HOUSEHOLDERS AS WATER MANAGERS: A COMPARISON OF DOMESTIC-SCALE WATER MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FROM TWO CENTRAL MAYA LOWLAND SITES Jeffrey L. Brewer Department of Geography, University of Cincinnati, 401 Braunstein Hall, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221 Abstract Multiple studies conducted over the past few decades have recognized the necessity of rainwater collection and storage as a critical aspect in the evolution of Mayacivilization. Few of these efforts, however, have emphasized the importance of managing water resources at the household level. Data are presented from two central lowland sites—the dispersed hinterland community of Medicinal Trail and the urban center of Yaxnohcah—that elucidate the function of small reservoirs and associated landscape modifications in residential water management. Despite differing physical geographies and trajectories of urban development, residents of both communities were clearly engaged in water management activities based, at least in part, on the creation and use of small reservoirs. Decentralized household water management practices appear to have been temporally and spatially widespread components of Maya civilization beginning in the Preclassic period. INTRODUCTION The land and water management strategies that fostered the develop- ment of complex societies in southern Mesoamerica are incom- pletely understood. For the ancient Maya, however, environmental and resource studies provide a unique lens through which to view the integrative social, political, and economic activities that charac- terized this resilient civilization for centuries prior to the Conquest period. The study of water management features of the Maya low- lands, in particular, has recently proved invaluable in revealing some of the complex human-environment relationships of the Late Preclassic (400 b.c.–a.d. 150) and Classic (a.d. 250–950) period Maya. The interior portions of the lowlands in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize were particularly challenging environments for ancient occupation, owing to a porous limestone (karst) land- scape, a general lack of permanent surface water, and an acute five- month annual dry season. These conditions combined to necessitate the seasonal collection and storage of rainwater not only for sur- vival, but also for domestic, agricultural, and ritual activities across multiple societal levels. Our knowledge of ancient Maya water management is derived from numerous survey and excavation projects undertaken through- out the lowlands that have analyzed a variety of hydrologic features such as reservoirs, seasonally inundated wetlands (bajos), canals, dams, wells, natural sinkholes resulting from the collapse of lime- stone bedrock (cenotes), and small underground water cisterns (chultuns) in an archaeological context (e.g., Akpinar-Farrand et al. 2012; Beach and Dunning 1997; Brewer 2007; Bullard 1960; Chmilar 2005; Davis-Salazar 2003; Dunning et al. 1999; Harrison 1993; Isendahl 2011; Johnston 2004; Lohse and Findlay 2000; Matheny 1976, 1978, 1982; Scarborough 1991, 1994, 1996, 2003; Scarborough and Gallopin 1991; Scarborough et al. 1995; Weiss-Krejci 2013; Weiss-Krejci and Sabbas 2002; Wyatt 2014). Collectively, they provide many insights into the creation and maintenance of these features, as well as their use by the ancient Maya. As scientists continue to study the multifaceted com- ponents of Maya water management, it is becoming increasingly evident that these ancient systems were complex, varied, and far from uniformly distributed across the Maya world. The complexities of Maya water management continue to be explored through a number of broader applications, including within the contexts of landscape modifications (Dunning et al. 1999), critical resource control (Ford 1996), paleoecology (Dunning and Beach 2010; Johnston et al. 2001; Wahl et al. 2007), social and environmental changes (Beach et al. 2015a; Dunning et al. 2013; Kunen 2004; Lucero et al. 2011); political control and political economy (Lucero 1999, 2002, 2006); population estimates and architectural variability (Becquelin and Michelet 1994; McAnany 1990); and sat- ellite imagery and remote sensing analyses (Chase 2016; Chase and Weishampel 2016; Garrison 2010; Saturno et al. 2007; Weller 2006). At both the community and household levels, aguadas—either natural or human-made ponds that still retain water for at least a portion of the year—and topographical depressions that functioned as seasonal reservoirs served as significant sources of water for the region’s inhabitants. Naturally occurring depressions originate from collapse or dissolution sinkholes that are usually found at the margins of bajos and along bedrock fractures in karst uplands 197 E-mail correspondence to: brewerjy@mail.uc.edu Ancient Mesoamerica, 29 (2018), 197–217 Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2018 doi:10.1017/S0956536117000244 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536117000244 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 74.83.124.13, on 09 May 2018 at 18:02:37, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.