Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1984 - 25

of course, presupposes not only a
large labor force to build it, but a large
energy system to support it. Thus
far, however, no agricultural architecture of any kind (terracing, raised
fields, etc. ) has been discovered in the
immediate environs of the site.
This must mean that agricultural intensification at least within the immediate vicinity of the site took the
form of high, sustained-yield kitchen
gardening. But even gardening would
not have sufficed to support so large
a city; either necessary food subsidies were imported in exchange for
non-farm products or each household had access to fields beyond the
limits of our survey transects. We
suspect that the former is more the
case, although certainly both activities-food importation and outfield
farming- helped to sustain El
Mirador.
A series of six long causeways radiates out from the site like the
spokes of a wheel. These causeways
were built only across the bajos
to facilitate pedestrian traffic, particularly during the rainy season when
heavy, sticky clays make them almost impassable. The total linear distance of 14 kilometers of all six
causeways together, and the total constructional volume of 84,000 cubic
meters, indicate that these causeways
played an important role in the life
of the city -a role more important
than merely giving farmers easier
access to outfields.
Some of the causeways, in fact,
connect El Mirador with other sites
within the region. This suggests that
the causeways had a political and/or
commercial function. The Whittlesey
Causeway, for example, runs to
the site of Tintai, 23 kilometers to the
southeast. Using this distance as
a radius, plus a factor for TintaPs own
sustaining area, the minimal area
in El Mirador's realm and/or catchment area is between 1,300 and
3,000 square kilometers.
The Whittlesey and other causeways also link El Mirador with wetter
ecological zones containing an abundance of moisture-loving plants,
some of whicfy, like the palms, have
important economic uses. Still
other causeways link El Mirador with
parts of the region which display
on aerial photographs and on sidelooking airborne-radar imageries
patches of linear features in the reigning vegetation. One such vegetative
anomaly is found 20 kilometers
southwest of El Mirador and another
to the south of Nakbe. The patches

of linear marks appear to be located
in both upland terrain and in small
bajos and may be marks left by still
extant terrace walls and raised
field canals.
The possibility that the causeways
linking sites and other potentially
productive areas facilitated the importation and circulation of diverse
resources into El Mirador's markets
seems plausible. In fact, three of
the causeways- the Bullard, Andrews
and Gif ford Causeways- merge
at a small group with a large open
plaza known as the Crossroads about
a kilometer west of the West Group.
Moreover, a large open plaza is located
immediately inside each of the city
gates so far identified. Allocation
of some sort of space for a market
function at crossroads and inside
city gates is common in traditional
cities around the world. We therefore strongly suspect that open-air
markets were surprisingly well
developed by the end of the Preclassic
period, and, indeed, were important events handling substantial volumes of business, presumably on
the frequent fiesta days in El Mirador's sacred round.
Unlike in the following Classic
period in the Maya lowlands, all the
inhabitants of the city appear to
have owned the same types of portable
wealth and prestige items, including
imported obsidian and fine ceramic
vessels, but it is clear that higher
status families owned more of them.
Although exotic items produced
as far away as the Guatemalan highlands are not rare at El Mirador,
neither are they as common as one
might expect. At this stage of our
research, social stratification is primarily evident only in variations in
house mound size and elaboration,
from those with finished masonry and
stuccoed façades on high pyramidal
substructures in the middle of the
West Group to the humblest pole and
thatch hut resting on a tamped
marl floor in the bajo below.
No doubt the extent of EJ1Mirador's political control was at least
roughly coextensive with the territory described by its causeways and
the sites which they connect. Moreover, a high level of integration is evident in its necessarily high level
of manpower organization to build the
causeways, earthworks and monumental architecture, for certainly the
labor pool was drawn from the
countryside. A high level of political
integration would also be necessary to man the earthworks.

That Preclassic El Mirador was a
city in a real and full-fledged sense
needs to be emphasized. Maya archaeologists have had a long-standing
reluctance to use the terms "city" and
"urban" to refer to even Classic period ruins, preferring instead to call
them "ceremonial centers." This reluctance is predicated on the overwhelming size and abundance of
obviously ritual structures that dominate these ruins. There is, of course,
no argument about the dominant role
that sacred principles played in the organization of ancient Maya city
states. The question now is, "What is
the relationship between the ceremonial functions of the city and its
more secular functions?"
The sacred city reiterated the cosmos in its design, and the frequent
civic/religious construction projects
and congregational rituals that
were performed in it involved participation of the entire rural populace.
This religious magnetism of the "exemplary center" would literally pave
new avenues upon which small
per capita surpluses would enter the
city's markets. Building and ritual
fervor is expensive but maintaining
cosmic harmony can be expensive
as long as it ensures food imports and
corvée labor to achieve a common
good. In fact, and within limits, the
greater the investment, the larger
the return, for the grandeur of a traditional capital city was the living
proof required by the faithful that the
city's ritual observances and the
political elite who performed them
were, indeed, earning them peace
and prosperity.
The maintenance of harmony
between contentious, cosmic forces
did not depend on propitiating
gods unique to El Mirador, although
El Mirador no doubt possessed its
own "patron saints" and mythical ancestors. The important gods were panMaya and venerated in congregational spaces throughout all Preclassic Maya cities, towns and
villages. This is evident in the placement of the defensive earthworks,
for El Mirador's rulers felt no need to
protect their sanctum sanctorum.
Unafraid for the monuments that even
their enemies respected, they chose to
protect the lives, property and the
administrative and economic nucleus
of the secular state. The rulers of
the first and preeminent ancient Maya
city were wise and practical men
after all, for at the core of ancient Maya
civilization were the imperatives
of the secular state.
1984
September/October

Archaeology Magazine - September/October 1984

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