Traditional interpretations of Maya warfare have focused on the ritual aspects of war, including the necessity of taking captives for sacrifice. Captives are a common theme on carved stone monuments in the Late Classic period, and images like the murals at Bonampak suggest that captives taken in battle were ultimately sacrificed. Textual information from hieroglyphs and historical records, however, suggests a variety of fates for prisoners of war. Considering this information, the iconography of carved stone monuments is a poor indicator of historical outcomes for captives. What, then, was the function of captive imagery? In this article, I suggest that images of captives on carved stone monuments worked to prepare elite viewers for warfare by creating embodied social identities for warriors. Sculptures constructed a warrior identity that encompassed both victor and victim and emphasized the importance of elite bodies in the maintenance of political and ritual power. Understanding the ways in which images of captives were communicating allows a more robust view of how the practice of warfare differed from polity to polity and suggests that context is key to using art to learn about war.

Inequality is present in all human societies, but building a robust understanding of how that inequality developed and persisted for centuries requires historical and archaeological data. Identifying the degree of inequality (or disparity) in ancient communities can be addressed through a variety of methods. One method becoming standard practice in archaeology evaluates inequality through quantitative analysis of robust settlement data. In this Compact Special Section, we assess household size as a potential reflection of wealth inequality among Classic period (a.d. 250–900) Maya settlements. First, we generate house-size data from both pedestrian and remotely sensed LiDAR surveys. Then we use those data to calculate Gini coefficients and Lorenz curves, which provide measures of variation. Gini coefficients range from 0 to 1, where 0 reflects perfect equality and 1 indicates perfect inequality, regardless of the actual values in the distribution. Both area (m2) and volume (m3) provide different, complementary metrics to investigate residential size as a metric for wealth inequality among Classic Maya Lowland settlements. Proposed mechanisms that generate inequality include the intergenerational transmission of wealth and differential access to resources; however, addressing these and other pathways for how inequality develops and persists, and how it was maintained in the past provides insight into similar processes of systemic inequality worldwide.

To variable degrees, inequality is present in all human societies, but how archaeologists measure inequality varies greatly. In recent research, we used the same unit of analysis, house size, to evaluate residential wealth inequality among the Classic (a.d. 250/300–800) Maya of southern Belize. Using a Gini coefficient, we found that even in this peripheral region, high degrees of inequality were present. However, nuances in inequality metrics vary based on the analytical parameters or units of measurement (area versus volume) and the unit of analysis (individual residential structures, all structures within a household group, or the entire household group, including the built environment). Generally, Gini coefficients calculated from volume are greater than those from area, and the unit of analysis affects the Gini coefficient and, thus, our interpretations of the degree of inequality present. We discuss the impact of the unit of analysis for house sizes, and how it affects our interpretations of residential wealth inequality in the past in conjunction with previous archaeological research. The findings are instrumental for comparative analyses of wealth inequality through the study of house size variation in ancient and modern societies, highlighting the value of clear definitions of the unit of analysis.

Archaeological studies worldwide have revealed a wide range of cultural contexts within which practices of violence and warfare have occurred. In Mesoamerica, ongoing studies have enriched our understanding of social contexts of violence and warfare in Maya societies. This expanding body of field data allows deeper exploration of the ways violence was intricately linked to different aspects of cultural life for many Maya communities. In this article, we contemplate the culturally embedded nature of violence and warfare with a specific focus on the Classic period and questions related to political strategy, ritual practices, and total warfare. We provide empirical frameworks for the study of war to address issues of ritual warfare and societal impact, and we emphasize a regional scale of analysis.

En excavaciones efectuadas en Chichén Itzá en 1967, se encontró una construcción subterránea tipo chultun conteniendo los restos óseos de más de 70 individuos humanos, la mayoría subadultos masculinos. El depósito mortuorio presenta características de ser post-sacrificial, de carácter primario; la datación por carbono-14 lo ubica hacia el 1000 d.C., en el momento de mayor expansión de Chichén Itzá como ciudad capital regional. La cuantificación de 1,066 dientes permanentes establece un número mínimo de individuos de 75 (incisivo central superior izquierdo). Con el propósito de discernir sobre la afinidad biológica de los individuos, primero se llevó a cabo un análisis univariante y multivariante de los diámetros mesiodistales y bucolinguales y se compararon con 16 sitios prehispánicos de época clásica; posteriormente se analizó la morfología dental en 14 rasgos y se compararon con 24 sitios mayas prehispánicos del clásico, siguiendo la metodología estandarizada de Arizona State University Dental Anthropological System (ASUDAS). Se aplicaron tres análisis multivariantes (medida media de divergencia, análisis de conglomerados, y escalamiento multidimensional). Con base en este estudio, podemos afirmar que los niños del chultun de Chichén Itzá no pertenecen a las poblaciones de las Tierras Bajas del norte o del sur, como tampoco a las de las Tierras Altas del sur. Quizá formaban parte de grupos de comerciantes de larga distancia que se asentaron en Chichén Itzá a partir del 800 d.C. para dominar las rutas de comercio tanto marítimas como terrestres de la Península.

Gini coefficients for residential groups at Coba for roofed surface area, volume of architecture, and houselot space range from 0.423 to 0.551, fitting well within the range of many ancient and modern state-level cities and societies and other Mesoamerican centers. These values are also similar to other large, Classic period, Northern Lowland cities, such as Dzibilchaltun and Chunchucmil. These data do not support the idea that autocratic regimes exhibit greater wealth inequality. We also failed to find a pattern in which inequality grew over the course of the Classic period. The Lorenz curves for Coba and other sites do not indicate any breaks that would allow households to be sorted into wealth classes. Thus, wealth differences were fluid, continuous, and out in the open, giving these settlements the dynamism and attractiveness that helped them grow into some of the largest and most remarkable ancient Maya cities.

Chichen Itza stands as a monumental landmark of late Pre-Columbian Maya and Mesoamerican religious complexes. Among the enigmatic aspects of Chichen Itza's ceremonial innovations count skull racks (known as tzompantli in Nahuatl), where the heads of sacrificed victims would be exhibited. Here we combine the scrutiny of death imagery and human skeletal remains, including skulls with marks of bilateral or basal impalement and mandibles with perimortem decapitation from “New” Chichen, the Osario complex, and from Chichen's astronomical Caracol complex. Our combined skeletal and iconographic data confirm the increased practice of corpse processing and head exhibition at Chichen Itza when compared to Classic-period Maya centers. Most of these body treatments were not foreign introductions, as generally believed, but followed local practices, long carried out at the Yucatecan urban centers of Nohpat, Kabah, Uxmal, and Dzibilchaltun. Although on a minor scale compared to Chichen, these demonstrate the display of human body segments, not only skulls, which renders the term tzompantli problematic. In the context of the totalitarian rhetoric of Chichen's central spaces, the massified violence and corpse display herald late religious cults at the cadences of battles won, astronomical cycles, and the perpetual movement of the Feathered Serpent.

Being a form of labor investment, house size is frequently analyzed as an index of socioeconomic inequality. However, datasets that lack wide-ranging residential stratigraphic information are not reliable sources of labor investment estimates. This is the case for Late Classic domestic architecture data from three polities in the Rosario Valley (modern-day Chiapas) on the southwest Maya frontier: Rosario, Ojo de Agua, and Los Encuentros. Although the sample's house size inequality generally cannot index period-specific labor investment, it may signify prestige differentiation. For each polity we generated Lorenz curves and calculated Gini coefficients for five variables representing house size (area and volume). Results resemble inequality data from lowland Classic Maya centers. We also demonstrate that the smallest, shortest-lived polity had more equal house size values, likely due to the modesty of its apical elite architecture. In contrast, the two larger, older polities were more unequal because they had substantial palaces.

Located at the western edge of the Classic Maya heartland, El Peru-Waka' was one of the most densely aggregated urban cores in the Lowlands. With households packed next to each other, it can be difficult to define where one ends and another begins. Nevertheless, survey and excavation data suggest that differences in household provisioning and generational cycling created considerable variation in household wealth across the city. This paper employs household area (m2) and volume (m3) to calculate Gini coefficients for the El Peru-Waka' urban core and immediate hinterlands to quantify household differentiation across the urban landscape. Comparison of the coefficients for the total study area with those for individual urban zones (core, periurban, hinterland) demonstrate that while El Perú-Waka' exhibits high overall household differentiation, this differentiation is considerably muted within a given urban zone. This demonstrates the impact of settlement location on differences in household size and architectural investment.

Survey teams at the El Pilar Archaeological Reserve for Maya Flora and Fauna have mapped 70 percent of its 20 km2 area and revealed the extent of settlement around the city center. Large-scale civic architecture, and the distribution of smaller ceremonial groups and minor centers, reflect the wealth and power of Maya rulers presiding over the largest Classic period city in the upper Belize River area. Previous analyses suggest disparities in wealth at El Pilar were more nuanced than the elite/commoner dichotomy commonly invoked for Classic Maya society. This article works to understand wealth inequality at ancient El Pilar by computing Gini coefficients from areal and volumetric calculations of primary residential units—the class of settlement remains most likely to represent ancient households. Presentation of Gini coefficients and their potential interpretations follows a discussion of settlement classification and residential group labor investment. We conclude by contextualizing these results within prior settlement pattern analyses to explore how disparities in wealth may have been distributed across the physical and social landscape.

Measurements of inequality, like many other analytical phenomena, are affected by the definition of analytical units (for example, buildings or residential groups) and the spatial unit within which those units are aggregated (for example, sites or polities). We begin by considering the impact of secondary or seasonal residences on the calculation of Gini scores when dealing with regional-scale settlement data, which is a common consideration in regional-scale population estimates. We then use LiDAR-derived settlement data from northwestern Guatemala to calculate Gini coefficients for two ancient Maya sites: Late Classic La Corona and Late Preclassic Achiotal. We investigate how the scale of the spatial unit of aggregation affects our interpretations of inequality using various architecture-based indices. Finally, we provide some preliminary interpretations for the differences calculated between these two centers.

House size provides a comparative measure of household wealth that enables archaeologists to track global trends in inequality across a range of sedentary societies. Such approaches hold particular promise for Maya archaeology given its long history of settlement pattern research and recent applications of LiDAR to map large areas surrounding ancient Maya cities. Estimating dwelling size, however, is not a trivial exercise. This article addresses potential confounds associated with geometric-based estimates (volume and area) and compares traditional house size-based measures of wealth with other estimates of house size and quality of life indicators. Settlement pattern data from the Upper Usumacinta Confluence Zone, recently collected by the Proyecto Arqueológico Altar de Sacrificios, combined with previously published excavation data provide a robust dataset to evaluate alternative measures of wealth beyond house size.

The Classic Maya polities of Baking Pot and Lower Dover developed along two dramatically different trajectories. At Baking Pot, the capital and associated apical elite regime grew concomitantly with surrounding populations over a thousand-year period. The smaller polity of Lower Dover, in contrast, formed when a Late Classic political center was established by an emergent apical elite regime amidst several long-established intermediate elite-headed districts. The different trajectories through which these polities formed should have clear implications for residential size variability. We employ the Gini coefficient to measure variability in household volume to compare patterns of residential size differentiation between the two polities. The Gini coefficients, while similar, suggest greater differentiation in residential size at Baking Pot than at Lower Dover, likely related to the centralized control of labor by the ruling elite at Baking Pot. While the Gini coefficient is synonymous with measuring wealth inequalities, we suggest that in the Classic period Belize River Valley, residential size was more reflective of labor control.

During the Late Classic period (a.d. 550–900), ancient Maya settlement spread throughout western Belize, including the Vaca Plateau, a rugged karstic region with high densities of ritually utilized cave systems. Within the past decade, archaeologists have increasingly drawn on LiDAR technology to document the extent of such settlement at local and regional scales. Combined with traditional pedestrian survey, we have begun to amass substantial data on variation within household groups, disparities which may indicate inequality within these communities. Here, we use settlement data generated from the Las Cuevas region to quantify residential variation through Gini coefficients and Lorenz curves. Special attention is given to areal and volumetric deviation of identified households within three samples: (1) the complete 95.25 km2 study area; (2) a 12.25 km2 zone of higher population between the primary centers of Las Cuevas and Monkey Tail; and (3) households situated within 500 m of ritually utilized caves within the study area. Results indicate some degree of variation within household area and volume for all samples, suggestive of unequal access to labor within the region. This research adds to the growing database of Gini-based analyses to improve our understanding of wealth differentials within pre-modern populations throughout the Lowlands.

The archaeological site of Copan was a cultural and commercial crossroads at the southeastern Maya frontier. Research indicates that the demographics and sociopolitical circumstances of the city of Copan and its location within a circumscribed pocket (24 km2) of the larger Copan Valley varied through time. These circumstances not only influenced its social, political, and economic interactions, but likely the size, construction, and organization of households, specifically plazuelas. Copan's plazuelas differ from those located in other Maya regions because they often have smaller house platforms, comprise more than a single patio, and exhibit a larger than normal proportion of informal groups. Gini coefficients, to investigate wealth inequality based on household size using area, volume, and a modified volume, were calculated for Late Classic Copan to allow for comparisons to Gini coefficients from other Maya regions. While the Gini coefficients suggest that wealth inequality at Copan is much higher than in other Maya regions, deeper interpretations of inequality based solely on the Gini coefficients are limited, requiring not only additional geospatial analysis employing a multi-proxy Gini coefficient, but, importantly, a comparison to and a deeper reflection on previous research at Copan.