The archaeological remains at Hacienda Tabi provide an opportunity to study the
effects of large-scale societal changes on the lives of the Maya who worked on the
hacienda. The households, represented by the ruins of the worker??????s village surrounding
the main hacienda grounds, were at the core of late colonial/independence era Maya life.
These households were subject to the forces of acculturation that accompanied the rise
and supremacy of the hacienda system during the late eighteenth century.
Archaeological excavations at Hacienda Tabi have revealed a re-orientation of
social organization during this period. Prior to the formation of the hacienda system,
domestic and social organization focused on kinship and extended family subsistence
organization. Social status, wealth, and power in pre-hacienda communities were
predicated on issues of age, sex, and familial rank within both the extended family and
community. The hacienda system brought about fundamental changes in the
organization and relations of production. These changes, e.g. the separation of producer
from the means of production and commodity based production versus subsistence based
production, changed the basis and therefore the form of Yucatecan social organization. Under the new system, the nuclear family rather than the extended family or community
became the prime unit of social organization. In the hacienda community status was
based on occupation and one??????s place within the newly established labor hierarchy.
The changing realities of social organization found under the hacienda system are
reflected in the settlement patterns and material remains of the workers?????? village at
Hacienda Tabi. The material culture and types of housing excavated and recorded at
Tabi underscore the inequalities engendered within the hacienda system of production.
The research conducted at Hacienda Tabi has illuminated the changes associated with
Yucatan??????s articulation into the greater world system