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Instead, human porters would carry trade goods or, where possible, goods were sent via rivers and the sea. The comparative ease and swiftness of water transport for moving large quantities of goods played a role in the Maya reliance on waterborne trade. The Maya primarily used canoes to transport their wares, although raft use is also recorded.
Bartholomew Columbus boarded the canoe, and found it was a Maya trading vessel from Yucatán, carrying well-dressed Maya and a rich cargo. The Europeans looted whatever took their interest from amongst the cargo and seized the elderly captain to serve as an interpreter; the canoe was then allowed to continue on its way.
The Maya relied on a strong middle class of skilled and semi-skilled workers and artisans which produced both commodities and specialized goods. [1] Governing this middle class was a smaller class of specially educated merchant governors who would direct regional economies based upon simple supply and demand analysis, and place mass orders for other regions.
The Maya had no pack animals, so all trade goods were carried on the backs of porters when going overland; if the trade route followed a river or the coast, then goods were transported in canoes. [169] A substantial Maya trading canoe made from a large hollowed-out tree trunk was encountered off Honduras on Christopher Columbus's fourth voyage ...
The local Maya fiercely resisted the placement of the new Spanish colony and d'Avila and his men were forced to abandon it and make for Honduras in canoes. [201] At Campeche, a strong Maya force attacked the city, but was repulsed by the Spanish. [218] Aj Canul, the lord of the attacking Maya, surrendered to the Spanish.
Trade was an essential component of Mesoamerican life in the Postclassic period and the Maya were active participants in a vast macro regional trade network. The movement of commodities as well as information and ideas into interior areas of the peninsula was facilitated by canoe travel along the coast and the extensive river systems in Belize.
It is likely that ancient Chunchucmil was purposefully situated to take advantage of multiple ecological zones, including coastal resources such as the salt-beds of the Celestún peninsula, and to increase accessibility to the vigorous circum-peninsular canoe trade route of Pre-Columbian times, using Canbalam as its port of entry. [7]
Journalist John Noble Wilford notes that evidence for marketplace activity demonstrates an advanced economic structure. Archeologist Richard Terry used a method of chemical analysis to compare the soil of the ruins of Chunchucmil, an ancient Maya city, to that of a modern, unpaved market in Antigua, Guatemala, revealing that it was likely once a vibrant market. [5]