| Abstract: | A hypothesis developed by Vernon Scarborough and endorsed and modified by Lisa Lucero and Anabel Ford proposes that lowland Maya elites centralized and coordinated political power by controlling access to water stored in large, centrally located reservoirs. The hypothesis presupposes that in the central and southern Maya lowlands, nonelites did not have access to viable alternative dry‐season water sources. This paper demonstrates that, in the east‐central and southwestern areas of the Maya lowlands, fault springs were an important source of water, particularly to rural peoples. After reviewing the evidence of Maya fault spring exploitation and documenting the hydrogeological conditions under which fault springs form, I describe wells that rural households built to expose fault springs and enhance their flow, including clay‐lined and stone‐lined shafts. Also documented are three well types found elsewhere in the Maya lowlands: (1) wells built to exploit permanent, generally shallow water tables; (2) wells dug to catch precipitation as it filtered down through bedrock; and (3) buk'teob, built to recover during the dry season the receding contents of pools that during the rainy season collect in aguadas. The dispersed distribution of Maya wells in rural settings and their frequent association with modest residential remains suggests that nonelite households managed them. The existence of Maya wells that supplied water to rural peoples through the dry season is inconsistent with the Scarborough‐Lucero‐Ford hypothesis. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. |
