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This interdisciplinary chapter investigates the forces behind the location and endurance of the Great City of Calakmul, the biogenic (human and natural) nucleus of a large agronomic system of cultural and biological forces during 1500 years. The architectural, ceramic, malacological, chemical, epigraphic, linguistic, demographic, pollen, paleoclimate, and physical-anthropological data involved in the development and decline of Calakmul and its region from earliest times to the tenth century AD are investigated. Geochemical measurements are correlated with ceramic frequencies internal to the city to demonstrate that high ceramic usage from the Late Preclassic onward corresponds to the deposition of potassium in the surrounding terrain that, being largely human in origins, witnesses a very dense population. Ceramic chemistry shows manufacture to be largely local. Folding in the epigraphic-linguistic evidence, this study demonstrates that the human population was responding to grander atmospheric (paleoclimatic) changes by migration as well as conforming to local geology and terrain. Mixed in with all of this, Calakmul interacted with other political units in the lowlands before surrendering its predominance to coastal communities such as Champoton (Cha kan putun) on the west coast of Campeche during the Postclassic. Inglés