What started out as a convenient collaboration between Dr. Richard Terry, professor of soil science at BYU, and a group of BYU archaeologists, soon became a groundbreaking discovery. Through the combined e fforts of Dr. Terry, Dr. Bruce Dahlin from Howard University, their students, and archaeologists from around the world, they were able to disprove the long-held belief that the Maya depended on the elite class to tax and redistribute their food and other goods. A fter receiving a collaborative research grant from the National Science Foundation, Terry and his students met up with Bruce Dahlin and his students at the huge Maya site of Chunchucmil in northwest Yucatán in 2001 . Dahlin and his students focused on the excavation of the commoners’ homes. Th ey expected to find simple artifacts associated with the impoverished lives of commoners, but that was not what they found. The artifacts from the common households included beautifully carved clay pots, polychrome pottery, and jade jewelry, all thought to be exclusively elite items. The ancient residents of Chunchucmil did not fit the anthropological paradigm of a poor commoner class supported by wealthy elites in a system of “tribute and redistribution.” This paradigm had been around since the Marxist writings of Karl Polanyi in the 1940s. According to the tribute and redistribution paradigm, the Maya did not have the need to buy and sell goods, therefore there could be no marketplaces. Irrefutable evidence would be required to alter the accepted paradigm. Dahlin showed the BYU soil scientists a large 2-hectare plaza at the site center that looked suspiciously like a marketplace. Surrounded by four anciently paved causeways or “highways,” the plaza also contained amenities needed for large gatherings, including a well and a ballcourt where the sacred ballgame was played. Dahlin lamented the fact that his “marketplace” plaza lacked the convincing artifact evidence needed to prove the existence of ancient marketplaces among the Maya. Chris Jensen, then one of Terry’s graduate students, was quick to suggest that they sample the plaza floor and analyze it for the invisible chemical evidence of human activities. The team of archaeologists and soil scientists were pleasantly surprised to find high levels of soil phosphate in parallel lines across the site, the first convincing evidence that food materials had been marketed there. The soil chemical evidence of ancient marketplace activities was embraced by archaeologists who were glad to be free of the tribute and redistribution paradigm. Dahlin and Terry collaborated in the publication of the marketplace study that included soil chemical data from both Chunchucmil and from a contemporary open-air marketplace in Antigua, Guatemala. BYU scientists have just completed soil chemical investigations of ancient human activities at eight different plazas and open spaces at the archaeological sites of Coba and Kiuic in Mexico and Caracol in Belize...
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When people are free, they will trade and markets are created.
What started out as a convenient collaboration between Dr. Richard Terry, professor of soil science at BYU, and a group of BYU archaeologists, soon became a groundbreaking discovery. Through the combined e fforts of Dr. Terry, Dr. Bruce Dahlin from Howard University, their students, and archaeologists from around the world, they were able to disprove the long-held belief that the Maya depended on the elite class to tax and redistribute their food and other goods. A fter receiving a collaborative research grant from the National Science Foundation, Terry and his students met up with Bruce Dahlin and his students at the huge Maya site of Chunchucmil in northwest Yucatán in 2001 . Dahlin and his students focused on the excavation of the commoners’ homes. Th ey expected to find simple artifacts associated with the impoverished lives of commoners, but that was not what they found. The artifacts from the common households included beautifully carved clay pots, polychrome pottery, and jade jewelry, all thought to be exclusively elite items. The ancient residents of Chunchucmil did not fit the anthropological paradigm of a poor commoner class supported by wealthy elites in a system of “tribute and redistribution.” This paradigm had been around since the Marxist writings of Karl Polanyi in the 1940s. According to the tribute and redistribution paradigm, the Maya did not have the need to buy and sell goods, therefore there could be no marketplaces. Irrefutable evidence would be required to alter the accepted paradigm. Dahlin showed the BYU soil scientists a large 2-hectare plaza at the site center that looked suspiciously like a marketplace. Surrounded by four anciently paved causeways or “highways,” the plaza also contained amenities needed for large gatherings, including a well and a ballcourt where the sacred ballgame was played. Dahlin lamented the fact that his “marketplace” plaza lacked the convincing artifact evidence needed to prove the existence of ancient marketplaces among the Maya. Chris Jensen, then one of Terry’s graduate students, was quick to suggest that they sample the plaza floor and analyze it for the invisible chemical evidence of human activities. The team of archaeologists and soil scientists were pleasantly surprised to find high levels of soil phosphate in parallel lines across the site, the first convincing evidence that food materials had been marketed there. The soil chemical evidence of ancient marketplace activities was embraced by archaeologists who were glad to be free of the tribute and redistribution paradigm. Dahlin and Terry collaborated in the publication of the marketplace study that included soil chemical data from both Chunchucmil and from a contemporary open-air marketplace in Antigua, Guatemala. BYU scientists have just completed soil chemical investigations of ancient human activities at eight different plazas and open spaces at the archaeological sites of Coba and Kiuic in Mexico and Caracol in Belize...more
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