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Cities are locations of diverse human interaction where persons from different families and social affiliations can gather, exchange goods, and participate in community events. However, the management of these diverse interactions and activities requires social and political systems that do not value the contribution of all residents equally, resulting in inequities. In this paper, I present excavation data collected from two urban commoner households at Aventura to assess the nature of inequality at the site. Illustrated through the horizontal excavation of two commoner households, this paper examines what life at Aventura was like for the city’s lower-status residents. Through a discussion of domestic architecture, ritual practices, and refuse deposits, I argue that while some households at Aventura experienced inequality, they remained active and integrated members of the broader community. I conclude by reflecting on the role that this integration of low-status households played in the city’s longevity and the maintenance of its robust and diverse population. 

Recent excavations at the Maya site of Aventura, Belize provide insights into the social, economic, and environmental resources available to the residents of its ancient urban community. In 2019, the Aventura Archaeology Project (AAP) horizontally excavated three households and continued vertical test-pit investigations across commoner and elite domestic groups. The horizontal excavations, comparable to previous excavations of households in 2018, provided new insights into the similarities and differences between structures, features, burials, and middens across status groups at Aventura. One household excavation, Group 54, elucidated commoners’ access and relationships to a nearby water management feature. Commoner household excavations at Group 24, one of the smallest mound features identified by the AAP survey, revealed that even the smallest of Aventura’s households had access, though limited, to cut limestone blocks for domestic architecture. Excavations of an elite patio group, Group 38, to the north of the site core provided architectural data which complicate distinctions between elite and non-elite households. These excavations of households across the site also revealed a pattern of primary and secondary subfloor-burial deposits across elite and non-elite groups, which may indicate an attempt to socially integrate households of all statuses into Aventura’s urban community. Vertical test excavations further support Aventura’s community was inhabited over the long-term, with multiple households revealing Early and Middle Classic materials, and all households revealing occupation during the Late to Terminal Classic transition. Together, household excavations provide insights into the social, economic, and environmental forces that shaped the lives of Aventura’s urban community, bringing better focus to heterogenous and enduring urban populations during dynamic periods of Maya society. 

Recent research at Aventura in Northern Belize presents the first glimpse into a range of its prehistoric households from commoners to elites. In summer 2018, the Aventura Archaeology Project (AAP) excavated two elite households and conducted test pits in five commoner household groups. Drone technology provided the ability to create 3D models of household architecture and excavations. Excavations at the elite households consisted of the first horizontal exposure of buildings by AAP and provide comprehensive insight into structures, features, burials, and middens. One elite household compound, Group 48, was located adjacent to one of six civic-ceremonial plazas that make up Aventura’s central precinct. Excavations at Group 48 identified a series of late occupation structures in the group’s plaza areas, one of which was excavated in its entirety. The other elite household excavation at Group 22 was located directly on the edge of a microenvironment known as a pocket bajo, providing insight into the relationship between households and pocket bajos at Aventura. The earliest occupation of commoner households known to date was the Early Classic period, and all elite and commoner households were occupied in the Late Classic to the Terminal Classic/Early Postclassic, coinciding with Aventura’s maximal occupation. These results suggest Aventura was a thriving community during a time period associated with “collapse” in areas outside of Northern Belize. Aventura’s longevity of occupation contributes to the notion that Northern Belize was an important region in the Maya area and pushes back against traditional narratives about Classic Period “collapse.” 

This paper draws upon the results of the 2017 field research at Aventura to illustrate how Aventura research challenges traditional narratives about ancient Maya civilization. The Maya site of Aventura, located in northern Belize, is a community with a five millennia history spanning forager-horticulturalist, PreColumbian Maya, historic, and contemporary periods. The Classic Maya city of Aventura had its heyday during the period of the Maya “collapse.” As a community with a five millennia history and a city that survives the period of the “collapse,” Aventura challenges traditional narratives about the trajectory of ancient Maya civilization. While Aventura lacks extensive trappings of Maya high culture (stelae, hieroglyphs, and tall temples) its long history belies its importance and prompts reassessment of traditional measures of high culture and reconsideration of terms such as collapse and decline. Aventura is not unique in northern Belize in terms of its ability to survive, and even thrive, during the “collapse.” Lamanai, Caye Coco, Nohmul, Santa Rita, and Sarteneja, among others, survive the “collapse.” Originally considered a peripheral part of the ancient Maya world, site longevity in northern Belize challenges the identification of this region as peripheral.