in Prehispanic Mesoamerica ... tracted much attention among scholars of prehispanic Mesoamerica. ..... Labor-Intensive Agriculture and Dispersed Settlement.
13 Household Location and Compact Versus Dispersed Settlement in Prehispanic Mesoamerica Robert D. Drennan, University of Pittsburgh
The question of the relative nucleation or dispersal of population has attracted much attention among scholars of prehispanic Mesoamerica. It is clearly a major element in the old controversy about whether large Classic Maya sites were cities or ceremonial centers; it underlies much discussion of the origins of urbanism in the Mexican highlands; it provides a major point of contrast between the Mexican and Maya regions. In preparing comments for the symposium for which most of the papers in this volume were originally written, I was struck anew by this question of population distribution and by its relationship to analysis of settlements at the household level. In recent years much new information concerning this aspect of population distribution has become available for a number of different regions within Mesoamerica. While many long-held subjective impressions of settlement density remain perfectly accurate, there is now an opportunity to study the question in a much more thorough and precise way than was possible even a few years ago. Although there has been no lack of research into the reasons for differences in population distribution in Mesoamerica, scholars have approached the question of dispersal or nucleation of population from a number of different perspectives. Some have asked why Classic Maya settlement seems so 273
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dispersed in contrast to Classic settlement west of the Isthmus ofTehuantepec. As it became clear that some Classic Maya centers were much more densely populated than had been previously thought, some wondered what caused population to concentrate so at places like Tikal in contrast to the rest of the Maya lowlands. Late Classic and Postclassic communities of Yucatan have also been treated as anomalies in the typical Maya pattern. Yet others have focused on the reasons for the apparently stunning concentration of population into settlements like Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan in central Mexico. My goal in this paper is twofold: first, to gather in one place quantitative information on a wide variety of settlements in different regions and from different time periods in order to clarify our vision of the nature of the variability in settlement nucleation in Mesoamerica; and second, to develop a single, simple idea to account for that variability. I am not really concerned with explaining variation in regional population densities but rather with explaining variation in the distribution of population u·ithin regions. One aspect of this distribution, the aspect most focused on here, can be studied by comparing population densities u·ithin settlements. which I will refer to as residential densities to distinguish them, in principle at least, from regional population densities. As we shall see, in practice the two may be difficult to distinguish for some periods and regwns.
Residential Density at Mesoamerican Sites As a first step in examining the question of population nucleation and dispersal, I have summarized in Table 13. 1 information on residential density (within settlements) for a number of different cases. The sites included in Table 13.1, as well as others discussed elsewhere, are located on the map in Figure 13. 1. I have omitted some sites for which residential density estimates have been or could be made because the basis available for such estimates is not comparable to the others or because too much guesswork is required to calculate residential densities from published information. Some of the sites omitted will, however, be discussed in this paper. In almost all cases residential density estimates are founded on calculations of the number of households in the settlement or a section of it. In every case, I have considered households to have 5. 6 members, a figure that is commonly used by Mayanists, although not necessarily with good reason (cf. Haviland 1972; Weeks, this volume). I do not intend to argue here whether this is a more reasonable figure than any other because I am not really much concerned with absolute values for residential density, only with the relative densities at several sites. For this comparative purpose it is of paramount importance that similar archaeological evidence at different sites lead to similar estimates of residential density. Since the basic datum in
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Table 13.1. Residential densities within selected Mesoamerican settlements Persons rer hectare 130 98 87 63 51 44 35 34 33 28 28 26 22 22 17 12 11 11 10
10 10
8 7 6 6 5
Site
Period
Region*
Tenochtirlan Ts73, Tehuacan Topoxte Teotihuacan Zacpeten Tierras Largas Monte Alban San Lorenzo Fabrica San Jose San Jose Mogote Maya pan Barron Ramie 0enney Creek) Chunchucmil Dzibilchaltun Komchen Altar de Sacrificios Seibal Tikal "site" (Puleston) Quirigua Muralla de Leon Becan Cob a Tikal "core" (Haviland) Barton Ramie (Spanish Lookout) Dos Aguadas Tikal "inrersite" (Puleston) Tikal "periphery" (Haviland)
Postclassic Terminal Formative Postclassic Late Classic Postclassic Early Formative Late Classic Early Formative Middle Formative Early Formative Postclassic Middle Formative Late Classic Late Classic Late Formative Late Classic Late Cassie Late Classic Late Classic Late Formative Late Classic Late Classic Late Classic Late Classic Late Classic Late Classic Late Classic
Mexico Mexico Maya Mexico Maya Mexico Mexico Mexico Mexico Mexico Maya Maya Maya Maya Maya Maya Maya Maya Maya Maya Maya Maya Maya Maya Maya Maya Maya
*The word "Mexico" is used to designate the non-Mayan area (west of the Isthmus of Tehuanrepec).
most cases is some calculation of the number of structures, house mounds, or households, it is essential co use the same number of people per household for each site unless there is some genuine evidence that the number of people per household was greater at one site than another. By and large we are lacking such indications, so the figure I have chosen to use is the popular 5. 6 persons per household constant, and estimates of site populations based on larger or smaller household sizes have been lowered or raised accordingly. For similar reasons, I am not here much concerned with the distinction between the terms house and household. While this distinction is critical for many purposes (cf. Ashmore and Wilk, this volume), the figures I derive
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here are used only for comparison with each other. Thus the important procedure is to treat similar remains of houses similarly, no matter what site they come from. For sites where population or size estimates have been made in the form of a range from a minimum to a maximum value, the figure in Table 13. 1 is the midpoint of that range. The differences in density that are the subject of this paper are, in all cases, much greater than such error ranges for the individual estimates. There is also the issue that estimates at some sites are based on surface-visible house features and at other sites on excavated features. While such estimates may present problems of comparability, as will be seen below, the clear patterns to be observed in the data are not the result of such problems. Further information about the sites, sources for the figures in Table 13.1, and comments concerning their derivation follow. Tenochtitlan. Calnek (1970), relying primarily on historical sources, estimates 150,000 to 200,000 people in 12-15 km 2 . Ts7 3. At this Terminal Formative community on a terraced ridgetop in the Tehuacan Valley, Spencer (1979:26) was able to identify remains of individual houses on the surface in very much the manner that is common in the Maya lowlands. He counted 130-138 house remains in 7. 6 ha. Of the other nearby sites for which Spencer could make similar estimates, one was even more densely settled, some were slightly less so, and two were substantially less so. Of these last two, however, one had but a single house, and the other, at 3 1 persons per hectare, would still rank fairly high on the scale presented in Table 13. 1. Topoxte. Rice and Rice ( 1980:447, this volume) document 112 structures in about 7. 2 ha on Cante Island in Lake Yaxha. Teotihuacan. Millon's ( 1970: 1080) most probable population estimate of 125,000 for Teotihuacan at its peak size of about 20 km 2 yields the density in Table 13.1, although other estimates range up to twice this number. Since the apartment compounds of Teotihuacan do not translate easily into households I have not attempted to recalculate this figure using the 5. 6 persons per household standard. Zacpeten. Rice's map of this Postclassic Peten Maya island site (this volume) shows some 150 structures in about 16.5 ha. Tierras Largas. Winter (1972:91, 93) estimates that this village in the Valley of Oaxaca ranged from 5 households in 0. 55 ha to 10 households in 1. 53 ha through four time periods during the Early Formative. Using 5. 6 persons per household instead of 5, the number used by Winter, to calculate the population density results in a range of 3 7-51 persons per ha. Monte Alban. The midpoint of Blanton's (1978:30) estimate of 23-46 persons per ha is used in the table. Monte Alban has a large central complex of public and ceremonial buildings, like some Classic Maya centers for which such nonresidential central areas have often been excluded in calculating
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residential density. Subtracting the 14 ha occupied by this central zone at Monte Alban from the 650 ha total, however, has a negligible effect on the density figure. San Lorenzo. Coe and Diehl ( 1980:388) report "over 200 house mounds on the San Lorenzo plateau," which their map shows extending to some 34 ha. They consider all these house mounds to have been occupied simultaneously during the San Lorenzo period. Fabrica San Jose. For this Middle Formative village in the Valley of Oaxaca, figures for the Rosario phase (its maximum extent) are 10-16 households in 2.2 ha (Drennan 1976: 133). San jose Mogote. Marcus ( 1976:83) estimates 80-120 households in 20 ha at the largest Early Formative settlement in the Valley of Oaxaca. Mayapan. Smith counts 2100 dwellings at Mayapan (Pollock et al. 1962:211) in an area that measures about 4.2 km 2 . Barton Ramie. There are two figures in the table for Barton Ramie. The one for the Late Classic applies to the maximum population of the zone in the Spanish Lookout phase. It is derived from Willey's statement that the zone investigated showed house mounds "in a density of somewhat over 100 to a square kilometer" (Willey et al. 1965:573). As elsewhere, 5.6 persons to a household has been used rather than the 7. 5 figure preferred by Willey. At its maximum, population at Barton Ramie, while not exactly evenly distributed throughout the zone, was, as Willey notes, widely dispersed through its habitable portions. For the Middle Formative Jenney Creek phase, however, clustering of households within the zone is, as Willey also notes, evident. Even though three-fourths of the mounds were not tested, mounds with Jenney Creek deposits are seldom far from other mounds where excavation confirmed Jenney Creek occupation. Mounds 123-128 in the Middle River section perhaps give the most complete idea of a Jenney Creek hamlet, since the spacing of mounds and the concentration of excavations in other nearby mounds clearly delimit this cluster of Jenney Creek households. These six are in an area of about 1. 3 ha, which provides the basis for the Middle Formative figure for Barton Ramie in Table 13. 1. Chunchucmil. Vlcek et al. (1978:217) estimate four households per hectare at this Late Classic community in Yucatan. Dzibilchaltun. Kurjack ( 1974:94) reportS about 8400 structures in the 19 km 2 mapped. Of these, about 90 percent were occupied during the period of maximum occupation, the Late Classic. This works out to approximately four households per hectare for that period. Komchen. Ringle and Andrews (this volume) estimate 1400 structures in a residential zone of 2.4 km 2 at Komchen in Yucatan. Of the mounds dated by excavation, 53 percent were occupied in the Late Formative period, the highest occupancy rate indicated at this site. Using 5. 6 persons per household for consistency yields a residential density of 17 persons per hectare.
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Altar de Sacrificios. Smith (1972: 187) reports locating 41 house mounds adjacent to the main ceremonial precinct. The site map (Willey and Smith 1969) shows all these mounds except one in an area of about 53.2 ha. At 5. 6 persons per house mound this would be a residential density of about four persons per hectare. Smith, however, calculates 1. 5 families per house mound, since some are quite large and complex, which would raise the residential density to about six. The site map shows that house mounds are not scattered throughout the mapped zone but are quite clearly clustered in some locations. If we consider only the densest clusters, there are as many as 2. 2 house mounds per hectare, which results in the residential density of 12 persons per hectare given in Table 13.1, which seems most directly comparable with the figures arrived at for other sites. At 1. 5 families per house mound, the figure Smith prefers, residential density would rise to about 18 persons per hectare. Seibal. Tourtellot's (1970) survey of the densely settled central residential zone at Seibal covered about 1 km 2 of habitable land and included 192 structures Tounellot identifies as house platforms. Virtually all the structures seem to have been occupied in the Late Classic period. Tikal. Both Puleston and Haviland have provided population calculations for Tikal and the area around it. Puleston ( 1974:308) counts 197 structures per square kilometer for the central residential zones of Tikal and Uaxactun (the "site" areas), excluding uninhabitable bajo. In the occupied areas outside these centers (the "intersite" areas), there are 88 structures per square kilometer of habitable land. Haviland ( 1966:35) has estimated 1000-1100 persons per square kilometer of habitable land for the central 9 km 1 of Tikal, approximately the same as Puleston's estimate. Haviland's ( 1969:430, 1970: 193) later estimates of residential density for Tikal's "core" and "periphery," however, are based on total areas (including bajo) and are somewhat lower than Puleston's figures with such a basis. Altogether four figures are included in Table 13.1 for Tikal: central and noncentral according to Haviland and according to Pules ton. Quirigua. Ashmore (this volume) estimates 150-200 structures per square kilometer. The midpoint of this range calculated at 5. 6 persons per structure is used in Table 13.1 for comparison with other sites, disregarding for this purpose her calculations with a different base. Mural/a de Leon. At maximum occupancy, in the Late Formative period, about 14 dwellings were occupied in the 0.075 km 1 area inside the wall of this fortified site in the Peten (Rice and Rice 1981: 282), which translates to 10 persons per hectare. Including the 16 percent of the structures that Rice and Rice subtract as nonresidential (since other authors relied on here have not made this calculation) would only increase the residential density to 12 persons per hectare.
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Becan. Thomas (1981: 110) counts 511 residences occupied at peak population during the Late Classic Bejuco phase in a survey area of about 3 km 2 outside the fortifications at Becan. This yields a residential density of between 9 and 10 persons per hectare. Coba. Folan eta!. (1983: 197-200) estimate a total of 3162 contemporaneously occupied houses in a total area of 21.3 km 2 surveyed in 13 zones, which yields a residential density of some eight persons per hectare. Dos Aguadas. I have included Bullard's (1960:366) estimates for Dos Aguadas even though there are many reasons why they might not be comparable with those for other sites. He reported 89 "separate platform mounds" in the 215,000 m 2 of level area he surveyed in a larger brecha. This would yield a residential density of about 24 persons per hectare, but Bullard assumes that no more than 25 percent of the platforms were ever contemporaneously occupied.
Patterns ofVariation in Residential Density Examination of Table 13. 1 reveals the striking variation in residential density to be observed within Mesoamerica. Even if the two lowest figures are excluded for resembling regional population densities more than residential densities within settlements, the most tightly packed community on the list is more than 20 times as densely settled as the least. It is not surprising that the distribution of residential densities is strongly skewed toward the higher numbers. In order to counteract the effect of this skewing, Figure 13.2 illustrates the distribution of the densities on a logarithmic scale. With the exception of the very low figure estimated by Haviland for peripheral Tikal and the most densely settled communities, which still string out toward the upper end of the distribution, the only clear gap is between Komchen at 17 persons per hectare and Altar de Sacrificios at 12. The sites, then, divide themselves into two distinct groups: compact settlements with residential densities greater than 15 persons per hectare and dispersed settlements with residential densities with less than 15 persons per hectare. Figure 13.2 shows that the dispersed group consists of the centers of the southern Maya lowlands from the Late Formative to the Late Classic periods. (Becan and Coba, which are clearly outside the drier northern plains of Yucatan, but not strictly in the south, are here included in the southern Maya lowlands; they have often been included with southern sites on stylistic grounds as well.) This finding comes as no surprise--it simply confirms the traditional view that settlements in the Maya lowlands were relatively dispersed. Even recent upward revisions of population estimates for
281
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RESIDENTIAL DENSITY Figure 13.2. Residential densities (from Table 13.1) plotted on a logarithmic scale; triangles represent settlements of the Late Formative to Late Classic periods in the southern Maya lowlands; diamonds represent settlements of the Late Classic in the northern Maya lowlands; and squares represent all other settlements.
these Classic Maya centers leave them far more sparsely settled than other Mesoamerican sites. The compact group includes all other sites outside the southern Maya lowlands. Tenochtitlan heads the list, but it is surprising that Teotihuacan, that paragon of Classic period urbanism, is less densely settled than two sites of much more modest proportions. (This latter finding may convince some that the higher estimates of Teotihuacan's population, ranging up to 250,000 or more, are more likely, since such estimates would bring its residential density right up alongside that of Tenochtitlan.) Tiny Early and Middle Formative hamlets of the Valley of Oaxaca have residential densities that are comparable to those of much larger Formative and Classic sites and that even exceed the population density of Mayapan, which is commonly thought of as a very compact community.
Reasons for Variation in Residential Density Numerous explanations have been given to account for population nucleation or dispersal. A few of these explanations can be dispensed with rather easily; others apply to some cases but not to all.
Community Size While there may be some tendency for larger communities to be more compact for purely practical reasons (e.g., transportation and communication), both large cities and tiny villages (e.g., Middle Formative Barton
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Robert D. Drennan
Ramie, Tierras Largas, and Fabrica San Jose) are found in the compact and dispersed groups shown in Table 13.1 and Figure 13.2. Clearly there is an additional, and much stronger, force than simple community size driving settlement in Mesoamerican sites.
Swidden Agriculture It has been suggested that the low productivity per unit of land characteristic of swidden agriculture practiced in the tropical forest is responsible for dispersed or even shifting settlement in these areas. This has been offered as the answer to the question, "Why is Classic period settlement in the southern Maya lowlands so dispersed?" The recent recognition, however, that the Classic Maya relied upon various forms of intensive agriculture renders this answer inapplicable to Maya settlement patterns. Indeed, Table 13.1 and Figure 13.2 clearly deny any deterministic relation between the tropical forest and dispersed settlement since at least four sites in such environmental zones (Middle Formative Barton Ramie, San Lorenzo, Zacpeten, and Topoxte) are in the compact group and range right up toward its upper end. The dispersed communities of the Late Formative and Classic periods in the southern Maya lowlands are bracketed by earlier and later compact communities in the very same region. Since early compact communities here, though, are represented only by the Middle Formative cluster of house mounds at Barton Ramie, it is worth noting that, although we lack quantitative data precisely comparable to those on which Table 13. 1 is based, the lowland Maya site of Cerros seems to have been a very compact community when it was founded at the beginning of the Late Formative period (Ixtabal phase). Before the end of the Late Formative period, however, the pattern had changed to the dispersed settlement we see elsewhere in the southern Maya lowlands in the Late Formative and Classic periods (Cliff, this volume; Freidel 1981:374; Scarborough 1983:738). There is a different sense of the nucleated-dispersed settlement pattern scale to which swidden agriculture may relate. Instead of dealing with nucleation of settlement in terms of population per unit area within settlements (as I have done here), some consider it primarily a question of settlement populations, regardless of the area the settlements cover. Looked at from this viewpoint, any settlement system in which most of the people live in very large communities is nucleated, even if those large communities sprawl over vast areas with much open space between dwellings. Conversely, from this perspective a settlement pattern consisting entirely of small villages is dispersed, even if the dwellings in those villages are tightly packed together. It is this sense of nucleation that Farriss (1978, 1984), for example, relates to swidden agriculture in Yucatan. This is not, however, the aspect of residential dispersal that this paper seeks to understand.
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Defense Defense has sometimes been suggested as an important factor in population nucleation. This answer, of course, has been offered to the question, "Why are some communities so compact'" It seems obvious that a compact community offers advantages in situations where fear of attack is present. A compact community places all the defenders close together so that they can act more effectively as a group, and it greatly facilitates fortification since the area that must be enclosed by a wall or moat is minimized. The fact is, however, that several of the very dispersed settlements in Table 13. 1 were fortified (Tikal, Becan, and Muralla de Leon at least). It is difficult to show that defense was an important consideration at a number of unfortified compact communities, such as Middle Formative Barton Ramie, San Jose Mogote, Fabrica San Jose, San Lorenzo, Tierras Largas, and Teotihuacan. Webster (1976: 369-3 70) has pointed out that the effect of defensive considerations on settlement patterns may depend on other factors, such as the nature and objectives of warfare, environmental conditions, and so on. For example, he sees the fortifications at Becan and other settlements as an effort to defend the core of public and ceremonial architecture while most residences were left outside the walls. Much the same can be said of settlement around Terminal Formative and Early Classic fortified centers in the Tehuacan Valley, such as Ts7 3 (Spencer 1979:39-41) and Cuayucatepec (Drennan 1979:171, 173, 180). In sum, considerations of defense do little to help us to understand the variation in residential density seen in Table 13.1 and Figure 13.2.
Political Control Like defense, political control has been offered as an answer to the question, "Why are some communities so compact?" Perhaps the greatest inspiration for this notion in Mesoamerica comes from the Spanish Conquest policy of congregacion, which forced people from dispersed communities to resettle in larger, more compact towns to facilitate the Spaniards' task of organizing and regulating the activities of the indigenous population. Establishing the exact nature and pervasiveness of political control from the archaeological record can be an exceedingly difficult task. Fortunately, however, the pattern in Table 13. 1 is clear enough that we need not get involved in such difficulties. It is true that some compact communities are ones that seem to have exerted very strong political control. Dispersed centers like Tikal, Coba, Quirigua, Seibal, and Altar de Sacrificios, however, most certainly have had much more effective political control over much larger populations than such small compact villages as those at Middle Formative Barton Ramie, Tierras Largas, and Fabrica San Jose, if for no other reason than to accomplish the monumental construction so evident at the centers. Political control, then, also fails to correspond well to the patterns seen in Table 13.1 and Figure 13.2. Freidel (1981) has given this notion an interesting twist by suggest-
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ing that dispersed residence was a technique of political control for the Classic Maya since it was movement on pilgrimages that was controlled. While movement through a large territory might conceivably be controlled in such a fashion, the sort of pilgrimage and trade fair system of regional integration he envisions is also perfectly consistent with much more nucleated residence patterns.
Economic Central-Place Functions Those scholars concerned with the effect of economic factors have sought understand the presence of central places as well as the compact nature of central places in some regions and periods. At least two kinds of economic central-place functions have been mentioned in this regard: trade and market functions (cf. McVicker 1974:553; Sanders 1973:359, 1981:358-369) and specialized productive activities (cf. Sanders 1973:359, 1981:358-369). A persuasive case can be made for such economic functions at Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan, and many seem inclined to doubt their importance at Classic Maya centers in the southern lowlands (even though little evidence can be adduced to support this position). Classic Maya centers were dispersed and Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan compact, but economic centralplace functions seem poorly developed at compact Monte Alban (Blanton 1978) and cannot possibly have been of significance at the compact small villages (Middle Formative Barton Ramie, Tierras Largas, and Fabrica San Jose). It also seems unlikely that such economic functions can have been so much more concentrated in Formative central places like San Jose Mogote and San Lorenzo than in Classic Maya centers to account adequately for the difference in compactness. Like the other factors already discussed, then, concentration of economic functions can account for some selected contrasts, but its pattern of variability fails to correspond closely to the overall pattern of variability in residential density summarized in Table 13. 1 and Figure 13.2. to
Labor-Intensive Agriculture and Dispersed Settlement All the explanations for variations in residential density discussed above can be thought of as reasons for households to locate themselves very close or not very close to their neighbors (whether this decision is made independently by each household or collectively by or for an entire group). Phrasing the issue in such terms brings us (at last) back to the topic of this volume, which I may seem, thus far, to have almost completely ignored. All but one of the explanations discussed so far attempt to explain the existence of compact communities. Numerous characteristics of social, political, and economic organization more readily suggest reasons for living close to neighbors than for living far from neighbors, especially if the settlements under consideration are central places. Thus the most productive line of inquiry might take compact settlements as, in some sense, normal and seek to
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explain departures from that pattern rather than the other way around. A tendency toward compact settlements should be fairly pervasive anyway for the simple reason that sedentary people are usually involved in an assortment of communal activities with other members of their societies, and they are likely to live close to each other to facilitate such activities. Such a natural tendency toward fairly compact settlements could, of course, be exacerbated by factors like large community size, need for defense, strong political control, and centralized economic functions. That this tendency toward compact settlements can reasonably be considered the norm in Mesoamerica is indicated by the wide range of time periods and regions represented among the compact settlements as opposed to the dispersed settlements, which include only Late Formative and Classic sites in the southern Maya lowlands. I would like, then, to pose the question once again in the form, "Why were Late Formative and Classic Maya settlements so much more dispersed than those of other periods and regions in Mesoamerica'" The only answer to this question among the factors discussed above was the putative effect of swidden agriculture, and this was the notion most conclusively rejected. Indeed, it seems more likely that the principal reason for the popularity of locating households some distance from their neighbors during the Late Formative and Classic in the southern Maya lowlands was not the extensive nature of agricultural systems but rather their intensive nature. In asking why these communities were so dispersed as a question of household location, it is important to think in terms of what households wanted or needed to be near rather than why they might have wanted not to be near their neighbors. Sanders (1981:362-363) has discussed a putative "infield-outfield" agricultural system for the Classic Maya in which each household would want to be adjacent to its infield because of the large amount of labor that such intensively cropped land requires. The effort of traveling to these fields, and especially of hauling out refuse for use as fertilizer and hauling in harvested produce, would thereby be reduced. Outfields could remain at greater distances from household locations since less traveling to them is required by their lower labor requirements, less produce per unit area is hauled in from them, and no fertilizer is hauled out. The result described by Sanders is a dispersed community within which the houses are separated by their respective infields (see also Netting 1977). It is this idea of high labor requirements of intensive agriculture as a reason for households wanting to be located in or near their fields that I would like to cast into somewhat more general terms as the major reason for dispersed settlement in prehispanic Mesoamerica. This reason alone accounts well for the patterns of variation in residential density in Table 13. 1 and Figure 13. 2, as well as for other aspects of this variation not revealed there, without any need to resort to additional factors from among those listed above or elsewhere. Evidence continues to mount showing that Classic Maya agriculture in the southern lowlands was of a very intensive sort, involving not only culti-
[
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Robert D. Drennan
vation of ordinary infields, but such major and labor-intensive works asterraces and ridged fields. Surely for many Classic Maya farmers, intensive cultivation of some sort was a full-time occupation to the exclusion of less laborious outfield work. It is easy to see how the natural tendency to locate close to neighbors could become an unattractive alternative to farmers spending very large amounts of time on relatively small plots of land. One indication that dispersed residence was a widespread pattern is the difficulty of distinguishing between regional population density estimates and residential density estimates within settlements for many parts of the southern Maya lowlands. For example, Bullard's ( 1960:366) and Ricketson and Ricketson's (1937:15-24) population estimates for Dos Aguadas and Uaxactun, respectively, have sometimes been used as the basis for estimating total populations in the Peten, while others have insisted on treating them as estimates of the density of occupation within settlements rather than in the region. Both these estimates are, in fact, down in the same range as those for some of the regional survey transects reported by Rice and Rice ( 1979) and the Tikal "periphery" and "intersite" estimates included in Table 13. 1. The postulated relationship between dispersed settlement and intensive, rather than extensive, agriculture also makes sense of the chronological pattern of change in residential densities in the southern Maya lowlands. As noted above, before the Late Formative period, households in the southern Maya lowlands chose locations close to neighboring households, resulting in high residential densities. During the Late Formative the dispersed pattern characteristic of the Classic came into existence. Increasing amounts of evidence indicate that various forms of intensive agriculture in the southern Maya lowlands date to the Formative (e.g., Matheny 1976; Puleston 1977; Turner and Harrison 1981). For the site of Cerros, the shift from compact to dispersed community corresponds to the construction of a large drainage system, which Scarborough (1983) believes marks a substantial intensification of agriculture. This combination of intensive agriculture and low residential densities continues through the Classic period. If it is the heavy labor requirements of intensive agriculture that make it desirable for households to disperse themselves so as to be near the land they farm, then why do households in the Mexican highlands continue to locate so close to their neighbors through the Classic period, forming welldefined communities with continued high residential densities? After all, it is places like the Basin of Mexico where we have grown quite accustomed to thinking of relatively early intensification of agriculture contemporaneous with the Terminal Formative development of Teotihuacan. The agricultural intensification associated with Teotihuacan, however, seems primarily to involve an expansion and increased reliance on systems of canal irrigation of piedmont soils (cf. Sanders 1976). Precisely the same can be said of the Valley of Oaxaca at the same period (cf. Blanton eta!. 1982:42-45; Flannery 1983:326-328). These systems of canal irrigation require a pattern of agri-
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cultural labor quite distinct from that implied by the large-scale terracing and ridged field systems relied upon by the Classic Maya. Neither the initial construction nor the continued operation of a canal system requires as much labor per unit of land farmed as is the case with systems of terracing or ridged fields. This is recognized in the commonly held assumption that chi nampa agriculture in the Basin of Mexico was more labor intensive than piedmont canal irrigation. Classic Maya ridged fields must have been cultivated in ways at least broadly similar to chinampas. Canal irrigation of the sort practiced in the Mexican highlands is, then, not as labor intensive as the systems of the southern Maya lowlands. Our growing knowledge of Classic Maya agriculture has not just eliminated the old contrast between intensive agriculture in the Mexican highlands and extensive agriculture in the southern Maya lowlands; it has rez·ersed it. In contrast to canal irrigation, terraces and ridged fields call for continued investment of large amounts of labor from each household in the very plot of land that it farms. This concentration of labor is at least as important as the amount of labor in making residence right at the agricultural plot desirable. The labor involved in canal irrigation systems is nor focused for each household on irs own fields. Indeed, it is widely dispersed along the length and possibly the breadth of a canal system. Altogether apart from construction and maintenance, the operation of such systems in the Mexican highlands today requires frequent coordinated trips by several individuals to widely spaced nodes in the canal network to route water to the fields. Since the simultaneous participation of several people is required, members of different households are often involved. Neither the dispersal from the agricultural plot of the places where such labor is performed nor the need to communicate with members of ocher households (both as assistants and competing water users) encourages a family to live on the land that it farms. Rather, the reasons already discussed for living near other households are strongly reinforced by such labor requirements. A slight refinement, then, of the thesis scared above is suggested. It is not just large agricultural labor requirements, but the concentration of those requirements continually in a small area, that makes it desirable for a household to locate irs residence at irs agricultural plot. So scared, the thesis seems consistent with the evidence available for the Formative and Classic periods for various regions; however, this thesis apparently does nor fit the Postclassic period. Clearly, the Posrclassic was a period of very intensive agriculture in many regions. Posrclassic agricultural systems included ones that, beyond requiring much labor, concentrated that labor on small plots. Among such agricultural systems, for which the Late Postclassic was a peak period, we must include the chinampas of the Basin of Mexico and the hillside and lamabordo terracing of several regions of Oaxaca (Flannery 1983:328-332). Yet the Postclassic was also a period of very compact settlements in many regions, including the Maya lowlands (where high residential density has long been known for Mayapan) and the Mexican highlands (where Tenochtitlan, the
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most compact of all settlements for which we have data, has long been considered the archetype of prehispanic cities). It is the Basin of Mexico in the Late Postclassic period that provides us with the key to understanding this apparent contradiction in Postclassic settlement patterns. While there can be no doubt about the high residential densities of Tenochtitlan and other urban settlements in the Basin of Mexico, this period is characterized by a general dispersal of residences. As Sanders eta!. ( 1979: 163-171) describe it, there is a very distinct tendency for individual houses, or small clusters of individual houses, to be broadly and continuously dispersed over the landscape . . . . In such cases, where we are faced with a sea of scattered mounds and sherd clusters, it has been extremely difficult to define objectively a coherent cluster of occupation to which the label site can reasonably be attached .. While isolated households ... have been defined as sites throughout the Basin, it is only on the Lake Chalco-Xochimilco lakebed that this is a common and dominant Late Horizon settlement type. This geographic concentration of isolated household sites seems to relate to the organization of chinampa cultivation in Tenochtitlan's breadbasket zone. . [Pedro Armillas] found that nearly the entire lakebed had apparently been covered with garden plots arranged within units of a large grid defined by major canals. In some areas of unusually good preservation it could be seen that each grid unit contained a set of chinampa fields that completely surrounded a single house. This suggested a general pattern in which each housemound was surrounded by the land cultivated by its members. Our own surveys . . . indicated that this isolated household pattern was very common throughout the old chinampa district of Lake Chalco-Xochimilco, although small multihousehold settlements were also present.
This is precisely the situation postulated for the southern Maya lowlands beginning during the Late Formative and continuing through the Classic periods. In Oaxaca, too, the advent of agricultural systems concentrating much labor in individual plots is accompanied by a dispersal of rural settlement. In the Valley of Oaxaca, sites in the Etla and Central regions are almost always characterized by thin and spotty distributions of habitational debris, indicating a high degree of house dispersal within communities. Isolated residences and tiny hamlets were very common (Kowalewski 1983:285-286).
In the Nochixtlan Valley, "generally speaking, houses were smaller and more widely spaced" than in earlier periods (Spores 1983:247). In the mountainous zone between the valleys of Oaxaca and N ochixtlan, the Late Postclassic period also saw "a major change in the settlement pattern. The population
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was much more dispersed, with many people living in isolated residences scattered throughout the area" (Drennan 198 3: 288). It seems unnecessary, indeed unwarranted, to resort, as Sanders et al. ( 1979: 178-179) do, to equating the dispersed habitation of the Basin of Mexico's chi nampa zone with the residences of the landless tenant ( mayeque) class of Aztec society. There is no evidence for the existence of such a class in Oaxaca, where an identical pattern of dispersed residence developed in the late Postclassic period, and most of the Classic Maya population lived in d1spersed settlements. What does consistently accompany this pattern, however, is a kind of intensive agriculture that concentrates large amounts of on-going labor on the plots farmed by individual households. The obvious advantages to each household of residing on its own fields in such a situation seem quite adequate to account for the choices that were clearly made about where to locate. We are left with one final contrast to explain. The three well-documented cases of intensive agriculture of a sort that concentrates labor in individual plots correspond perfectly to the three well-documented cases of extensive zones of dispersed residences (the southern Maya lowlands for the Late Formative and Classic periods, the Basin of Mexico for the Late Postclassic, and Oaxaca for the Late Postclassic). However, the latter two contain very compact settlements that contrast sharply with dispersed rural settlement while even the most compact settlements of the southern Maya lowlands are still very dispersed. The difference would seem to be in the relative numbers of households involved in such agricultural pursuits. The rationale I have been discussing for locating a household on agricultural land, and therefore relatively distant from neighboring households, applies, of course, only to households involved in the kind of concentrated intensive agriculture described above. Such considerations are completely irrelevant for households not involved at all in agricultural pursuits or for households involved only in more extensive forms of agriculture. For such households there would be nothing to outweigh the numerous reasons for residing near other households, and they would presumably continue to do so, even though much of their food might be derived from intensive agricultural systems. We have relatively little data on which to base calculations of the numbers of farmers vs nonfarmers, much less of the numbers of farmers involved in intensive agricultural systems vs those pursuing more extensive strategies, so conclusions in this area are very tentative (cf. Sanders et al. 1979: 178). Nevertheless, it is a commonly held view that the number of non-foodproducers in the Basin of Mexico in the Late Postclassic was high. In both the Basin of Mexico and Oaxaca the concentrated intensive agricultural systems that provided the rationale for dispersed rural residence were additions to other systems that would not have had such an effect. On the other hand, we are accustomed to thinking of Classic Maya society as containing only small numbers of non-food-producers. If most of the population lived in households that practiced intensive cultivation, then most of the households
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would choose to live on their farmland, and substantial amounts of farmland would be included in residential zones even quite close to major complexes of public architecture. Such differences in the relative numbers of households practicing intensive agriculture would account for the presence of numerous compact settlements in the Late Postclassic of the Basin of Mexico and Oaxaca in addition to a dispersed settlement pattern, and for the absence of such compact settlements from the southern Maya lowlands in the Classic. Patterns of high population density and orientation to specialized production and exchange, which may have characterized the Postclassic generally, should produce the pattern seen in the Basin of Mexico and Oaxaca in other regions as well if high populations led to intensive agriculture that concentrated labor in individual small plots. The Postclassic period in the southern Maya lowlands makes another interesting case in this regard. Although Topoxte and Zacperen (Table 13.1 and Figure 13.2) are very compact settlements, Rice (this volume) describes a rural settlement pattern nor unlike that seen in the Mexican highlands in the Late Postclassic. If the thesis advanced here applies to this case as well, we would expect to see the continued employment of the kind of intensive agricultural systems that had existed in the southern Maya lowlands during the Classic, but with a lower proportion of households participating in such work. This low proportion could be either because more households were practicing extensive agriculture or because there were more non-foodproducing households in the Postclassic than there had been during the Classic period. Large numbers of non-food-producing households would be consistent with commonly held notions of increased economic specialization and marketing activity in the Maya Postclassic, although it is difficult to marshal much direct archaeological evidence to support such notions. Whether Mayapan is a compact settlement of households not involved in intensive agricultural production situated in a zone of dispersed intensive agriculturalists cannot be determined at present. We can also note that Late Formative and Classic settlements of the northern Maya lowlands are the least densely settled of the compact group (Figure 13. 2). It is tempting to speculate about aspects of agriculture and economic organization that put these centers in a nearly intermediate position on the density scale, but at present we have very little relevant data with which to evaluate such speculation.
Summary Thus a widespread preference on the part of households for residing near other households is seen to characterize prehispanic Mesoamerica. Potential reasons for this preference are numerous, and many of these are quite general. Large numbers of households involved in intensive agricultural systems concentrating much labor on individual small plots of land provide a reason accounting nicely for the exceptions to this pattern in every case where
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both settlement pattern and agricultural systems can be clearly documented. This relationship between dispersed residence and intensive agricultural pursuits is more broadly applicable than previously thought and provides a more satisfactory account than simple environmental contrasts, since it handles not only contrasts between regions but also changes through time in single regwns.
Acknowledgments I thank Jeanne Ferrary Drennan for improving the clarity of this paper.
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