Household Inequality, Community Formation, and Land Tenure in Classic Period Lowland Maya Society

Abstract

Access to social capital and valued resources modulates household decision-making as people seek to occupy the best-quality patches of land available. Prior occupancy, inheritance, and land tenure norms can constrain opportunities resulting in inequality between households. We examined processes of settlement development and structural inequality at two Classic Period (250–900 CE) Maya centers, Ix Kuku’il and Uxbenka, in Southern Belize. From the lens of human behavioral ecology (HBE), we evaluate the predictions of two population density models, the ideal free distribution (IFD) and the ideal despotic distribution (IDD), on household decision-making. To do so, we correlate the initial foundation date of households with nine measurable suitability variables as proxies for social and environmental resources. We conclude that at Uxbenka and Ix Kuku’il, social resources, such as the ability to mobilize labor, cooperation, and access to a transportation corridor, likely influenced where people chose to live. Environmental resources, including good farmland and access to perennial water sources, were widely distributed across the landscape and accessible to everyone. This study highlights the importance of social relationships on household decision-making, which is often difficult to detect in the archaeological record. The development and manifestation of institutionalized inequality are processes relevant to all societies past and present.