December 19, 2001 APPLYING THE HOUSE SOCIETY MODEL TO MAYA SOCIAL ORGANIZATION Susan D. Gillespie University of Florida Paper presented at the 100th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association November 28 - December 2, 2001 Washington, DC in the session "Modeling Classic Maya Social Organization: Approaches, Data, and Implications" ABSTRACT In his 1983 critique of attempts by archaeologists to reconstruct Maya social organization using idealized invariant models that merely described their data, Jeremy Sabloff argued instead we should investigate the relevant variations of a specific model as determined from ethnographic cases and explore its potential for raising new questions and predicting hitherto unnoticed facts. His remarks are still apt today as some archaeologists are discovering the "house" model for Maya social organization either as an alternative to, or to stand alongside, the more venerable "lineage" model. The "house" as a type of social organization was defined by Claude Lévi-Strauss in 1979, and it is his definition that most archaeologists rely upon. However, Lévi-Strauss's ethnographic descriptions were sparse and his treatment of the house as a social unit equivalent to lineage or clan has been subsequently critiqued. Without a more complete understanding of how the house concept has since been refined and its variations described by ethnographers, archaeologists will fail to realize its potential for explaining multiple aspects of Maya social organization, and the "house" will become an over-generalized, over-idealized buzzword. This paper clarifies some of the current misunderstandings of what the house represents as a unit of social organization, distinguishes how this approach to social structure is at odds with the emphasis in Anglo- American anthropology on corporate descent groups, summarizes important points of variation in house societies, and details how hitherto unrealized aspects of the Maya archaeological record can be integrated by using the house society model. © 2001 Susan D. Gillespie. All Rights Reserved.