Neighborhood Diversity and Inequality in the Tropical Maya Lowlands

Keywords: Neighborhoods, Inequality, Gini Coefficient, Archaeology, Classic Maya, Belize
Session Type: Virtual Poster Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 57

Abstract

Growing wealth disparities in modern cities highlight the spatial variability of systemic inequality within and between neighborhoods. To understand how inequality developed in human societies and its long-term consequences, archaeologists draw on data from past societies. Robust settlement data provide insights into the daily lives of past peoples including the size and spatial relationships between households, which can reflect the intergenerational transmission of wealth, differential access to resources, and land tenure ideologies, which are the driving forces behind institutional inequality. Here, we evaluate ancient neighborhood inequality from seven Classic Maya (250-800 CE) cities in southern Belize, comparing differences in house size within and between ancient cities in the same spatiotemporal context. To quantitatively assess inequality, we use the Gini coefficient, which ranges from 0 (perfect equality) to 1 (perfect inequality). House size data (area and volume) were collected from legacy data of archaeological pedestrian surveys, with a sample of nearly 2,000 residential structures. First, ancient neighborhoods are modeled in GIS using an Average Nearest Neighbor analysis, Kernel Density analysis, and qualitative assessments of the terrain. Then, using house size data we calculate the Gini coefficient for each modeled neighborhood in seven ancient cities. We found that just like neighborhoods today, variations in inequality are present within and between neighborhoods of the Classic Maya. Finally, we compare our findings to house size data and neighborhood models from modern communities on the same landscapes in southern Belize. These finding can be used to quantitatively compare inequality between past and modern societies.