Complexity, Cooperation, and Public Goods: Quality of Place at Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala

Abstract

Public goods are “non-excludable” and “non-rivalrous” resources, including roads, water management systems, and plazas, as well as “symbolic public goods,” such as religious architecture and social identity. Public goods occur in greater abundance in cities with more cooperative and inclusive forms of organization, which seems to undermine arguments that elites constructed them to augment their power. Such goods are major “pull” factors drawing migration to modern cities, but ancient cities also had public goods that likely attracted immigrants, increasing their population and diversity. We examine these ideas at Middle Preclassic-period (cal 800–300 BC) Nixtun-Ch'ich', in Petén, Guatemala. This city and other Preclassic metropoles in the Maya lowlands seem to have been on the more-cooperative end of a cooperative–competitive spectrum, compared to most cities of the Classic period (AD 200–900). We also speculate about how symbolic public goods were coopted to create a more exclusive social system in the Late Preclassic period (300 BC–AD 200).

The impact of ancient Mesoamerican cities on long-term environmental sustainability: the view from historical ecology

“…), and Nixtun-Ch'ich', in the Peten, Guatemala (peaked between 800 and 500 B.C.E.) (Sharer and Traxler, 2006;Blanton et al, 2022;Pugh et al, 2022). During the subsequent Late-Terminal Preclassic (300 B.C.E.-C.E.…”

The influence of tropical Atlantic sea-surface temperatures and the North Atlantic Subtropical High during the Maya Droughts

“…The urban center of Nixtun-Ch’ich’ is characterized by a gridded system of six streets (oriented east to west) that intersect with seven avenues (north to south) (Pugh, 2019). This layout, plus a series of canals, likely mitigated flooding during heavy precipitation events by draining excess water from the city center into Petén Itzá (Pugh et al, 2022). The core site used for this study is situated directly downstream of two of the north-south avenues, which likely transported large amounts of water and suspended sediment into the lake during precipitation events (Birkett et al, 2023; Pugh et al, 2022).…”