Abstract
Archaeologists have long associated high-quality Classic Maya (250-900 CE) masonry buildings with elite and perishable material structures with commoners. Currently, little agreement exists on how their distribution on the landscape may relate to models of socio-political organization in Maya urbanism due to the limited extent of settlement data in the highly forested Maya lowlands. Here we present a method for detecting masonry buildings on detailed lidar-derived maps at an unprecedented scale. We analyze the spatial distribution of 110,000 structures from different subregions of the Maya lowlands to explore patterns in Classic-period social and economic organization. Our results demonstrate that Maya elites consistently located themselves at regular intervals among the general population in urban and rural areas alike to optimally oversee the use and exchange of resources. This spatial arrangement likely favored flow of resources through every level of the social hierarchy and through different environmental zones to improve overall system efficiency and sustainability.
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