The lay of the land: a political geography of an ancient Maya kingdom in West-Central Belize

Abstract

The Belize Valley figures prominently in the history of Maya archaeology as the birthplace of settlement pattern surveys, where Gordon R. Willey and his colleagues conducted their pioneering research project, from 1954 to 1956. Six decades on, settlement surveys are an integral part of archaeological research strategies not only across the Maya area, but globally. With the advent of LiDAR technology, settlement surveys enter a new developmental phase, and we take this opportunity to review the history and progress of these surveys in the Belize Valley. We focus on one particular archaeological site, Baking Pot, so as to better illustrate the methods and technological advances that have been brought to bear in the mapping of one ancient Maya city-state. Now that the survey of this ancient settlement is nearing completion, we veer from traditional settlement surveys that in principle focus on unbounded central places and centroids, in an attempt to tackle an important question, which to date has remained conspicuously understudied, that of borders and boundaries. Using a series of geospatial analyses, we investigate the potential of these approaches for reconstructing ancient polity boundaries and as lessons learned we explore which methods are of greater utility and can be applied to other surveys in the Maya lowlands.