This article synthesizes monumentality, governance, urbanism, and regional statecraft in the Northern Maya Lowlands during the Preclassic and Classic periods. As in some parts of the Southern Lowlands, ceremonial spaces likely predated sedentism and monumental construction predated large-scale inequality. Nevertheless, the process of construction and the resulting monuments facilitated complex societies. In the Late Preclassic, some political centers featured factional competition, and there is less evidence for individual rulers than in the Southern Lowlands. The Classic period exhibits remarkable variation in governance. Both dynastic rulership and collective governance in the form of shared decision making are common in the Northern Lowlands throughout the Classic period, with a shift toward the former in later centuries. Northern Lowland cities, while more densely settled than most Southern Lowland centers, do not follow settlement scaling expectations. Density contributed to neighborhood formation and collective action, yet minimal spatial clustering of households makes neighborhoods more difficult to identify. Intra-household inequality appears not to correlate with forms of governance. Marketplaces facilitated the both leadership strategies and household livelihoods. Scholars debate the nature or governance at Chichen Itza, yet several recent projects in its hinterlands clarify the nature of regional statecraft at Chichen, whose leaders exercised a variety of strategies, enabling the enrichment of some of its neighbors.

本文综合了前古典时期和古典时期北玛雅低地的纪念性、治理、城市化和区域治国方略。与南部低地的某些地区一样，仪式空间可能早于定居主义，而纪念性建筑则早于大规模的不平等。然而，建造过程和由此产生的纪念碑促进了复杂的社会。在前古典时代晚期，一些政治中心存在派系竞争，与南部低地相比，个体统治者的证据较少。古典时期的治理呈现出显着的变化。王朝统治和共同决策形式的集体治理在整个古典时期的北部低地都很常见，在后来的几个世纪中转向前者。北部低地城市虽然比大多数南部低地中心人口稠密，但并未遵循定居规模扩大的预期。密度有助于社区的形成和集体行动，但家庭的最小空间聚集使社区更难以识别。家庭内部的不平等似乎与治理形式无关。市场促进了领导战略和家庭生计。学者们对奇琴伊察的性质或治理存在争议，但最近在其腹地进行的几个项目澄清了奇琴地区治国方略的性质，奇琴地区的领导人运用了多种战略，使其一些邻国致富。