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The travels of Maya merchants in the ninthand tenth centuries ad: investigations atXuenkal and the Greater Cupul Province,Yucatan, MexicoTraci Ardren a & Justin Lowry ba University of Miamib State University of New York , AlbanyPublished online: 17 Oct 2011.

To cite this article: Traci Ardren & Justin Lowry (2011) The travels of Maya merchants in the ninth and tenthcenturies ad: investigations at Xuenkal and the Greater Cupul Province, Yucatan, Mexico, World Archaeology,43:3, 428-443, DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2011.607613

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The travels of Maya merchants in theninth and tenth centuries AD:investigations at Xuenkal and theGreater Cupul Province, Yucatan, Mexico

Traci Ardren and Justin Lowry

Abstract

The region between the Maya capital of Chichen Itza and its port site on the Gulf of Mexico was one

of the most heavily traversed landscapes during the Classic period. Vast quantities of trade goodswere conveyed inland from the coast on the backs of long-distance traders. This study explores theexperiences of these traders as they transported raw materials such as shell and obsidian as well as

finished ornaments to the urban center in exchange for salt from the northern salt beds of Yucatan.We utilize archaeological data from sites along this trade route with a focus on Xuenkal, where wehave conducted excavations into the nature of regional changes during the expansion of Chichen Itza

since 2004. Archaeological data coupled with view-shed and travel-time analyses provide a nuancedperspective on the travel experiences of the traders who maintained one important component of theClassic Maya economy.

Keywords

Traders; exchange; landscape; Maya; Chichen Itza; Xuenkal.

Introduction

Long-distance trade is well established as a central component of Classic Maya culture

due to chemical and stylistic analyses of the varied materials that moved throughout

southern Mesoamerica from 200 to 1200 CE. But relatively little attention has been

paid to the people who transported these goods, despite images of traders in pre-

hispanic books and Spanish ethnohistoric descriptions of Maya trading caravans

(Colon 1959 [1502]; Morris 1931). The ancient Maya landscape was filled with a variety

World Archaeology Vol. 43(3): 428–443 The Archaeology of Travel and Communication

ª 2011 Taylor & Francis ISSN 0043-8243 print/1470-1375 online

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2011.607613

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of specialists who contributed unique skills within the greater cultural system. Long-

distance traders form one set of specialists for whom we have a variety of data, from

the distances and conditions under which they travelled, to the quantities and nature of

the goods they transported. This article utilizes data from the northern Maya Cupul

trade corridor, and especially the site of Xuenkal located at the midpoint between the

urban center of Chichen Itza and its port facility along the Gulf of Mexico, to

reconstruct the travels of Classic Maya traders. A focus on this particular aspect of the

ancient northern Maya landscape illuminates the interrelationships between people,

cultural practices and their environmental settings.

The coastal-inland interaction sphere

Despite a subsistence economy centered on maize agriculture, Classic Maya society was

deeply dependent upon an extensive system of marine trade and transport. The

Mesoamerican ‘holy trinity’ of corn, bean and squash agriculture was supplemented with

marine proteins in the coastal zone while un-worked and worked marine shell products

were traded deep into the interior of the lowlands, based on their recovery at many inland

archaeological sites (Suarez 2007). The sea and sea products played a central role in

ancient Maya cosmology, and items such as spondylus shell bivalves, stingray spines and

shark teeth were required ritual items for elite members of Classic society, even those who

lived many hundreds of kilometers from the coast. Yet, as Finamore and Houston stated

recently, ‘the Maya thought about the sea more frequently than most of them encountered

it physically’ (2010: 16), a reflection of the fact that the bulk of Maya settlement is

landlocked deep in tropical jungle environments without easy access to the coast. Most

scholars agree that the bulk of trade in exotic goods moved along the long expanse of

easily navigable microenvironments such as estuaries, bays and barrier islands that

characterize the Maya coastline.

Long-distance trade between major environmental areas in both daily commodities and

exotic imports is well documented in the material record (Masson and Freidel 2002;

McKillop 2005; Mock 1997). Critical utilitarian goods from the highlands of Guatemala

and central Mexico, such as basalt grinding stones and obsidian blades, were traded

throughout the entire lowland region. But most commodities, such as food, cloth and

utilitarian ceramics, were available locally and long-distance trade was concerned most

visibly with the movement of items necessary for ritual or elite status-enhancing

performances. Both overland and sea transport relied upon human carriers; there were no

domesticated pack animals in Classic times and depictions of ancient traders wearing

heavy back racks full of items are known from elite pottery and native books (Fig. 1).

Movement over long distances was greatly facilitated by long wooden dugout canoes,

described by the Spanish at contact as holding up to twenty-five oarsmen plus cargo

(Colon 1959 [1502]). Examples of these canoes have not been recovered archaeologically

although McKillop (2007) found a wooden canoe paddle preserved in mangrove muck and

images of canoes, oarsmen and traders are known from the murals of Chichen Itza

(Fig. 2).

The travels of Maya merchants 429

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A member of the fourth voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1502, Ferdinand Colon

described a large seagoing canoe of Maya or Maya-related people encountered in the Bay

Islands off modern Honduras:

By good fortune there arrived at that time a canoe long as a galley and eight feet wide,

made of a single tree trunk like the other Indian canoes; it was freighted with

merchandise from the western regions around New Spain. Amidships it had a palm-leaf

awning like that which the Venetian gondolas carry; this gave complete protection

against the rain and waves. Under this awning were the children and women and all the

baggage and merchandise. There were twenty-five paddlers aboard, but they offered no

resistance when our boats drew up to them.(Colon 1959 [1502]: 231–2)

Figure 1 Maya trader gods (God L) with backrack, Madrid Codex (drawing by Justin P. Lowry).

430 Traci Ardren and Justin Lowry

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The Spanish description of goods onboard the canoe matches the material evidence found

at Classic period sites. Colon mentions bolts of cotton and clothing, flint knives and other

weapons, ceramic vessels, copper ornaments, stone (possibly jade) beads and cacao beans,

all of which were fundamental components of the ancient trade between competing elite

dynasties located in different environmental zones. Coastal canoe trade has been

documented from the earliest periods of occupation in the Maya area at Late Preclassic

(400 BCE–200 CE) sites such as Cerros and Komchen through European contact, although

it reached a peak of intensity during the Terminal Classic period (800–1100 CE) (Andrews

and Mock 2002; Freidel et al. 2002). It was at this time that the urban city of Chichen Itza

grew to power through control of a commercialized economy built upon trade networks

that extended throughout Mesoamerica coupled with the extraction of key local resources

such as salt (Andrews et al. 1989; Cobos 2007).

The Cupul trade corridor

Since 2004, the Proyecto Arqueologico Xuenkal, or PAX, has investigated the cultural and

environmental landscape of the area known in early ethnohistoric accounts as the Cupul

region, a 4000 sq km corridor between the ancient city of Chichen Itza and the Gulf of

Mexico coast (Fig. 3). Research in 1988 by the Cupul Survey Project identified the port

facility for Chichen Itza, a small island site 200m in diameter known as Isla Cerritos,

100km north-northeast of the urban center (Andrews et al. 1989). Seventy-five other sites

Figure 2 Traders and goods in canoes, Upper Temple of the Warriors, Chichen Itza, Yucatan,Mexico (drawing by Justin P. Lowry based on watercolor by Anne Axtell Morris (1931)).


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Figure 3 Cupul survey region with archaeological sites, rank I–V. Adapted from the Cupul SurveyMap (Andrews et al. 1989) with basemap SRTM elevation model (courtesy SRTM Team NASA/JPL/NIMA).


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were located through survey in the intervening plains leading to the mangrove forests of

the Gulf, and the presence of non-local trade goods at many of these sites demonstrated

the involvement of the region in long-distance, rather than down the line, exchange

(McKillop 1996; Renfrew 1977). Three of these sites were of semi-urban proportions,

eleven were towns of smaller proportions and the rest were rural settlements. Xuenkal, one

of the semi-urban centers, is situated 60km from the coast, mid-way between Chichen Itza

and Isla Cerritos. It has proven to be a perfect location from which to explore the nature

of economic and political changes in the region during the expansion of the polity centered

at Chichen. Artifactual evidence for intensified craft production, architectural evidence for

defensive features and a very high percentage of imported trade goods previously known

primarily from Chichen Itza have provided a dynamic perspective on the political and

economic transformations that occurred at this key settlement in the Cupul region during

the Terminal Classic period (Ardren et al. 2010).

Finding ancient Maya traders in the Cupul region

Goods are moved by people and trade is essentially an extension of interpersonal

relationships (Oka and Kusimba 2008). Previous scholarship has not established whether

the scale and intensity of long-distance trade in the Maya region necessitated full-time

specialists, perhaps a merchant class, although this has been suggested for later periods

(Masson and Freidel 2002;McAnany 2010; Sabloff andRathje 1975). There is little evidence

that the majority of ancient Maya people ever traveled far from their original homes,

although elites often visited neighboring dynasties for feasting, ballgame events and other

royal ceremonies. Merchants were some of the only other members of society who regularly

traveled anydistance and thus had some familiaritywith vastly different environmental zones

and social settings. This specialized set of skills and local knowledge facilitated themovement

of goods between temperate zones and tropical lowlands as well as in and out of large urban

centers. By utilizing landscape and archaeological data from PAX in conjunction with the

results of prior research within the Cupul region, we offer a more detailed exploration of the

specialized knowledge and experiences of traders in this particular part of the Maya world.

Landscape analysis

Merchants who arrived at the coastal site of Isla Cerritos bound for the urban capital of

Chichen Itza had to choose the route they would travel. Andrews et al. (1989: 94)

suggested two likely routes based on the presence of ceramics associated with the capital.

The decision to take the eastern or western route might have been made for many of the

same reasons merchants choose a route today – considerations of ease, familiarity and

supplies all play a part. These deliberations take place within a context of specialized

knowledge about the landscape, including climate, fauna and topography.

An examination of the geological terrain through which ancient traders travelled is a

valuable key to understanding their specialized knowledge. Between Isla Cerritos and

Chichen Itza there are four distinct geological zones (Weidie 1985). The beach is a narrow


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strip of sand and dunes; there is no fresh water and few other resources beyond those

available in the sea. In the tidal zone of lagoons and marshes there are some fresh or

brackish water sources although few were suitable for human consumption. The tidal zone

in Yucatan is primarily comprised of mangrove forests and sawgrass with mucky soils and

abundant wildlife that presented serious challenges to overland transport. These zones

have naturally occurring channels that were augmented by historic people to facilitate the

removal of timber by canoe and it has been suggested that some of these channels may

have existed prior to European contact (Andrews 2008; Millet 1985).

Approximately 5–8km inland from the coast is the transition from the tidal zone to the

higher elevation of the central northern geological zone, which has a drier climate. A

slightly hilly karst landscape is the result of large diameter solution holes (natural

depressions) in the limestone substrata. Fresh water is still scarce in this zone and a

traveler would have to know available sources and plan a route accordingly. In some

senses this zone was the most difficult to traverse as it has hilly terrain, open bedrock, little

water and the first dense settlement of potentially hostile occupants. A large semi-urban

pre-hispanic site, Panaba, was located within the central northern zone.

South of Panaba the elevation continued to rise slightly as travelers reached the central

interior flatlands that surround greater Chichen Itza. This karst zone has generally smaller

solution holes, larger areas of deep soil and a greater incidence of caverns. In pre-hispanic

periods, this zone would have supported the highest forest on the peninsula with fresh

water available in caverns and solution holes. Despite a sizable pre-hispanic population,

plant and animal products from the high forest, such as birds, feathers, thatch and other

housing materials, game animals, medicinal plants and tree fruits, were plentiful.

Our analysis of the Cupul regional landscape indicates the presence of pre-hispanic sites

at the transition between each major geological zone. There are three sites at the most

dramatic geological transition, from beach to tidal forest; Isla Cerritos, Paso de Cerro and

Chinalco. The large semi-urban site of Panaba, now destroyed by modern settlement, was

located at the transition from the central northern zone to the drier central interior zone.

Together with the intermediate settlement San Ramon de los Cerros, these sites form a

travel corridor through the most challenging environments faced by ancient traders.

Choosing to travel from site to site maximized the safety and reliability of travel in a

region of open yet seasonally inundated plains.

The sites listed above make up the northern component of the eastern corridor between

the coast and Chichen Itza. This corridor continues south to the sites of Xlacah, Xuenkal,

Ichmul de Morley and finally to Chichen Itza. Naturally flat topography coupled with the

large pre-hispanic constructions of northern Yucatan provide a cultural landscape that is

well suited to visibility studies and view-shed analysis reveals a component of the

specialized knowledge held by travelers through this region. Our analysis suggests traders

were able to sight a pathway of way-station settlements along the route from Isla Cerritos

to Chichen. A person standing 2m above the ground surface can see 5.1km to the horizon,

barring obstructions, because of the nature of the curvature of the earth. That same person

at 10m above the ground surface can see 11.3km to the horizon, which is consistent with

the experience of a pre-hispanic person standing at the summit of the largest mounds at

San Ramon de los Cerros, Panaba and Xlacah. At 30m above the ground surface, which is

possible given the architecture at Xuenkal and Chichen Itza, a person can see 19.6km to


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the horizon. These distances are based on the assumption that the object the person is

sighting is at ground surface. If, however, one is sighting from Xuenkal to Chichen Itza,

both of which have 30m-high pyramids, it is possible to see as far as 39km to the horizon,

doubling the visible distance, based on the elevation provided by monumental

architecture. Travelers could have planned each leg of their journey by utilizing

monumental architecture at way-station sites along the travel corridor. These view-shed

measurements are applicable during daylight hours and could have been augmented by the

use of signal fires at night. As seen in Figure 4, given that there are seven way-station sites

within the 100km between Isla Cerritos to Chichen, a traveling merchant could sight each

subsequent large settlement within the eastern travel corridor. The ability to utilize this

navigational aid was still dependent upon specialized knowledge of approximate direction

to gain the correct bearing and gauge distance.

Travel-time estimates also correlate with the way-station model proposed above. Based

on personal experience, a young person carrying 20–25kg, or a relatively light burden, can

easily travel 20–25km per day in the northern Yucatecan plains (A. P. Andrews, pers.

comm. 2010). For the purposes of this analysis we assume that a fit ancient trader could

travel a maximum of 35km per day on foot. Within these parameters a merchant could

travel from Isla Cerritos to Chichen Itza along a direct route in three days (Fig. 5). Given

the social landscape it is more appropriate to assume travelers would include settlements

as part of their journey. From Chinalco, the beginning of the overland route on dry land,

one could pass all the way to Panaba (25km) in a day easily carrying 25kg of trade goods.

On that same journey, the leg from Panaba to Xuenkal (36km) would be more challenging;

however, one could rest in Xlacah and continue to Chichen the third day or stop in

Xlacah, travel to Ichmul de Morley the third day and arrive in Chichen on the fourth. This

straight travel-time analysis does not account for trading activities at each of the

settlements along the corridor. While traders may have been able to make the trip from

Isla Cerritos to Chichen in three days, and perhaps did so on their northern journey back

to the coast from the capital when they were free of trade goods, the southern journey is

more likely to have taken five days or more given the evidence for trade items at many of

the sites along the route (see below). Familiarity might allow travel time through the

Figure 4 View-shed map of trade corridor indicating relative height of monuments at each site fromChichen Itza to Gulf of Mexico, horizontal axis compressed.


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Figure 5 Eastern travel corridor from Isla Cerritos to Chichen Itza with foot travel estimates.Adapted from the Cupul Survey Map (Andrews et al. 1989) with basemap SRTM elevation model(courtesy SRTM Team NASA/JPL/NIMA).


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region to be shortened, but the physical limitations of foot travel with a back rack or

tumpline would have militated against shortening the trip to less than three days.

Archaeological evidence

Large wooden canoes were heavily laden when they arrived at the port facility of Isla

Cerritos on the north coast of the Yucatan peninsula, given the quantity of trade items

recovered from sites within the Cupul region. The island is located 500m from the coast at

the mouth of a long estuary and would have been easily visible to shallow water vessels

moving along the coast of the peninsula (Andrews 1995: 16). Submerged evidence of

docking facilities was discovered on the south side of the island by Andrews and indicates

that canoes could have been unloaded and harbored (Andrews 1995: 17).

Given the high quantities of non-local materials found at Isla Cerritos, our current

model of coastal trade in the Terminal Classic period hypothesizes that canoes were filled

with trade goods from outside the peninsula when they arrived at Isla Cerritos and then

returned to other parts of Mesoamerica filled with the primary natural resource of the

peninsula, high-quality salt. At Isla Cerritos excavations revealed exotic materials that

had previously been found only at Chichen Itza, such as gold ornaments from Central

America and turquoise from northern Mexico or the southwestern United States

(Andrews 1995: 23). Research on this small island site also documented vast quantities of

more common non-local trade goods such as jade ornaments and basalt grinding stones

from the highlands of Guatemala as well as high-fired Plumbate pottery that was

manufactured many thousands of kilometers to the south in Chiapas, Mexico (Neff and

Bishop 1988).

Merchants bringing goods to Chichen Itza from Isla Cerritos may have been housed in

the large open buildings on the island known as gallery patios (Cobos 2007; Ruppert

1950). This civic architecture has been found only at these two closely related sites within

the Cupul corridor, and would have been familiar to traders who frequented the urban

capital. Gallery-patio architecture is open and accessible, with long rectangular rooms,

supporting columns and a perishable roof.

To begin their journey to the regional capital, traders likely loaded the grinding stones,

ceramics, shell and smaller precious ornaments into net bags which were secured to

wooden back racks and tumplines, as seen in Postclassic period depictions of God L, the

merchant deity (Fig. 1). God L is always shown wearing a wide-brimmed hat made of

woven plant material and his body is often black, perhaps to indicate the effects of

prolonged exposure to the sun (Taube 1992: 79). Tumpline transport limits the weight that

can be carried to approximately 38–40kg (Reina and Hill 1978: 208).

Once on the mainland, traders headed to Chichen Itza would first have passed through

the small hamlet Paso de Cerro, where salt workers lived in small domestic structures and

tended evaporative saltpans (Andrews 1995: 18). Andrews and colleagues found evidence

of artificial walkways that cross the coastal swamp and lead to higher ground inland in the

area around Paso de Cerro. One of these walkways led to a fresh water source east of the

site, a feature of obvious importance to long-distance traders (Andrews 1995: 18). Three

kilometers south of Paso de Cerro is a small site known as Chinalco that Andrews


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described as a farming settlement that may have provided plant and animal products such

as deer meat to the occupants of Isla Cerritos (Andrews 1995: 19).

When the traders reached the city of Xuenkal, mid-way along their journey to the

capital, they deposited trade goods at twenty specialized craft production platforms within

the site center. As a result of five seasons of fieldwork and excavation we have documented

a shift in material culture and architecture closely associated with the expanding cultural

influence of Chichen Itza within the Cupul region (Ardren et al. 2010; Manahan et al. in

press). Settlement from this period at Xuenkal shifts from dispersed residences to large

free-standing platforms clustered in the center of the urban settlement (Fig. 6). Terminal

Classic platforms contain not only the greatest concentration of ceramics associated with

Chichen Itza, but also long-distance trade goods such as Central Mexican obsidian and

Plumbate pottery. The latest construction phase at these platforms is frequently an

assortment of low, rectangular structures elevated slightly from the surface to support

masonry constructions on their summit. Abundant middens with domestic ceramics,

ground stone, faunal remains and craft debitage indicate these platforms were multi-

crafting residential areas (Ardren et al. in press).

Over 90 per cent of Terminal Classic period ceramics from Xuenkal are from the Sotuta

ceramic complex believed to originate at Chichen and these materials are found across the

site although in highest frequencies at the craft production platforms (Smith 1971). New

Sotuta complex ceramic forms such as grater bowls suggest the introduction of new

cuisines that certainly traveled to Xuenkal and other sites within the Cupul region in the

hands and minds of merchants. Introduced ceramic forms made in local pastes are a clear

indication of the influence traders had on daily domestic life outside the capital.

Production stage analysis of the shell artifacts conducted by Alejandra Alonso indicates

that a majority of the materials found at Xuenkal are in the intermediate stage of

production, with only small percentages of raw or finished materials present in the

platform samples (Alonso et al. in press). Alonso also identified the origin of shell

materials recovered from these workshops and found that, while the majority of materials

were from the Caribbean, some came from as far away as the Pacific coast of Mexico

(Alonso et al. in press: 8). Thus we suggest traders delivered unfinished commodities such

as obsidian and chert cores, as well as shell forms and probably other perishable craft

materials, to the craftspeople of Xuenkal, and may have received in return finished

products for delivery to the ruling elite of the capital.

Given the lack of gallery-patio structures at Xuenkal and the high percentages of trade

goods found at the Sotuta phase platforms, traveling merchants might have been housed

near the workshop areas atop these platforms. The spatial organization of the modest

structures on the summit of the platforms, which include multiple domestic buildings

around open working areas filled with craft debris, suggests shared intra-familial or intra-

domestic economic activities. In the intensified economy of the Terminal Classic period,

such spaces may not have been shared by members of the same extended family, but rather

by those engaged in complementary economic activities, such as exchange and production.

Traders also left exotic objects such as Plumbate pottery, jade beads and copper

ornaments at Xuenkal, perhaps in the hands of the Itza-affiliated elites who administered

the site during this period, although the precise mechanisms of political governance at the

site during the expansion of Chichen Itza have yet to be fully elucidated. An absence of


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gallery-patio architecture at Xuenkal suggests to us that the existing resident population at

the site was absorbed, perhaps forcibly, into the political and economic sphere of Chichen

without an effort to construct architectural frameworks or spaces that conveyed Chichen

leadership. The architectural disjunction between Isla Cerritos/Chichen Itza and Xuenkal

suggests a different cultural experience for traders who visited Xuenkal, where modest

production spaces were emphasized over monumental gallery-patio complexes.

Upon reaching the northern periphery of Chichen Itza, traders would have encountered

small settlements with familiar architecture as far as 2.5km north of the heart of the city

Figure 6 Terminal Classic period platforms at Xuenkal, Yucatan, Mexico (drawing by T. KamManahan and Justin P. Lowry).


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(Cobos 2007: 334). These outlying centers had gallery-patio structures, and many of these

settlements were connected to the urban core of Chichen by raised roads or causeways

(Cobos 2007: 327). It is unclear whether outlying gallery-patio groups were used for

housing traveling merchants or their wares but certainly the ideological message was clear:

the merchants had arrived at their destination.

Those traders who arrived in the city of Chichen Itza around the year AD 900 would

have encountered a massive amount of architectural construction. From the outlying

settlements and causeways to the very center of the city itself, the leaders of the capital

were constructing new performance spaces for collective rituals key to the urban identity

of this particular city. Earlier traditions of long hieroglyphic texts and detailed portraits of

kings gave way to new means of expressing political authority through extensive building

programs that included massive architectural constructions and vast open plazas. Some of

these architectural features would have been familiar to long-distance traders who might

have seen similar skull racks, colonnaded halls and sculptured panels at the site of Tula in

central Mexico or El Tajin on the southern Gulf coast, although the buildings at Chichen

are a unique version of what has been called the pan-Mesoamerican style of the Epiclassic

period (Kowalski 2007; Ringle et al. 1998). Likewise, traders would have recognized a set

of ceramic forms used at these sites linked by long-distance trade and shared participation

in a tradition of rituals of inclusion. In this period, frying pan, spiked and openwork

censers were found throughout a string of Mesoamerican sites that never had these

traditions before (Bey and Ringle 2007: 415). Likewise the use of griddle and grater-bowl

domestic wares was introduced to Chichen from the cities of central Mexico, perhaps via

the appetites of traders and merchants (Bey and Ringle 2007; Smith 1971).

In addition to new rituals and ways of eating, cities within the pan-Mesoamerican style

of the Epiclassic may have been the origin of the traders themselves who brought goods

long-distance into Chichen. The names of high-ranking men married to local elite women

appear in hieroglyphic inscriptions of this period at Chichen and some have suggested that

these men were not just warrior elite but also a merchant elite (Grube and Krochock 2007:

223). Ringle et al. (1998) have argued that the flow of exotic goods through the major cities

of the Epiclassic, including Chichen Itza, was driven by the participation of the leaders of

these cities in a shared religious cult of the Feathered Serpent, an order that may have

relied upon merchants as members or key proselytizers. Given the dominance of military

imagery in the elite artwork of Chichen, we suggest traders operated under the strict

control of a military order or dominant governing structure rather than as the leaders of

these cities, but further investigation of the lives of the ruling elite of Chichen Itza and

other Epiclassic cities could shed important light on the question of how merchants

participated in political control of the population.

Conclusions

Coastal trade was crucially important in ancient Maya civilization, both to elites who were

dependent upon exotic prestige-enhancing goods, and also to the movement of basic

commodities such as obsidian. Often this extensive system of trade and exchange has been

reconstructed without attention to the individuals who were responsible for securing,


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transporting and delivering such materials. The area between the urban capital of Chichen

Itza and the coast was one of the most traveled trade routes of the Classic period, and the

ancient settlement distribution reflects this. A study of the geological conditions and view

sheds of the Cupul region shows the location of ancient sites facilitated foot travel through

the region. Archaeological evidence from Xuenkal and other nearby sites demonstrates the

relationship traders had with regional centers, not just the port site and capital.

A focus on the daily experiences of the specialists who moved trade goods throughout

the Maya area adds a new dimension to the study of ancient economies. Travel conditions

were an integral part of the establishment and maintenance of long-distance trade

networks. The landscape through which traders moved was neither the determining factor

nor an invisible component of these economic activities, but rather was culturally shaped

and understood by individual merchants with a deep and specialized knowledge of their

environment.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank all the members of the Proyecto Arqueologico Xuenkal, past and

present, including Co-Director T. Kam Manahan, property owner Alejandro Patron

Laviata and the citizens of Espita, especially Miguel Rosado Kuk. Field research was

supported with funding from the National Science Foundation (grants OISE-0502306 and

BCS-0852233), FAMSI (grant 05064), the Offices of the Provost and Dean of the College

of Arts and Sciences of the University of Miami and Kent State University. Research was

conducted under the auspices of the Instituto Nacional de Antropologıa e Historia, Dra.

Nelly Garcia Robles, Presidente del Consejo de Arqueologıa. The comments of two

anonymous reviewers greatly improved this manuscript; however, the authors retain all

responsibility for errors of interpretation.

Traci Ardren

University of Miami

[email protected]

Justin Lowry

State University of New York, Albany

[email protected]

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Traci Ardren (PhD, Yale University, 1997) is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the

University of Miami and Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. Her research focuses

on issues of identity and other forms of symbolic representation in the archaeological

record. With T. Kam Manahan she co-directs research at the ancient Maya archaeological

site of Xuenkal, Yucatan, Mexico, investigating the role of environmental resources and

trade in the development of an economically dominant state centered at the urban center

of Chichen Itza.

Justin P. Lowry is a PhD candidate at the University at Albany, SUNY. His primary

research focus is the application of GIS technology to the landscape of the ancient Maya.

He is presently completing a dissertation on the Late Preclassic component of Xuenkal

and is a staff member of the Proyecto Arqueologico Xuenkal.


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the travels of maya merchants in the ninth and tenth centuries ad :...

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