ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes results of the analysis of wetland cultivation on Albion Island and outlines problems for future work. The ultimate objective of future research is to determine the respective roles of culture and environment in the evolution of Maya civilization. The cultural ecological model emphasizes the limitations of the tropical forest for cultivators and suggests that social stratification emerged through conflict among local groups over good agricultural land. An alternative view shifts the emphasis from intergroup competition as in the cultural ecological model to competition among structurally and functionally identical groups or factions. The capital intensification of production that began in the Late Preclassic period may have provided the crucial leverage needed for elite consolidation of power. Evidence for the Late Preclassic consolidation of power and preoccupation with political competition includes site hierarchies, pyramids and caches with iconography closely linking dynastic with fertility ritual, ball courts, the proliferation of decorated special-function ceramics, fortifications, and mass burial.
