Introduction: The Long Road to Maya Markets

This book argues that market exchange was a significant aspect of the Classic Maya world. The essays that follow draw on broad-ranging, interdisciplinary datasets from the ancient Maya city of Chunchucmil to illuminate some of the thorny questions about ancient economies signaled by the tensions between the two quotations above (see also Hirth 2010; Hirth and Pillsbury 2013a; Masson and Freidel 2012; Shaw 2012). Were Classic Maya households mostly self-sufficient in the sense that each acquired the raw materials and produced the finished goods necessary for daily life? Or was exchange a critical factor in provisioning Maya society? If exchange