Settlement and Community at San Estevan, Belize

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 21, 120–141 (2002) doi:10.1006/jaar.2001.0394 An Institutional Perspective on Prehispanic Maya Residential Variation: Settlement and Community at San Estevan, Belize Laura J. Levi Department of Anthropology, The University of Texas at San Antonio, 6900 North Loop 1604 West, San Antonio, Texas 78249-0652 E-mail: [email protected] Received December 4, 2000; revision received June 18, 2001; accepted November 8, 2001 This article explores implications of a pattern of residential settlement found at the prehispanic Maya community of San Estevan in northern Belize. Although an awareness of the decision-making behavior of domestic groups helped to isolate the pattern, a household approach cannot by it- self account for the overall community structure that emerged from the differential distribution of San Estevan’s residential forms. Making sense of the organizational forces underlying this distribution requires a more comprehensive set of explanatory tools drawn from conceptualizations of institutions and their powers to shape the spaces of social practice. © 2002 Elsevier Science (USA) Key Words: archaeology; Maya; institutions; power. INTRODUCTION decision making. On the surface, this would appear to be a likely discovery, An archaeological settlement pattern largely anticipated by the maxim that soci- study conducted at the lowland Maya site eties are systemically related wholes. As of San Estevan, Belize, has demonstrated Ortner [1990 (1984):390] observes, however, that the residential composition of site our longstanding assumptions about the areas varies with distance to monumental systemic properties of human interaction precincts. Although the research findings have tended to deflect attention away from may recall Sjoberg’s (1960) model of con- the question of “where ‘the system’ comes centric zonation, popularized in Maya ar- from” (see also Mann 1986:1; Trigger chaeology in the 1970s (Folan et al. 1979; 1989:27). In light of that question, the San Hammond 1975; Haviland 1970; Kurjack Estevan findings lose some of their trans- 1974; Marcus 1983), there is little basis for parent logic. Analysis of the site’s residen- comparison. In contrast to the predictions tial architecture was informed by an ap- of concentric zonation, San Estevan’s resi- proach that attributes decision-making dential distributions do not correlate with autonomy to individual domestic groups. archaeological indicators of “wealth” or Yet, because of its emphasis on household “elite” status (cf. Abrams 1987; Arnold and agency, this same approach posits only the Ford 1980; Carmean 1991). Instead, the di- most “tenuous” of connections between so- mensions of variation examined in the ciety’s domestic and political institutions study were expressly chosen to address di- (Netting 1993:19). The San Estevan study is versity in the organizational and produc- therefore vulnerable to criticism about tive strategies of prehispanic domestic where best to situate agency in social groups. At San Estevan the spatial associa- process. More significantly, the study’s tions between residential forms and findings suggest a counterintuitive rela- civic/ceremonial architecture indicate that tionship between agency and power. activities housed in monumental precincts Should it prove reasonable to understand had important consequences for household domestic groups as strategic decision mak- 120 0278-4165/02 $35.00 © 2002 Elsevier Science (USA) All rights reserved. PREHISPANIC MAYA RESIDENTIAL VARIATION 121 ers, then how do we also understand a set- munity spanned three limestone ridges, or tlement system composed of such groups uplands, ringing the perennial wetland, but seemingly structured by powers exter- Long Swamp (Fig. 2). Each of these ridges nal to any of them? supported a precinct of monumental archi- San Estevan presents the curious case of a tecture, with the most prominent housed at settlement system revealed inadvertently the center of San Estevan’s largest upland and on the basis of premises that are to zone. Each ridge also sustained myriad res- varying degrees compromised by the re- idential groupings of variable scale and search results. My purpose here is to recon- spatial configuration. My own archaeologi- cile this discrepancy between expectations cal fieldwork at the site documented this di- and outcomes and, in the process, to clarify versity of residential arrangements within a some of the organizational forces realized sample of 20 survey blocks measuring 250 through San Estevan’s spatial patterning. m on a side. Three additional residential The article begins with a description of how zones, each comparable in size to a survey the anthropological literature on house- block, also were investigated, but in a more holds was used first to discriminate among opportunistic fashion as they gradually be- residential arrangements and subsequently came cleared of bush or cane. All architec- to reveal spatially sensitive dimensions of tural remains in these 23 survey localities variation in the site’s assemblage of domes- were mapped and surface collected, and se- tic architecture. Discussion then moves to lected residential units were test excavated consideration of where the San Estevan set- in order to obtain information about their tlement system came from. The power to construction histories. structure that system cannot solely be at- tributed to either administrative or house- The Archaeology of Domestic Groups hold action. Rather, it must be located in the interplay of both institutional arenas. The Fieldwork at San Estevan laid the foun- remainder of the article considers how best dation for an examination of the distribu- to model agency and power as they relate tional parameters underlying diversity in to institutions, in general, and to house- the composition and layout of residential holds, in particular. units at the site. Empirical in intent, the research sought to identify and account for RESEARCH AT SAN ESTEVAN organizational differences among the community’s prehispanic domestic groups. San Estevan is located just east of the That variation in residential forms com- New River, at the far western margins of prised the principal vehicle used to ad- northern Belize’s flat, coastal plain (Fig. 1). dress these issues requires some justifica- Initial archaeological studies by William tion given increasing concerns over the Bullard (1965) and Norman Hammond interpretive potential of architectural data. (1973) helped to define major chronological Critics of architectural approaches to do- and architectural components of the site. mestic group behavior register two pri- Settled in the Middle Preclassic and pos- mary objections: first, that residences are sessing significant occupation by Early unresponsive to temporal dynamics span- Classic times, San Estevan reached its great- ning reductions in domestic personnel or est population levels and areal extent in the their wholesale replacement (e.g., Hirth Late Classic Period (Hammond 1973; Levi 1993); and, second, that structure plans and 1993). Bounded by the New River to the interiors do not always constitute sensitive west and by large seasonal wetlands to the or unambiguous indicators of domestic north, east, and south, the Late Classic com- activities (Allison 2000; Goldberg 2000). 122 LAURA J. LEVI FIG. 1. Map of selected archaeological sites in northern Belize. Much recent research in lowland Meso- is still pending on whether activity area re- america attempts to compensate for the lat- search captures temporal fluctuations of a ter problem. To great effect, emphasis has different order or on a finer scale than shifted from architecture to artifact and architectural studies (but see Alexander from structural space to extramural space 2000:92–93). Furthermore, activity studies (e.g., Alexander 2000; Johnston and Gonlin do not necessarily provide comparable in- 1998; Killion 1990, 1992; Killion et al. 1989; formation on domestic group behavior. As McAnany 1992a). Nevertheless, the verdict research is ever more closely trained upon PREHISPANIC MAYA RESIDENTIAL VARIATION 123 FIG. 2. San Estevan Project area showing locations of monumental precincts, survey blocks, and other mapped settlement localities. human action, behavior increasingly behavior in its organizational aspect (cf. Flan- comes identified with task—the work that nagan 1989:248), and on the whole, analy- people do. The connections forged among ses of the “built environment” provide the people doing all that work often appear some of our most critical insights into orga- incidental to the tasks performed. Yet, in- nization as it is materially represented terconnections among people speak to be- (Lawrence and Low 1990). 124 LAURA J. LEVI Not surprisingly, most investigations of In anthropology, the agrarian ecological residences in Maya archaeology have studies of Robert Netting have lent the stressed social affiliations. I would argue greatest support to this latter perspective. that dissatisfaction with this kind of re- Netting’s early work among Nigeria’s Kof- search arises more from the organizational yar agriculturalists highlighted a striking perspectives brought to bear on domestic flexibility of domestic forms and activities architecture than from any interpretive pit- in relation to the variables of demography falls intrinsic to the data set. The lineage and land availability (Netting 1968, 1993). models employed for many years by At issue was how to account for the exis- Mayanists furnish a case

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