Joyce Marcus

Territorial Organization of the Lowland Classic Maya

Thus far I have discussed ancient Maya sociopolitical structure from the upper levels of the hierarchy downward. Let me now summarize their territorial organization from the bottom upward, starting at the hamlet level (Fig. 8). The smallest unit of settlement—one usually overlooked by archeological surveys in the lowland rain forest—was probably a cluster of thatched huts occupied by a group of related families; larger clusters may have been divided into four quadrants along the lines suggested by Coe (26). Because of the long fallow period (6 to 8 years) characteristic of slash-and-burn agriculture in the Pet�n, these small hamlets are presumed to have changed location over the years, although they probably shifted in a somewhat circular fashion around a tertiary ceremonial-civic center for whose maintenance they were partly responsible. These tertiary centers were spaced at fairly regular intervals around secondary ceremonial-civic centers with pyramids, carved monuments, and palace-like residences. In turn, the secondary centers occurred at such regular intervals as to form hexagonal patterns around primary centers, which were still larger, with acropolises, multiple ceremonial plazas, and greater numbers of monuments. In some cases, the distance between secondary centers was roughly twice the distance between secondary and tertiary centers, creating a lattice of nested hexagonal cells. This pattern, which conforms to a Western theoretical construct, was presumably caused by factors of service function, travel, and transport. The pattern was not recognized by the Maya at all. They simply recognized that a whole series of smaller centers were dependent on a primary center and therefore mentioned its emblem glyph. Linking the centers of the various hexagons were marriage alliances between members of royal dynasties, who had no kinship ties with the farmers in the hamlets. Out of the large number of primary centers available to them, the Maya selected four as regional capitals. True to their cosmology, the Maya regarded these capitals as associated with the four quadrants of their realm, regardless of their actual location. Each was the home city for a very important dynasty whose junior members probably ruled secondary centers. Since the hexagonal lattices were probably adjusted to variations in population density, each of the four quadrants of the Maya realm probably controlled a comparable number of persons. So strong was the cognized model that, despite the rise and fall of individual centers, there seem always to have been four capitals, each associated with a direction and, presumably, with a color. There is still a great deal to learn about the social, political, and territorial organization of the lowland Maya, and parts of the picture presented here need far more data for their confirmation. What seems likely is that the Maya had an overall quadripartite organization (rather than a core and buffer zone) and that within each quadrant there was at least a five-tiered administrative hierarchy of capital, secondary center, tertiary center, village, and hamlet. Perhaps most significant, there was no real conflict between the lattice-like network predicted by locational analysis and the cosmological four-part structure predicted by epigraphy and ethnology.

Lowland Maya Archaeology at the Crossroads

The Lowland Maya region has seen an enormous increase of new data over the last decade, but our progress is hampered by a tendency for cyclic return to previous theoretical positions. This results from several factors: too short a view of the disciplines history; a lack of familiarity with the rest of Mesoamerica; a lack of collaboration among archaeologists, ethnohistorians, and epigraphers; and a tendency to view alternative methodologies as competing rather than complementary. This paper synthesizes some of the major new discoveries and suggests where progress might be made if differing approaches were used in concert rather than in isolation.

Cuello : an early Maya community in Belize

Acknowledgements 1. The Maya and their civilization: Introduction: the geography, chronology and achievements of the Maya Norman Hammond 2. Archaeological investigations at Cuello, 1975-1987 Norman Hammond 3. Stratigraphy and chronology in the reconstruction of Preclassic development at Cuello Norman Hammond, Juliette Cartwright Gerhardt and Sara Donaghey 4. The economy and ecology of Cuello: the natural and cultural landscape of Preclassic Cuello Charles H. Miksicek 5. The exploitation of animals Elizabeth S. Wing and Sylvia J. Scudder 6. The community of Cuello: the ceremonial core Juliette Cartwright Gerhardt and Norman Hammond 7. The community of Cuello: patterns of household and settlement change Richard P. Wilk and Harold L. Wilhite, Jr. 8. The Preclassic people of Cuello Frank P. Saul and Julie Mather Saul 9. Craft technology and production Norman Hammond 10. External contacts and trade at Cuello Norman Hammond 11. Ritual and ideology Cynthia Robin 12. Cuello in context: a summary Norman Hammond Bibliography Index.

Calakmul: New Data from an Ancient Maya Capital in Campeche, Mexico

In this paper we summarize more than a decade of interdisciplinary work at Calakmul, including (1) the mapping project, which has covered more than 30 km 2 ; (2) the excavation project, which has uncovered major structures and tombs in the center of the city; (3) the epigraphic project, whose goal is to study the hieroglyphic texts and relate them to the archaeological evidence; (4) the analysis of the architecture, ceramics, and chipped stone to define sacred and secular activity areas and chronological stages; and (5) a focus on the ecology, hydrology, and paleoclimatology of Calakmul and its environs with the aim of understanding more fully its periods of development and decline.

Recent advances in Maya archaeology

This paper focuses on the discoveries of the last decade in Maya archaeology, and assesses their impact on previous models and synthetic frameworks. Although the bibliography includes 700 items published during the last 10 years, it is not exhaustive; on the contrary, a frustratingly large number of discoveries had to be omitted. Two areas exploding with new research are (1) the elicitation of a greater variety of data from hieroglyphic texts, and (2) a series of chemical and biological breakthroughs in the analysis of human burials. The former make it easier to assess the role of elite actors or “agents” in processes of sociopolitical change. The latter hold out the hope of documenting warfare (through skeletal trauma), migration (by tracing tooth enamel isotopes to ground water), status or gender differences in diet (through bone chemistry), and biological connections of individuals to each other and to earlier populations (through DNA). By combining these new data, we are on our way to integrating humanism and science, and to treating Maya polities as case studies in primary or secondary state formation.

The origin of war: New 14C dates from ancient Mexico

New 14C dates from archaeological sites in Oaxaca, Mexico, support R. C. Kellys observation that intervillage raiding may begin as soon as a region has segmentary societies. The oldest defensive palisade dates to 3260–3160 B.P. in conventional radiocarbon years, only a few centuries after village life was established. Over the next millennium raiding evolved into war, with residences and temples burned, captives killed, and populations moving to defensible hills. 14C dates are now available for the first use of hieroglyphic writing to record a captives name, military victories leading to the consolidation of the Zapotec state, the first skull rack, and the building of a fortress in conquered territory.

The Plant World of the Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Lowland Maya

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the plant world of the 16th and 17th century Lowland Maya. An examination of 16th and 17th century documents for the Lowland Maya reveals a pattern of plant use and classification that shows both extraordinary continuity and some aspects of significant change. In the realm of change, it was seen that the plant vocabulary of the period reflects at least four different phases of Maya history. The first phase was an indigenous Maya phase in which the concept of tree, plant, or wood had been encoded, and color terms were used to distinguish specific plants within generic categories. In the next phase, perhaps as early as the Toltec migrations to Yucatan in the A.D. 10th and 11th centuries, the Nahua concept of xihuitl , herb, was introduced to Yucatec where it became xiu . In the realm of continuity, the 16th and 17th century data reveal a pattern of plant use, some aspects of which can be traced backward in time to the Late Classic period and forward to the 20th century.

The iconography of power among the Classic Maya

Abstract The paper is restricted to three topics: the way the Maya ruling class used iconography and writing to establish its credentials; the way they contrasted conqueror and conquered; and the way realism was employed to distinguish the ruler and the ruled. Comparisons are made with the Zapotec centre of Monte Alban which emphasize that other archaic Mesoamerican states displayed themes of militarism and power.

The coevolution of ritual and society: New 14C dates from ancient Mexico

New 14C dates from Oaxaca, Mexico, document changes in religious ritual that accompanied the evolution of society from hunting and gathering to the archaic state. Before 4000 B.P. in conventional radiocarbon years, a nomadic egalitarian lifeway selected for unscheduled (ad hoc) ritual from which no one was excluded. With the establishment of permanent villages (4000–3000 B.P.), certain rituals were scheduled by solar or astral events and restricted to initiates/social achievers. After state formation (2050 B.P.), many important rituals were performed only by trained full-time priests using religious calendars and occupying temples built by corvée labor. Only 1,300–1,400 years seem to have elapsed between the oldest known ritual building and the first standardized state temple.

On the logic of archaeological inference: Early Formative pottery and the evolution of Mesoamerican societies

The 2005 articles by Stoltman et al. and Flannery et al. to which Neff et al. (this issue) have responded are not an indictment of instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) but, rather, of the way Blomster et al. (2005) misuse it and of the hyperbolic culture-historical claims they have made from their INAA results. It has long been acknowledged that INAA leads not to sources but to chemical composition groups. Based on composition groups derived from an extremely unsystematic collection of sherds from only seven localities, Blomster et al. claim that the Olmec received no carved gray or kaolin white pottery from other regions; they also claim that neighboring valleys in the Mexican highlands did not exchange such pottery with each other. Not only can one not leap directly from the elements in potsherds to such sweeping culture-historical conclusions, it is also the case that other lines of evidence (including petrographic analysis) have for 40+ years produced empirical evidence to the contrary. In the end, it was their commitment to an unfalsifiable model of Olmec superiority that led Blomster et al. to bypass the logic of archaeological inference.