ABSTRACT
Agriculture was at the core of the subsistence economy of the ancient Maya societies and reached its height during the Classic period (ad 300-900) as an infield-outfield agricultural system (Netting 1977) based on the maize-bean-gourd trilogy. Classic Maya cities, characterized by dispersed households (Drennan 1988), were associated with an agricultural territory that included both intensively cultivated spaces close to the dwellings and farther, extensively cultivated spaces. Nevertheless, very few studies reveal precise schemes of the field system organization. In fact, this subject is a methodological challenge on the one hand because of the environmental context of sub-tropical forests (leading to visibility and conservation problems), and on the other hand because of the high variability of such systems between sites. Each city presents a different spatial layout, corresponding with the sociopolitical and economic processes influenced by its own local history. Questions about agricultural systems are raised at every new archaeological site because of inherent difficulties like identifying intra-site plots (location and the nature of exploitation), relating them with dwelling units, and reconstructing the spatio-temporal dynamic of the whole agricultural system.
