Elite Households in Western Yucatán: Labor Organization and Gender

Abstract

The excavation and archaeological analysis of two elite maya households, localized at Siho Yucatan, have provided evidence about men´s and women´s daily labor organization during Late and Terminal Classic period (800/850-900/950 AD) in western Yucatan. Gender is an analitical category that has made critics to previous established conditions regarding concepts like sexual divison of labor and has promoted a reevaluation of the different roles that individuals play in society. At Siho´s maya households we can find a variety of labors ranging from the so called subsistence activities through a craft production that could relate individuals who occupied the inside as well as the outside household with the entire community.