Chunchucmil had a peak population of 42,400 – 47,600 in its 21 km2 central area along with a large regional population and was the most densely populated and one of the largest cities in all of the Maya Lowlands. Agricultural yields in the northwest Yucatán are constrained by climate, thin soils, and low fertility. Crop yields are extremely low and erratic, .25 to 1 metric tons ha-1 in a good year and as low as .1 metric tons ha-1. Shifting cultivation is proposed to be just as effective as it is today in the Maya Lowlands. Since the mid 1990's Timothy Beach, Bruce Dahlin, and others have been investigating the economy and soil resources of the Chunchucmil region as part of the Pakbeh Regional Economy Program. Due to the lack of soil resources, the enormity of the site, and the assumption that Maya households were agriculturally self-sufficient, the subsistence economy needed to be re-examined. The poor soil resources of the area may indicate that food trade would have been required to supplement the food resources couldn't have been produced at Chunchucmil under traditional agricultural methods, or that agriculture was based on atypical crops and/or methods. This study furthers the investigation of soil resources by determining agricultural potential through soil fertility and pedogenesis analyses and comparing these data to settlement data, population density, and remote sensing images (AIRSAR) from soils and data collected in 2005 and 2006. We further explore soil chemical residues that have the potential to indicate intensive agriculture. Black carbon (BC), carbon isotopes (13C), phosphorus concentrations, and biomarkers will be analyzed as possible indicators of agricultural intensification.