164 | 8 Maya Residential Architecture, Mobility, and the Terminal Classic Abandonment of Lowland Urban Settlements M. CHARLOTTE ARNAULD, EVA LEMONNIER, DOMINIQUE MICHELET, AND MÉLANIE FORNÉ DOI: 10.5876/9781646420735.c008 Residential mobility was a great leveler. Kohler (1992, 631) Mesoamerican societies underwent a long Classic/Postclassic transition through an Epiclassic stage (ad 600–900) that encompassed different types of mobility and migrations among other determinant processes (Beekman and Christensen 2003; Cowgill 2013). In the Maya area, “mythistoric migrations” narrated in chronicles represent founding events for the Postclassic highland societies—K’iche’, Q’eqchi’, and Poqomchi’ in particular (Arnauld and Michelet 1991; Breton 2007; Fox 1987). Some centuries before, many lowland cities had been abandoned in a general desertion most often cited as a symptom of the Terminal Classic “collapse,” or crisis, from ad 780 to 950 (Aimers 2007; Demarest et al. 2004; Iannone 2014; Lucero 2002). Along with other processes, this crisis involved a series of population movements with a broad displacement of settle- ments from the south-central lowlands to the northern lowlands (Turner and Sabloff 2012) and to the southern highlands. After centuries of apparent stability