The Classic Maya Collapse: A Review of Evidence and Interpretations Page: 68
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68
the massive pyramidal structures as had been the case in the
past. If answers could be found, they would be in relation
to the mass of the extinct population. Studies of house
mounds would be pursued more diligently to provide population
estimates and a sustaining area,
the area occupied by a population whose religious
and political ties are to one specific ceremonial
center, who supplied the labor for construction
and maintenance of the center, and who provide
food and services for those specialists concerned
with religious and administrative duties.43
Such studies are still in their infancy, and as William
T. Sanders noted,most of the small number of settlement pattern
studies
have involved intensive surveys of very small dis-
tricts adjacent to major political centers, and the
data have been extremely deficient in what we would
call rural settlement patterns. Large-scale surveys
comparable to recent surveys conducted in Central
Mexico, in highland Guatemala, and in the Valley4?f
Oaxaca have not been conducted in the Maya area.
It will be some time before sufficient data has been gathered
to make any but the most tentative speculations. Yet Tikal has
been the site of the most ambitious such project to date with
the mapping of some six square miles of the central area. 45
Information remains sketchy, but "studies in the Southern Maya
Lowlands . . . show . . . a definite increase of population
43. Ibid, p. 28.
44. William T. Sanders, "The Cultural Ecology of the Lowland
Maya: A Reevaluation," in Classic Maya Collapse, ed. Culbert,
p. 326.
45. William R. Coe,, Tikal: A Handbook of the Ancient Maya
Ruins (Philadelphia: Universify of Pennsylvania, University
Museum, 1967), p. 21.
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Wood, Jeffrey Clark. The Classic Maya Collapse: A Review of Evidence and Interpretations, thesis, December 1977; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc504349/m1/72/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .