Settlement patterns and agricultural practices are obviously interrelated subjects so that it is fitting that they be treated jointly. This is especially so in a context of Lowland Maya archaeology for in the last three decades ancient settlement patterns and Prehispanic agriculture have been closely related research concerns. Questions and findings about one have prompted queries and discoveries about the other in an interrelated research circle. This present chapter is an attempt to summarize some of that research.

It will be my aim to present basic data on settlement and agriculture and inferences deriving from these about ancient Maya demography and sociopolitical structure. These presentations and inferences will compose the larger part of what I have to say, but, in addition, I would like to consider some recent translations of Maya hieroglyphic texts which provide information that bear upon old Maya political structure and territoriality. While this information supplements the inferences drawn from settlement patterns, it also offers some interesting contradictions.

Introductory background

The Lowland Maya archaeological area includes the Guatemalan Department of Peten, bordering portions of the Mexican states of Chiapas and Tabasco, all of the Mexican Yucatan peninsula, the Republic of Belize, and a small fringe of western Honduras (see map, Fig. 11.1). This is territory that was occupied by Maya-speaking peoples from remote prehistoric times until today – specifically by the Yucatec, Choi, and Chortian branches of that large language family.