Maritime trade in the Maya civilization
In particular, moderately long-distance trade of foreign commodities from the Caribbean and Gulf Coasts provided the larger inland Maya cities with the resources they needed to sustain settled population levels in the several thousands.
[2] The dugout style canoes of the Maya and other small watercraft are also represented in various codices, sometimes ferrying royal figures or deities.
The rich tradition of maritime trade has continued into the modern era, exemplified by the resource exploitation of the coastal lagoons and cay locations along the Caribbean coast of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Eventually, the intensification of maritime trade reliance aided in the collapse of interior Maya power regimes, shifting political influence to coastal polities such as Uxmal and Chichen Itza in the Terminal Classic.
In response to this need, salt workshops cropped up along coastal Maya regions practicing the sal cocida technique of boiling brine in ceramics pots.
), stone tools, manos and metates, textiles, and simple ceramic wares produced throughout the Maya sphere would also have made their way to the major port trade sites for regional distribution.
The control of elite Maya commodities trade from inland to coastal regions was pivotal in creating and reinforcing political rule.
Accessibility to obsidian, seashells, stingray spines, master crafted ceramics, jadeite, cacao, textiles, quetzal feathers, and gold were limited to the top of the Maya social strata.
Presence of these commodities at sites both inland and coastal suggests connections to elite persons and to larger regional city centers, whether through trade or occupational usage.
Not all coastal sites were necessarily occupied primarily as settlements, instead acting as de facto ports of trade because of their strategic locations at river mouths.
[7] Wild Cane Cay on the northern Belizean coast also operated as a trade port focused on foreign obsidian distribution.
Modern strontium isotope analysis provides a means for sourcing shells trade to interior Maya settlements.
Likewise, stingray spines imported from the coast played a major role in royal Maya bloodletting rituals for communing with ancestors and deities.
There is evidence that gold and jade, either as a raw material or a manufactured product, was produced in only limited quantities in the Maya regional sphere.
Many instances of these two rare elite goods traveled by long-distance trade from the Ishmo-Columbian region outside of the Maya cultural sphere.
Artefacts indicative of long-distance trade found at Chac Balam include obsidian, basalt, slate, jade and pottery.
[14] Several burials have been excavated at the site including one of a male buried with jade artefacts and ritual bloodletting paraphernalia suggesting the individual was an elite, possibly even the ruler of Chac Balam.
The site was occupied throughout the Classic and Postclassic, becoming prominent as a port with links to Chichen Itzá and Mayapán and as the possible control point of access to Isla Mujeres.
[15] Isla Cerritos (21.5635N 88.2845W) is located on the north coast of Yucatán in the Gulf of Mexico and a few miles east of the Lagartos river estuary.
The site is large for the island with primarily Late Classic deposits and boasts a natural harbour and the formal arrangement of mounds which supported pole and thatch buildings.
Many artefacts consistent with the conduction of long-distance trade have been found at the site, including exotic pottery, obsidian, basalt and greenstone.
Artefacts uncovered at Marco Gonzalez include green Pachuca and grey Highland Guatemalan obsidian, exotic pottery and greenstone.
[20] San Juan (18.15266N 87.89313W) is located on the northern leeward side of Ambergris Caye, Belize, and was the first place a canoe would encounter after passing through the Bacalar Chico canal.
The comparative ease and swiftness of water transport for moving large quantities of goods played a role in the Maya reliance on waterborne trade.
[26] It is unknown how the interior of the trunk would be excavated however in the Antilles, this was achieved by controlled burning,[27] so it is possible this technique was also employed by the Maya.
The Aztecs are known to have raised the sides of their canoes with planks[26] and it is probable that the Maya did the same as this allows more cargo to be carried and prevents swamping; they were certainly technologically capable of doing this.
This was found in the Paynes Creek National Park in southern Belize at the Eleanor Betty site and dates to the Early Classic between 300 and 600 CE.
The paddle is 1.43 m in length with an oval shaped blade and no grip at the top; radiocarbon dates have identified it as being from the Late Classic, specifically between 680 and 880 CE.
[18] Pictorial representations of Maya canoes show them holding very few people,[20] the maximum known is seven, but ethnohistorical accounts state that they were very large.
