John P. Walden

Harvard University | Harvard · Department of Anthropology

Land use practices have had important implications for structuring household inequalities and broader political systems in the past. Our contribution examines settlement patterns in relation to political structure, household wealth, ecological productivity and agricultural techniques. Combining settlement pattern data with high–precision soils data...

The successful occupation of the eastern Eurasian Steppe in the Late Pleistocene improved cultural connections between western Eurasia and East Asia. We document multiple waves of lithic technological transmission between the eastern Eurasian Steppe and northern China during 50-11 cal. ka BP. These waves are apparent in the sequential appearance of...

Many humans live in large, complex political centers, composed of multi-scalar communities including neighborhoods and districts. Both today and in the past, neighborhoods form a fundamental part of cities and are defined by their spatial, architectural, and material elements. Neighborhoods existed in ancient centers of various scales, and multiple...

Since its inception in 1988, the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance (BVAR) Project has had two major foci, that of cultural heritage management and archaeological research. While research has concentrated on excavation and survey, the heritage management focus of the project has included the preservation of ancient monuments, the integrati...

Classic Maya architecture serves as a durable reminder of the political strategies its builders engaged in. Specifically, the level of accessibility encoded within architectural layouts offers an avenue to examine the intentions of their designers. This chapter focusses on identifying patterned variability in accessibility of architecture from 17 s...

Intermediate elites played pivotal roles in the political dynamics of ancient complex societies across the world. In the Classic period (CE 250–900/1000) Maya lowlands, intermediate elites acted as mediators between apical rulers and lower status commoners. These individuals and the political strategies they employed, however, have rarely taken cen...

The quantification of wealth and inequality in archaeological contexts has been a subject of significant debate, with wealth items and architectural investment emerging as typical measures for economic differentiation. The divergent results of both inequality measures for two neighborhoods of the Late Classic Maya polity of Lower Dover, in modern-d...

Ancient palatial complexes offer opportunities to understand the actors at the apex of prehistoric polities. With careful and complex design, these structures were built to represent the affluence of those who resided within their confines. While the external façade of a palace represents the defining barrier between the elite and the public, the a...

In this chapter, we investigate evidence suggesting that the ancient Maya played a dice game similar to the sixteenth-century Aztec dice game of patolli, a game of chance described by Spanish chroniclers (e.g., Durán 1971; Sahagún 1979b). Our objective is to document features we infer to be patolli gameboards that survive in the archaeological reco...