This issue's special section presents a series of papers focusing on recent research on ancient Maya causeways, or sacbeob (“white roads”—a reference to their gleaming, plastered surfaces). Often relegated to the status of “minor architectural features,” even a casual perusal of the literature quickly convinces one that sacbeob were a major feature of the ancient Maya landscape. Throughout the Maya lowlands from at least the Late Preclassic onward, these elevated roads facilitated internal and external transportation within and between Maya centers for a combination of economic, political, social, and ritual purposes. Constructed as an organic element of the built environment, road systems grew in size and expanded in complexity as the Maya centers themselves did (Andrews 1975:89, 323, 428).