William L. Rathje

Ancient Maya commercial systems: A research design for the island of Cozumel, Mexico

Abstract In 1972 the authors inaugurated the Cozumel Archaeological Project to study the material structure of a port‐of‐trade in order to better understand the nature of its behaviour as a total system. This paper presents a model which relates the internal structure of ports‐of‐trade to the centralization of resource control among the site‐level components which use its facilities. This dynamic model provides a framework upon which to view the process of culture change on the island of Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico, and to organize the collection and presentation of data from the 1972 and 1973 field seasons.

A Model of Ports-of-Trade

Anthropologists have long been interested in the processes by which social system adapt to changing enviroments. History, ethnohistory, and archaeology provide cross-cultural opportunities to study the structural organization of systems that respond to frequent external and internal changes. One such system is represented by ports-oftrade in which the flow of goods, services, and merchants from culturally diverse societies is in continual flux.