A Tale of Two E Groups
E Groups represent the first monumental gathering spaces in the Maya lowlands, and their distribution represents a social map of the landscape shared by distinct, autonomous communities. This chapter examines the biographies of the E Groups in two such neighboring communities, El Palmar and Tikal, Guatemala. Residents of both communities experimented with scale and aesthetics in analogous ways as they cooperated to build the monumental cores of each center. The patterns of social engagement in the E Groups at El Palmar and Tikal; however, radically diverged. Environmental change and shifts in the political landscape contributed to the abandonment of El Palmar’s E Group, while the inhabitants of Tikal continued to invest in construction in the Mundo Perdido E Group complex. The focused case study of these two communities suggests possibilities for why some people migrated away from certain E Group centers in the Early Classic (250-600 CE) while their neighbors did not.