The role of infield agriculture in Maya cities

•Different infield agricultural strategies lead to variation in urban settlement.•Houselot size and number of associated structures indicate investment in specific infield agricultural strategies.•Increasing amounts of each mean greater investment in specific infield agricultural strategies relative to all systems.

Archaeologists investigating urban settlement in the Maya area have attributed the dispersed nature of Maya cities to intra-settlement infield agriculture – but we have not yet addressed how to determine sources of variability in these agro-urban landscapes. In this paper I propose that one specific kind of infield agriculture – multigenerational household-managed, houselot-based subsistence systems – affected settlement patterns in three northern Maya lowland cities: Cobá, Mayapán, and Chunchucmil. By comparing variation in the number of associated domestic structures (an approximation of multigenerational coresidence) and the amount of vacant houselot area enclosed within property walls (an approximation of land preserved for gardens and arboriculture), it is possible to assess relative differences in investment in this particular strategy. Ultimately different kinds of infield agriculture will lead to different kinds of low-density cities. This approach can be modified for multiple scales of investigation and should stimulate further discussion of the relationship between subsistence and urbanism.