Maya settlement shifts and agrarian ecology in Yucatan, 1800-2000

Scholars attribute the persistence of "traditional" Maya agriculture on the Yucatan peninsula to patterns of dispersal, drift, and flight, which allowed farmers to maintain productivity and to resist the worst exigencies of the colonial and nationalist regimes. In this paper I explore the material consequences of Maya mobility tactics in Yaxcaba, Yucatan. Using documentary and archaeological evidence, I argue that land reform policies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries systemically altered Maya mobility, thereby reshaping the cultural landscape. Changes in settlement systems and archaeological site structure reveal a dynamic rather than "tradition-bound" agrarian ecology, responsive to shifts in the global economy.