Land Tenure Systems at the Ancient Maya Site of Actuncan, Belize

Abstract

A common property regime was established at the founding of the Maya site of Actuncan, Belize, in the Terminal Preclassic period (175 BC–AD 300), which governed access to land until the Terminal Classic period (AD 780–1000). This interpretation is based on urban settlement patterns documented through household excavation and remote-sensing programs. Excavations of all visible patio-focused groups in the urban core provided data to reconstruct residential histories, and a 60,621 m2 gradiometer survey resulted in a magnetic gradient map that was used to document buried constructions. Twenty ground-truth testpits correlated types of magnetic signatures to buried patio-focused groups and smaller constructions, including walled plots in agricultural field systems that were later exposed more fully through large-scale excavations. Combined, these methods provided data to reconstruct four correlates of land tenure systems: (1) the spatial proximity of residential units to land and resources, (2) diachronic changes in community settlement patterns, (3) land subdivision and improvements, and (4) public goods. Spatial analyses documented that houselots did not cluster through time, but instead became gradually improved, lending evidence to suggest the transgenerational inheritance of property rights in the Late and Terminal Classic periods.