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In urban landscapes, market exchange has typically been viewed as a key provisioning strategy for households and institutions (Berdan 1975; Blanton 1996; Blanton and Fargher 2008; Fargher 2009; Hirth 1998). In this regard, the organization of market economies at differing scales of interaction, such as at the household or state level, is stimulated by different motivations, with some initiated by political interests and others that originate in household decision making concerning agricultural and crafting strategies (e.g., intensification, extensification, specialization, and diversification; Fargher 2009; Hirth 2010; Morrison 1994).

The large complex market systems of Late Postclassic period (LPC) Mesoamerica (AD 1350–1521) served both political and domestic needs, requiring market builders to overcome difficulties associated with self-interested, rationally motivated individuals, including local merchants, long-distance traders, elites, and commoners who supplied and consumed the goods and services offered in marketplaces (Blanton 2013). How did these various actors effectively navigate potentially harmful behaviors associated with rational motivations and competitive behavior involving the control and exchange of private goods? Collective action theory provides an important framework to explore this question (Blanton and Fargher 2008, 2009).

Accordingly, we compare access to projectile points, a formal tool that often figures in discussions of wealth and status variation (Andrieu 2013; Carballo 2007; Chase 1992; Hirth 1993:136; Meissner 2017, 2018; Scholes and Roys 1948:344), from two LPC sites with differing governing structures. Tlaxcallan, located in Central Mexico, used a highly collective governing strategy directed toward incorporating commoners and elites in a unified political structure in which power was shared (Fargher et al. 2010; Fargher, Blanton, et al. 2011; Fargher, Heredia, and Blanton 2011). In contrast, the coastal Maya capital of Chetumal (Figure 1), in northern Belize, used a comparatively exclusionary strategy (Chase 1982, 1992; Masson 2000; Oland 2016).

Figure 1.

Contemporary Santa Rita Corozal, the capital city of the Chetumal polity, with sites and sectors mentioned in text (after Chase and Chase 1988:Figures 41–52).

[Figure omitted. See PDF]

Both polities featured different political-economic strategies, and differences in the provisioning of these two cities are tested archaeologically. Collective strategies are expected to provide “open” markets that enhance market access across social sectors while providing tax revenues to the state (Blanton and Fargher 2016:69–98; Carballo et al. 2014). “Restricted markets” occur where political institutions do not...