Prudence M. Rice

Mayan Urbanism: Impact On a Tropical Karst Environment

From the first millennium B.C. through the 9th-century A.D. Classic Maya collapse, nonurban populations grew exponentially, doubling every 408 years, in the twin-lake (Yaxha-Sacnab) basin that contained the Classic urban center of Yaxha. Pollen data show that forests were essentially cleared by Early Classic time. Sharply accelerated slopewash and colluviation, amplified in the Yaxha subbasin by urban construction, transferred nutrients plus calcareous, silty clay to both lakes. Except for the urban silt, colluvium appearing as lake sediments has a mean total phosphorus concentration close to that of basin soils. From this fact, from abundance and distribution of soil phosphorus, and from continuing post-Maya influxes (80 to 86 milligrams of phosphorus per square meter each year), which have no other apparent source, we conclude that riparian soils are anthrosols and that the mechanism of long-term phosphorus loading in lakes is mass transport of soil. Per capita deliveries of phosphorus match physiological outputs, approximately 0.5 kilogram of phosphorus per capita per year. Smaller apparent deliveries reflect the nonphosphatic composition of urban silt; larger societal outputs, expressing excess phosphorus from deforestation and from food waste and mortuary disposal, are probable but cannot be evaluated from our data. Eutrophication is not demonstrable and was probably impeded, even in less-impacted lakes, by suspended Maya silt. Environmental strain, the product of accelerating agroengineering demand and sequestering of nutrients in colluvium, developed too slowly to act as a servomechanism, damping population growth, at least until Late Classic time.

On the Origins of Pottery

Renewed research interest in the origins of pottery has illuminated an array of possible precipitating causes and environmental contexts in which pottery began to be made and used. This article is an attempt at synthesizing some of these data in hopes of stimulating further research into this intriguing topic. Following a review of theories on the origins of pottery, discussion proceeds to a survey of geographic and cultural contexts of low-fired or unfired pottery, highlighting the role(s) of pottery among contemporary hunter-gatherers and summarizing data pertaining to varied uses of pottery containers. It is argued that objects of unfired and low-fired clay were created as part of early “prestige technologies” of material representations beginning in the Upper Paleolithic and are part of an early “software horizon.” Clay began to be more widely manipulated by nonsedentary, complex hunter-gatherers in the very Late Pleistocene and early Holocene in areas of resource abundance, especially in tropical/subtropical coastal/riverine zones, as part of more general processes of resource and social intensification (such as “competitive feasting” or communal ritual). Knowledge of making and using pottery containers spread widely as “prestige technology” and as “practical technology,” the kind and timing of its adoption or “reinvention” varying from location to location depending on specific needs and circumstances.

Recent ceramic analysis: 1. Function, style, and origins

The recent literature on ceramic analysis, which has grown dramatically over the last 8 years, is reviewed in two articles. In this first article attention focuses on studies of function and use, stylistic analyses, and pottery origins. Functional analysis has been the most rapidly expanding segment of the field, particularly experimental, ethnoarchaeological, and residue analysis approaches. Stylistic analyses seem to be in a lull, following increasing dissatisfaction with information theory approaches. Questions of pottery origins are enjoying renewed interest and are briefly surveyed here. The second of the two articles will survey compositional investigations, pottery production, and approaches to “ceramic theory.” Both reviews close with observations on current directions in ceramic studies.

Recent ceramic analysis: 2. Composition, production, and theory

This is the second of two articles reviewing the burgeoning literature on recent ceramic analysis. The first (Journal of Archaeological Research, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1996) (pp. 133–163) surveyed functional and stylistic analyses and pottery origins. This article reviews compositional investigations and studies of pottery production, both of which have flourished in a period of heightened examination of specific techniques, assumptions, and concepts, such as standardization. In addition, researchers are exploring new analytical methods as well as approaches to “ceramic theory.” The review closes with a series of observations and critiques of current directions.

ASTRONOMY, RITUAL, AND THE INTERPRETATION OF MAYA “E-GROUP” ARCHITECTURAL ASSEMBLAGES

E-group architectural assemblages, constructed and used for more than a millennium in the Maya Lowlands, are among the most distinctive and enduring forms in Mesoamerican monumental architecture. Since the 1920s, E-groups have been thought to mark the solstices and equinoxes, but more recent investigations have shown that these alignments were rarely accurate. We argue that accurate solar alignment was probably only a minor element, and primarily an early one, of a larger set of metaphorically linked design considerations that included concepts of sacred geography, ritual performance in reference to yearly solar and agricultural cycles, and longer cycles of time, especially katuns, that played a role in Lowland Maya geopolitical structuring.

The Spanish colonial kiln tradition of Moquegua, Peru

Twenty-six kiln locations have been identified in association with Spanish colonial bodegas (wineries) in the Moquegua valley of southern Peru. The kilns are variable in size, design, and construction, and their differences may relate to the two probable functions of the kilns: firing earthenware vessels used in fermenting and transporting wine and brandy, and calcining calcium minerals or other materials. The Moquegua kilns show similarities to the hornos árabes (Moorish kilns) of Spain, as well as some features common to Spanish technological transfer in the New World.

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.

Provenience Analysis of Obsidians from the Central Peten Lakes Region, Guatemala

A set of 296 obsidian artifacts from the lakes area of the Department of Peten, Guatemala, has been provenienced by X-ray fluorescence and neutron activation analysis. The obsidians come from socioeconomic contexts (primarily rural/domestic) and time periods—from the Middle Preclassic period, ca. 800 B.C., up to the time of Spanish contact, A.D. 1525—that have been poorly represented in previous Lowland provenience studies. Thus they provide new data on the acquisition and distribution of this important non-local commodity in the Maya Lowlands.

The Spanish colonial wineries of Moquegua, Peru

The Moquegua Bodegas Project is an ongoing archaeological and historical research project focused on the bodegas (wineries) established by Spanish colonial settlers in the Moquegua valley of far southern Peru. During two seasons of survey, 130 bodega locations were identified in this small valley, testifying to the economic importance of wine and brandy production, chiefly for transport to the mining areas of “Upper Peru.” The 1987 season included shovel testing at 27 sites, mapping of the adobe ruins of 20 bodegas, and excavations at one bodega, Locumbilla, which confirmed an early 17th century date for the site and yielded evidence of a buried kiln. Continuing excavations are planned for Locumbilla and additional bodegas.

The Archaeology of Wine: The Wine and Brandy Haciendas of Moquegua, Peru

AbstractSpanish colonial settlement of the Moquegua valley of far southern Peru was oriented economically toward production of wine and brandy. A total of 130 wine hacienda sites (bodegas) can be identified there, primarily on the basis of adobe structures on hills bordering the valley. These sites had both residential and “industrial” functions, and their arrangements can be described by four site plans or layouts. This article describes the “industrial” sectors of the sites, particularly the facilities for wine and brandy making (crushing tanks) rooms holding earthenware fermentation jars, distillery apparatus, and the functionally “specialized” site plan. Facilities were arranged spatially to incorporate gravity flow in moving liquids. The technology and organization of wine-making at the Moquegua sites evince similarities not only with Spanish models, but also with much earlier Roman wine-making.