Maya Settlement Patterns and Land Use in Buena Vista, Cozumel, México

Introduction

Cozumel’s importance during the Late Postclassic period as both a port located in the long distance trade route between Honduras and Tabasco, and as a main sacred pilgrimage center is mentioned in several ethnohistorical sources (Roys, et al. 1940, Tozzer 1941, Wagner 1942). Thirty-three archaeological sites of different sizes have been reported on the island. The largest of them, San Gervasio is located in its north-central region, and is composed of six architectonic complexes and several domestic features covering an area of about 3.14 km². Four other sites, two in the north: La Expedicion and San Miguel, and two in the South: El Cedral and Buena Vista, were along with San Gervasio the most important settlements on the island. One of the most remarkable features on Cozumel is a field wall system that covers all but a small portion of the land, divided into irregular plots (Arnold and Frost 1909, Escalona Ramos 1946, Sanders 1956, Freidel and Sabloff 1984). The most elaborate forms of field walls have been only reported around two sites: Buena Vista and Chen Cedral (Freidel and Sabloff 1984).

Studies of land use and subsistence technology in the Maya area (Harrison and Turner 1978, 1983, Siemens and Puleston 1972, Adams 1982, Healy et al. 1983, Pohl 1990, Gomez Pompa et al. 1987, Killion 1992, Fedick 1996, Alexander 2000, Liendo and Vega 2000) indicate that prehispanic Maya were not limited to slash and burn agricultural technologies, as had been suggested before, instead, they employed a variety of techniques associated with higher levels of production, such as raised field, terraces, walled fields, house orchards, and irrigation canals adapted to different microenvironmental zones such as akalches (bajos), hills, coastal areas, swamps, aguadas, cenotes (sinkholes), and rejolladas (conical depressions).

Research on Cozumel’s field wall network, which was probably built to delimitate agricultural plots rather than for defensive purposes, could be a key to understand prehispanic forms of land use and agrarian technology in the island and at the same time help to understand the function of similar field walls reported at other prehispanic settlements on the main land such as Tulum (Vargas 1997), Coba (Fletcher 1984), Xamanha (Silva and Hernandez 1991), Rancho Ina (Terrones 1990, 1994), Chunchucmil (Vleck 1978), Mayapan (Bullard 1952) and Xcaret (Andrews) among others.

Buena Vista, where the most prominent walls in the island are presented, is the perfect site to study how plots are delimited and the relationship between plots and other archaeological remains and physical features.

Click on image to enlarge.

The site of Buena Vista is located 1.5 km inland from the southeastern coast of the island of Cozumel, which is situated 16 km off the northeastern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, México (Figure 1, shown above) (Buena Vista UTM coordinates: Zone 16, 506227 East, 2247436 North). Previous archaeological work by Freidel and Sabloff (1984) indicated that the site is composed of a complex of agglutinate substructures that supported a variety of perishable superstructural remains and some masonry structures. The largest substructure in the site is an artificially raised and leveled area (main platform) covering approximately 7 ha.  Its height varies from 2 to 10 m in some areas, and a large mound-plaza group is built upon its northern end. To the north and south of this platform substructure are groups of "shrines" as well as several scattered smaller platforms and structures (Figure 2). To the east and west there are also other substructures. Small platform substructures continue in moderate density south, east, and west of the main complex. Beyond those is the extensive network of field walls mentioned above. They vary in size from single-course rubble walls (with an estimated standing height of 1 m), to massive walls with rubble and gravel cores and dry-laid masonry retainers standing more than 2 m high and more than 2 m wide. Such massive and simple walls occur in an apparently random fashion, and they enclose areas of 1 ha or less.

From early June to late August 2003, the Buena Vista Archaeological Project under the direction of Adolfo Iván Batún and with the permission of INAH (doc. num. C.A. 401-36/0565), cleared 12 km of "brechas" in the rain forest around the Buena Vista main platform enclosing an area of 4 km², divided into four quadrants of 1,000,000 m². Systematic survey and mapping of all archaeological and physical features over a distance of 30 m on each side of these transects was conducted. In addition, we surveyed each quadrant by walking from side to side every 200 m and chose representative areas to map intensively and test soil profiles.

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