally, moving Maya social organization away from the static and rigid lines of genealogy into the dynamic realm of human relations and exchanges brings to our studies a new perspective that serves the past as well as the present.

For the living Maya in Coba, the focus on practice rather than rules is very productive. The existing household members in Coba have long struggled to create and maintain a network of social relations. Fictive kinship compadrazco relationships, built and modified on the Spanish god-parenthood model, have facilitated and enhanced Maya survival since Colonial times (Farriss 1984). Nancy Farriss's discussion documents that the god-parenthood system introduced great flexibility in the Maya family structure and successfully served to expand Maya social networks. The rigid “rules” of blood and marriage ties in the formation of the family were modified as fictive kin were added to the family social, economic, and political organization. The compadrazgo system operates on divergent relationships beyond the rules of strict kinship. For the contemporary Maya in village and town, the flexibility of the compadrazgo strengthens the group—its performance, functions, and survival. It has been suggested that Maya family organization does not have rigid rules and the diversity of patterns promote the full range of adaptive strategies for the Maya. This is clearly seen among the living Maya from the villages in the northern Yucatan (Re Cruz 1996, among others) to the highlands of Chiapas (Nash 2001, among others).

The discussion by Diane Chase and Arlen Chase (2004) presents an additional perspective on the relationship of archaeological remains to Maya social organization. They suggest that the difficulty in inferring social and political systems from the archaeological record is as it should be with the ancient Maya, if the social and political structures are highly variable. The archaeological base on which these inferences are constructed includes both large and small sites, different research designs, different assemblages, different samples of communities, and profound differences in the ancient Maya adaptations to natural, social, and cosmological world they inhabited. Chase and Chase's work at Caracol has uncovered architectural remains and associated artifacts and burials that match the physical and organizational structure of the residential group found at other Maya sites: raised and unraised platforms; generally four to six buildings (although some were larger and others were smaller); size variation for rooms (some structures had single rooms while others had double rooms); stone foundations for pole-and-thatch structures; and vaulted-roof stone buildings. These units are similar in one sense, functioning as residential or domestic house units. The vast majority of these units (80%) had eastern shrines with burials and ritual offerings. The residents greatly outnumbered the burials, which interred men, women, and children at Caracol during the Late Classic period. Chase and Chase suggest that it is possible that the burials were part of household rituals. Other ritual offerings were found associated with the shrines and buried beneath the eastern staircases. According to Chase and Chase (2004), the high numbers of burials and ritual caches outnumbered the smaller number of individuals who might have served as lineage heads. Who were the inhabitants of the households at Caracol, how were they organized, and what were they doing? One key feature of the Caracol social landscape was the economic production that was achieved on the household level. Work in bone and shell and wood- and stone-tool production was carried out on the household level. As Chase and Chase suggest, the goods were transported to open plaza areas, where they were traded in a system of “solar markets.” Who were the producers, and what did they gain? Small, medium, and large households were engaged in production. Analysis of the skeletal data at Caracol suggests that the producers at the large household compounds ate better than the residents in the small households. If the households were producing different commodities, some valued and others of less importance, this might explain why the diet varied. However, if the households were in control of different landholdings, and production varied by size of plot or other ecological factor, this might also be reflected in the diet. In the modern village of Coba, households vary along a continuum from large to small dwellings. Both elders who are comparatively wealthy and newlyweds who struggle to survive may occupy some of the smaller dwellings. Some of the large households are occupied by young entrepreneurs who are doing very well economically, while others are large but occupied by the elderly who are struggling to get by. A number of Coba households are engaged in the production of goods, including carved wood pieces and/or production of huipiles. These gain fairly comparable prices, and the input to the household economy by male woodcarvers and female seamstresses is much the same (and fairly low-level income).

Chase and Chase (2004) also discuss the organization of the Maya community beyond the household. The city is a focus, acts as a unifying core, and exists as a geographic place that encompasses the community of residents. The city has a heart complemented by an area that extends beyond the core. Within this model of urban, suburban, and rural settlement lies the household and what must be larger social units, which are extremely difficult to identify. Roys (1957, 1972 [1943]) and Matthew Restall (1997) argue for and against smaller units; Peter Mathews (1991) and Linda Schele and Peter Mathews (1998:23, 136–138, 417) argue that the larger Maya kingdoms are divided into smaller units (tzuk) and that these are reflected in the hieroglyphs. How the tzuk boundaries are determined and the relationships among residential groups are defined are problematic. For the ancient Late Classic center at Coba, I posited the existence of neighborhoods and wards moving beyond the concentric rings suggested by Landa (Tozzer 1941) for the sixteenth-century Maya centers (Kintz 1983:179–190). If the most elemental barrier to social interaction is space itself, it was thought that close distances would reflect close social intercourse. Households tied together with less than 70 m distance between them were connected to reflect a constellation-like distribution of residential structures. Clusters of vaulted compounds and pole-and-thatch housing were revealed in the northern survey zone at Coba. These groups were considered neighborhoods, possibly lineages or name groups. However, research needs to be conducted on these types of connected units to test whether they are blood-related, marriage-affiliated, extended families, occupational groups, political affiliations, tied by rituals, all of the above, or some other social configuration. In addition, at Coba and reported on at Caracol by Chase and Chase (2004), the role of sacbe road systems in defining cityscapes and Maya social organization is another significant research problem that needs further investigation. While high-status households are found at the city core, they are also located at the termini of the Maya roads and contain elite goods, pots, jades, tombs, and emblem glyphs. The contemporaneity of these units needs to be established.

In summary, what is the message concerning Maya social organization that can be gleaned from the data extracted from Caracol by Chase and Chase (2004)? In a manner similar to other Late Classic Maya settlements, there is a basic unit of residence in a single plazuela group. The number of residents numbers from five to 40, commonly 15–20 family members. People formed a unit that lived, ate, and produced goods within the boundaries of the household. The elite lived in the core area surrounded by a ring of supporting residents, and on the outskirts both elite and various-status residential units were found. The residential plazuelas commanded 2.5 ha of land, probably used for agricultural production. Chase and Chase (2004) conclude that little appears to be evident to support the existence of lineages (chibals), although it is unclear exactly what this might look like in the archaeological record. While large and small residential compounds are typical of Maya settlement patterns, Chase and Chase (2004) caution that this must not be assumed to be the “noble house” or “great house” as discussed by Susan Gillespie (2000). Without the lineage model, and throwing out the “house” model, what then might be the organizational principles associated with Maya social organization? The contribution made by Chase and Chase (2004) points to the variation in Maya social organization. They suggest that the variation along a continuum might be the most productive model for understanding Maya social and political organization. According to Roys (1957), there were three forms of political organization:

1. The province ruled by the halach uinic, the ahau (“ruler”). He was the local head of his town and exacted tribute from other towns in his province. Mani and Sotuta would have been organized this way.
2. There was no single leader in the province, but most of the local heads of towns belonged, according to Roys, to the same lineage. Ah Canul would be organized this way.
3. The province was a set of loosely allied groups of towns united against their better-organized neighbors. The unity was based on a common defense against the more powerful neighbors. Chikinchel would be an example of this type of organization.

Roys's (1957) comments may reflect a social, economic, and political organization operating on the super-regional level that was characteristic not only of the Colonial period but also of the earlier pre-Hispanic Late Classic period. If we consider the ties between towns and villages that currently exist across the Yucatan Peninsula, what appears to be characteristic to the Maya, past and present, is the extreme variation from place to place—facilitating successful adaptation through time. Chase and Chase (2004) conclude by moving us beyond the creation of a less complex and monolithic model for Maya social order. They recommend looking for more complex explanations for the configurations of archaeological findings and Maya social organization in the Late Classic period. Variation, they suggest, occurs not only from site to site but also within sites and across time.

The discussion by AnnCorinne Freter (2004) provides detailed archaeological data from Late Classic-period rural households in the Copan Valley and explores the variability that exists in less prestigious households through space and time. Freter suggests that the households are the warp and weave of Maya society, embedded social forms that reflect social intersections and reveal social interactions. Data complied from household excavations provide the base to explore overlapping economic, political, and religious practices by the Late Classic Maya and to describe and discuss relationships among social segments living in the Copan Valley.

Freter (2004) critiques the definition of household and documents the variation that occurs in the archaeological record. She notes that we are dealing with “dwellings,” not necessarily “households,” which have a larger interpretative social context. In addition, she focuses on households as adaptive units, survival units that fluidly change in composition, function, and use of symbols through time. These transformations, she suggests, can be obtained from the archaeological record and interpreted, although the tie of material remains to social and evolutionary understandings is often elusive.

Freter (2004) argues that the feminist debate on defining and determining gender roles and apparent economic variability in dwellings has become central to redefining the social organization of ancient Maya households. Public (male) and private (female) gendered activities have been contested; division of labor based purely on biology has not been supported; and household gender-role variability has been acknowledged (Nelson 1997). Freter notes that the organization of work on the household level is both variable and extremely dynamic. This is clearly seen among the living Maya, who practice milpa cultivation, produce handicrafts, tend gardens, raise poultry, cultivate fruit-tree orchards, engage in construction activities, work in restaurants and stores, and work for one another. Each Maya household has its own, unique economic strategy, and the politics (status of individual families) is intertwined with both the work activities and configuration of the family.

According to Hendon (1996), it is the isolation of activities and the meaning that these held for the inhabitants that is critical rather than assessment of kinship or family composition. While clearly it is the activities that are carried out on the household level and these activities articulated with the larger community that hold interest in facilitating the reconstruction and interpretation of ancient Maya social organization, how these activities and relationships are to be teased from the archaeological record is a large question. Freter (2004) discusses this dilemma, including the assessment of gender in the archaeological record and concluding that the data necessary to assess dwellings, convert the information into interpretations of the household, and expand this to a regional plane are sorely underdeveloped. We are beginning to document the variability in household organization across ancient Maya urban and rural landscapes; we have only hinted at regional variation and only briefly mentioned the ties between socioeconomic status and diversified gender roles. Further, how has gendered status or work changed through time? How are households linked? What levels of cooperation (male, female, or across genders) are operating within and across household units? And how does sociopolitical and economic change influence these articulations?

Freter (2004) suggests that, with the bulk of data compiled in the Copan Valley, this is one Maya zone where some of these questions can be addressed. The Copan Valley is the site of a core heartland and two flanking barrio zones. Residential sites (16) have been intensively excavated, including dwellings of the ruling elites, nobles, and commoners. Freter (2004) discusses in detail the work by William Fash (1983), who suggested that the Copan settlement might be similar to the sian otot communities of the Chorti (Wisdom 1940). Although there were some reservations in using the Chorti model for the ancient Maya of Copan (consider the impact of colonialism and that the Chorti had no dynastic rulers), Freter suggests that the simple Chorti sian otot might apply to the rural Copan Valley settlements or may be useful as a model related to times of social transition or trauma.

Freter (2004) further discusses the work of Wendy Ashmore (1991) providing insight into the evaluation of symbolic space in the North Group complex at Copan. Ashmore suggests that even the simplest structures reflect rich symbolic statements. She suggests that the household interiors are worldview maps or cognitive reflections of social and ideological order. Ashmore (1991) documents the symbolic system of the Chorti and suggests that part of the symbolic design is focused on gender. She also sees gendered space as a more evident attribute of the ancient Maya symbolic rendering of the settlement pattern.

Freter's (2004) discussion of the debate over the political hierarchical structure of ancient Copan and the level of sociopolitical complexity for the ancient Maya reinforces discussions that are included in this volume. There is a great degree of variation in sociopolitical organization among the ancient Maya across space and through time (Demarest 1992; Fox et al. 1996; Joyce and Gillespie 2000; Proskouriakoff 1960; Sanders and Webster 1988; Thompson 1931).

William Sanders (1989) focused on Copan at its height. He concluded that the residents in the valley had (1) extended family households, (2) lineages, (3) noble classes, and (4) a king and royal lineage. Sanders concluded that the kin-based structure of Copan retained its importance; the rulers were not powerful enough to reduce lineage power; and the state bureaucracy coexisted with the lineage/kin-based organization. Hendon (1991) also concluded that descent groups cross-cut the socially stratified Copan society. She argued that kinship structured social relations at all levels. Trade and craft production were not significant sources of power or control. Elliot Abrams (1987, 1989, 1994) evaluated the energetics invested in the construction of dwellings and concluded that lineage groups had access to different labor or work groups.

According to Abrams (1995), access to labor fluctuated in ancient Copan. What is interesting about his discussion of the allocation and use of labor is that the organization of economic work and political control in the Copan Valley can be seen to change dynamically through time. Freter (2004) suggests that this fluctuation applies not only to agricultural work but also to household production, craft production, and surplus production. How might this be established in the archaeological record?

Freter (2004) looks at rural households that have a variety of cut-stone and wattle-and-daub structures. The cut-stone structures demonstrate gendered space, although the relationship between the genders is not yet obvious. Other structures were tied to well-defined geographical area and area resources (water, agricultural land, terraces, high-forest wooded zones). Freter argues that these areas without structures need to be evaluated for use to complete the overall view of the organization of household activities and relationships. Freter argues that in the rural zones, economic, political, and religious organization operated within and among structural units. Some of the non-mound sites revealed open-fire kilns, waster sherds, burned floors, and ash lenses that may cross-cut individual households and engage larger groups in cooperative production. Freter suggests women's cooperatives for these activities. She notes that pottery making is not necessarily a gendered activity; however, in the archeological context, all cases of ceramic activity is located in the north, northwest, or western parts of the site and—following Ashmore's (1991) symbolic analysis—would be assigned to the females. However, currently in Chemax, Yucatan, both men and women are engaged in making pottery, reflecting the variability in gendered work across the Maya landscape.

Freter (2004) also suggests that other activities might have been cooperative efforts, cross-cutting households, cross-cutting sian otot communities, and cross-cutting all levels of society. This leads us to consider not only variation within and among households but also the dynamic relationships among the city, contiguous sections, and the rural area.

How these dynamic relationships were organized across time introduces another consideration. For the Copan Valley, the data on change through time is tied to ecological health or degradation. Abrams (1995) correlates his fluctuating–labor-value model with the evidence on environmental change. While extreme utilization of environmental resources was tied to control by the heartland or the core area, it was not sustainable. With the decline of centralized power, the land recovered, and the hinterland populations regained control over their land and resources.

According to Freter (2004), regardless of whether the Chorti sian otot model holds for Copan, it opens a number of new research questions. What was the role of gender in the ancient society? What important evidence can the non-mound areas offer in providing a more complete view of ancient Maya land-use patterns. Was there a family burial plot, and why were women and children disproportionately buried within the residential structures? How did descent and marriage operate in the Copan Valley? Was exogamy or endogamy practiced? Did the elite practice polygyny? How was labor organized, and how did it fluctuate from group to group and across space and through time? Finally, Freter makes the point that as we move toward an understanding of the domestic economy, it reveals its infinite variation.

SUMMARY

As we consider changes through time, our understanding becomes embedded in the dynamic system that has existed through the growth, peak, and collapse of ancient Maya centers such as Copan. For the Maya who are living, this timeless cycle of events has an impact in village, town, and city to this very day. These, then, are the ties that bind us—family, residential sections, community, economic life, power, and symbolic structure. This volume moves us beyond a monolithic view of the Maya past into a rich and lively consideration of, and debate on, the factors that influenced life at the core area and beyond. Finally, we might reconsider that the concentric rings, long considered as characteristic of the Maya settlement pattern (Tozzer 1941), may be a cognitive reflection of the stratified social structure. As discussed in this volume, other organization models may pertain to Maya social order through time and across space. Beyond descent and contiguous settlement relationships of neighbors, there are ties among individuals migrating into settlements from the same area (in Coba, ties among members of the community from Tixhualactun, Kanxoc, and Chemax), as well as the fictive ties of compadrazgo that have developed since Colonial times. To add another perspective to the expansive view of the Maya by using materials from other zones, I would recommend that we look closely at the work by David Faure (1986) on the New Territories in China and Faure and Tao Tao Liu (2002) on town and country in China. Faure shifts functional analysis to the symbolic order of social life. Genealogy is used to claim settlement rights but serves as only one among an array of social ties that govern access to resources. Legends, surnames, and ancestral shrines all contribute to ensuring social rights. What, then, are the ties that bind us? Where are they created and designed, pregnant with meaning? For some, it is in the mind, the mental map that serves to define us all and gives meaning to the relationships that ensure our survival. Connecting this cognitive map to the archaeological record continues to engage and challenge us in our work.

RESUMEN

El significado de la organización social de los mayas continúa engendrando la vehemente discusión. La jerarquía y la heterarquía indican principios organizativos que reflejan la variabilidad característica de los solares de los mayas del pasado y del presente. La presencia o ausencia del linaje en el área central o la región situada en sus inmediaciones refleja la dimensión de la organización social, y las casas pequeñas y grandes están conectados a la gran estructura política que rige esta sociedad. Datos arqueólogicos han documentado la extrema variabilidad económica y en los patrones de los solares mayas y las relaciones asociadas con éstos. Los expertos señalan que las estructuras contienen abundates manifestaciones simbólicas y son un reflejo de la estructura ideólogica de los mayas. La discusión de los modelos de los solares mayas conduce a una comprehensión menos monolitíca de la organización social del pasado y del presente. Existía una varibilidad grande en los patrones de linaje y de matrimonio relacionados a las estructuras económicas, el poder y las representaciones simbólicas que conectan la sociedad y los individuos a los niveles más altos de la estructura social de los mayas.