ABSTRACT
In an attempt to escape the provincialism for which Mayanists have long been accused (e.g., Kluckhohn 1940), over the past several decades archaeologists have drawn models of political organization from outside Mesoamerica to better situate the Classic period Maya within a more general anthropological discourse on political complexity (Adams and Smith 1981; Coe 1957; Sabloff 1986; Sanders 1981:365-9). The application of such comparative models began at a time when reconstructions of Maya political systems were based almost entirely on archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence. Recent archaeological and epigraphic research has greatly enriched our knowledge of Classic Maya political systems. While the unprecedented availability of information from deciphered Classic period texts concerning individual Maya kings, dynasties, polities, intrapolity alliances, and warfare has revolutionized our understanding of Maya political affairs, we emphasize that the full potential of this historical information is only realized by its use in conjunction with archaeological and collateral data sets (Fash and Sharer 1991).
