University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Anthropology Faculty Publications Anthropology, Department of 2012 Social Interaction at the Maya Site of Copan, Honduras: A Least Cost Approach to Configurational Analysis Heather Richards-Rissetto University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/anthropologyfacpub Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, Geographic Information Sciences Commons, Human Geography Commons, Landscape Architecture Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Richards-Rissetto, Heather, "Social Interaction at the Maya Site of Copan, Honduras: A Least Cost Approach to Configurational Analysis" (2012). 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CHAPTER 7 Social Interaction at the Maya Site of Copan, Honduras A Least Cost Approach to Configurational Analysis HEATHER RICHARDS-RISSETTO Most archaeologists agree that the way in which perspective, my work is based on Charles Peirce's ancient peoples arranged their physical sur­ (1966) views of semiotics and regards site layout roundings, or in other words their built environ­ not simply as a reflection of ancient life but also ment, provides a window to the past (e.g., Ash­ as a mechanism that shaped ancient life (Giddens more 1991, 1992; Ashmore and Sabloff 2002,2003; 1984; Jakobson 1980; King 1980; Moore 2005; Sil­ Blanton 1989; DeMarrais et al. 1996; Lawrence verstein 1976). Along these lines, I view archae­ and Low 1990; Moore 1996a, 1996b, 2005; Preziosi ological sites not just as anthropological features 1979a, 1979b; Reese-Taylor 2001; A. Smith 2003; but as a combination of the built environment M. Smith 2003, 2007). This is especially true for and the natural landscape. Ultimately, the goal of the ancient Maya, who scholars believe laid out my work is to modify traditional configurational their houses, monuments, and even roads to analysis using least cost methods to identify how serve as a map of their worldview (Ashmore 1991; social hierarchy was embedded in the landscape Ashmore and Sabloff 2002, 2003; Coggins 1980; and how the ancient Maya may have strategically Guillermin 1968; Houk 1996; Maca 2002). Most manipulated the landscape to structure social in­ research of this nature tends to focus on cardinal­ teraction and community organization at Copan. ity, linking north, south, east, and west to repre­ At Classic period sites in the southern Maya sentations of the heavens, earth, and underworld. lowlands, a social hierarchy existed that placed Although such work is critical to our understand­ rulers at the top, members of the royal court just ing of the ancient Maya, I believe that the advent below, lesser nobles further down, and com­ of new technologies such as Geographic Informa­ moners at the bottom. As in many other ancient tion Systems (GIS) provides archaeologists with societies, cosmology provided the template and opportunities to begin to study Maya site config­ legitimization for this social structure. However, uration in new and more subtle ways. it was the daily routinization of these social cate­ In this chapter, I employ least cost paths to gories that reinforced both the social and cosmic measure the relationship between site configura­ order (Joyce and Hendon 2000). This routini­ tion and social connectivity at the ancient Maya zation was carried out, in part, through mecha­ site of Copan, Honduras. My research investi­ nisms such as access and visibility, which facil­ gates two questions: First, did people of different itated either social integration or segregation, social classes experience different degrees of so­ depending on how societies employed them. The cial connectivity? And second, did people living accessibility and visibility of buildings, roads, and in different parts of the city experience different other features serve as signs that influence how degrees of social connectivity? From a theoretical people move about landscapes, and people make 109 Richards-Rissetto use of this fact by organizing their surroundings flow of movement, and send visual messages to restrict access, channel movement, and display (Hammond and Tourtellot 1999; Keller 2001; visual messages to elicit distinct responses from Tourtellot et al. 2003; Tourtellot et al. 1999; Stu­ different groups of people (see, e.g., Fletcher 1981; ardo 2003). David Webster (1998:40) writes that Hudson this volume; Llobera 2006). Ultimately, Maya builders obviously intended to "to channel the way in which people respond to the access and movement and create visual impressions of sanc­ visibility of signs influences how different groups tity and power" through the organization of ar­ of people interact in the landscape. Although my chitecture. For example, at Copan the east and research treats both accessibility and visibility, west sacbeob channeled people into the large, this chapter focuses explicitly on the role access open Great Plaza, presumably for ritual events may have played in establishing and maintaining that brought together people from all walks of sociopolitical relationships at Copan. life (Baudez 1994; Sanchez 1997). It is likely that Other scholars have carried out accessibility the accessibility of these plazas sent a message studies in the Maya region (e.g., Sanchez 1997; of unity - "we are one" - and created a sense of Stuardo 2003; Yermakhanova 2005); however, my community and shared identity that helped to research differs from these studies in three impor­ maintain social cohesion between commoners tant ways. First, instead of focusing on the inter­ and elite. nal spatial organization of a single architectural In contrast, the highly restricted spaces of complex - one that is usually civic, ceremonial, the East and West Courts of the Acropolis most or elite in nature (e.g., Ashmore 1991; Sanchez likely sent different messages to different people 1997; Stuardo 2003) - I examine a city's configu­ (Figure 7.1). At most Maya sites, intimate access ration as a whole, taking into account the spatial to the royal court was "restricted to the nobility organization of architecture from all facets of so­ and invited guests, spatial control being an in­ ciety, including civic-ceremonial buildings, royal tegral part of the orchestration and wielding of compounds, and elite and commoner residences regal power" (Reents-Budet 2001:225). On the as well as roads and reservoirs. I also incorporate one hand, it forged social bonds between the natural features such as rivers, quebradas (stream royal elite and other elite. On the other hand, it cuts), hills, and mountains. Second, I introduce segregated the elite from the commoners by not an innovative methodology that uses GIS to in­ permitting commoners access to certain spaces. tegrate the natural and built environments in the This segregation helped to establish and main­ form of a raster dataset called the Urban Digital tain social inequalities. By making these royal Elevation Model (DEM) (Ratti 2005; Richards­ spaces more inaccessible and separating the elite Rissetto 2007). This Urban DEM serves as the from the commoners, the ancient Maya were ef­ base dataset from which to create least cost paths, fectively replicating the order of the cosmos, in thereby allowing archaeologists to quantify acces­ which supernatural beings and lords were sepa­ sibility for entire landscapes rather than simply rated from lesser or lower beings (Houston et al. within individual buildings or architectural com­ 2006). Archaeologists have talked about the ac­ plexes. Third, my research is multiscalar, studying cessibility or inaccessibility of spaces within access and visibility at four scales, from Copan's courtyard groups, but no one has empirically subcommunities to its physiographic zones to its evaluated whether this same phenomenon is rep­ urban core and hinterlands to the city as a whole. licated for cities as a whole. 7.1. Access among the Ancient Maya 7.2. Configurational Analysis Archaeological evidence suggests that acces­ Configurational analysis states that a city's con­ sibility and viSibility served as mechanisms of figuration, or its morphological form, is a cul­ social integration and/or social segregation in tural product, and the way in which it is laid out ancient Maya society (e.g., Hammond and Tour­ influences how cultural information is transmit­ tellot 1999; Houston et al. 2006; Stuardo 2003). ted (e.g., Hillier 1999; Hillier and Hanson 1984; The Maya intentionally constructed their built Hillier et al. 1993; Marcus 1983; Preziosi 1979a, environment to control access, manipulate the 1979b). Through mechanisms of acceSSibility 110 Social Interaction at the Maya Site of Copan • .& • .. •.1. -: -•• •• t..;• ____ , . FIGURE 7.1. GIS-based Google SketchUp reconstruction of Copan's Principal Group. and visibility, people send messages that help in­ Most archaeological studies of accessibility use tegrate some people while segregating others. a form of configurational analysis called space Access structures social interaction by influenc­ syntax, which analyzes the structure of space to ing pedestrian