Datos sobre asentamiento nuevamente obtenidos en el sitio puuc de Xculoc y sus cercanías (Campeche, México), nos permiten calcular el tamaño de la población de este sector en el momento de su auge (900-1000 D.C.). Los datos incluyen dimensiones de los pisos internos de toda residencia potencial, así como las capacidades de las cisternas subterráneas (chultunes) que constituían las únicas fuentes de agua durante la temporada seca de seis meses (noviembre-mayo). La división de las superficies y capacidades totales por coeficientes basados en datos etnoarqueológicos produce cifras de población menores que las que se habrían obtenido por medio de la aplicación de las proporciones utilizadas en el sitio cercano de Sayil (McAnany 1990; Tourtellot et al. 1990). Los resultados sugieren que es necesario re-examinar los cálculos de la población maya del horizonte Clásico producidos durante los pasados 20 años. La reducción de 30 a 50 por ciento que proponemos tendría implicaciones sustanciales en cuanto a nuestra concepción de la organización económica, política, y social de la sociedad clásica maya.

Archaeological research over several decades has documented extensive areas of relict raised fields throughout the Americas. The existence of huge tracts of fields utilized in a context of complex political evolution has fostered a debate similar to the “hydraulic hypothesis” controversy, originated by Julian Steward and Karl Wittfogel over a generation ago. In this paper I assess recent research and offer a model that is tested with settlement and demographic data from the Juli-Pomata area of Lake Titicaca in southern Peru. The key variables of the model are differential levels of surplus production, the control of domestic labor by elite groups, and opportunistic economic strategies by the elite. The Juli-Pomata data support a causal link between complex political organization and the existence of labor-intensive raised-field systems. The simplistic explanations of the hydraulic hypothesis remain untenable, but I argue that more subtle causal relationships exist between political centralization and agricultural intensification.

We use neutron-activation analysis data on Formative- and Classic-period pottery along with analyses of modern ceramics and raw materials to examine changes in ceramic production and consumption on the central Guatemalan Pacific slope at the beginning of the Classic period. In particular, we wonder if the processes that generated regional distributions of two Formative-period wares (White Paste and Fine Red) were the same as or different from the processes that generated regional distribution of Classic-period Flesh ware. We identify probable production zones for the three regionally distributed wares based on raw-material analyses, consideration of the geological context of different zones, and distributional evidence. We find major differences between production/consumption of the Formative and Classic regionally distributed wares. This reinforces the notion that some kind of dramatic historical discontinuity affected the lives of Pacific-slope people around A. D. 200.

Nasca culture and, particularly, Nasca ceramic iconography are held to evolve directly and smoothly out of antecedent Paracas. Yet the data reviewed in this article indicate that Paracas remains in the Río Grande de Nazca drainage, the heartland of Nasca culture on the south coast of Peru, are limited in nature, a fact that makes it difficult to derive Nasca from Paracas in Nazca. In contrast, there are rich and abundant Paracas remains in the Ica, Pisco, and Chincha valleys, at the Paracas type site itself, and along the Bahía de la Independencia. I look to the Ica Valley for the origins of the Nasca style.