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140AMCS Bulletin 12 — Chapter 7ancient inhabitants were clearly intent on locating,marking, and transforming water sources. Thesefindings provide convincing evidence for the cosmologicalsignificance of water.Despite their individual morphologies, all cavesappear to have embodied part of a widespread systemof cultural meanings. However, research in the Yalahauregion demonstrates that natural characteristics suchas entrance shape, the presence of water, and cavernsize appear to have been factors in the selection andappropriation of certain subterranean spaces for particularuses. The size of three of the most voluminouscollapse domes in the study area appears to have beenone of the principal factors in the selection of thesecaves for substantial elaboration. Entrance form wasclearly significant as well. Narrow, vertical portals likethat of Actun Tacbi Ha concealed and controlled entryinto these massive chambers.The investigation of a large number of caveswithin a single region is important in presenting a rangeof cave morphologies that provide insights into ancientemic categories. Archaeologists typically makea distinction between caves and rockshelters but theevidence suggests that the latter were fully integratedinto the Maya concept of “cave.” All rockshelters containedarchitectural modifications, several containedincensario fragments and evidence of speleothembreakage and removal. While they functioned as moreopen and accessible sacred places, rockshelters wereclearly perceived as caves.Viewing a large number of caves also suggestsnew interpretations of the interplay between thesubsurface replication of terrestrial domains and theinclusion of caves into the controlled realm of the builtenvironment. Clearly, architectural modifications onthe scale of Actun Toh make strong political and socialstatements as to the cave’s relative importanceand its specialized and restricted use. Perhaps moreimportantly, these investigations provide compellingevidence for the conceptual and physical transfigurationof caves into ordered environments.It was also noted that the Maya were extractingresources from caves. However, the principles of economicefficiency do not adequately fit the cases ofcave mining, speleothem extraction, or water drawing tomake a plausible case that these were utilitarian activities.Once again, the sacred origin of these objectsor materials transcends their physical properties.The study of caves within their greater regionalcontext, which includes surface sites and all caveliketopographic features, facilitates the identificationof such cultural patterning across time and space.Moreover, caves can be exposed as diverse in theirphysiography and use, yet retain their place in theunifying concept of sacred underground domains.Through research in the Yalahau region, caves are realizedas geographically and ideologically integratedenvironments that are linked physically and symbolicallyto the cosmic and terrestrial realms of the ancientMaya.