Thomas H. Guderjan

Maya Settlement and Trade on Ambergris Caye, Belize

Archaeological fieldwork was conducted on Ambergris Caye, Belize, for three years beginning in 1986. Nineteen archaeological sites were identified during survey work. Intensive excavations were conducted at three sites and limited excavation at several others. In addition, a fourth site has been excavated by another party. This data base gives us the opportunity to examine the diachronic and functional variability of the archaeological record.

PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE, RITUAL, AND TEMPORAL DYNAMICS AT THE MAYA CENTER OF BLUE CREEK, BELIZE

This paper summarizes more than a decade of excavations in the monumental core precinct of the Maya center of Blue Creek in northwestern Belize. Extensive and intensive excavations at Blue Creek have been undertaken since 1992. Consequently, a large database has been accumulated, particularly regarding the Early Classic period. Although occupation at Blue Creek dates to the Early Preclassic period (900 b.c.), complex society and, probably, the installation of Blue Creeks first king occurred at about a.d. 100, in the Late Preclassic period. For the next several hundred years, Blue Creek grew in population and complexity, finally being abandoned at some time in the ninth century a.d.

‘Mayacene’ floodplain and wetland formation in the Rio Bravo Watershed of northwestern Belize

This is the first article to characterize the soil and fluvial geomorphology of the Rio Bravo’s fluviokarst watershed in the Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area, northwestern Belize. Although the watershed has had little-altered tropical forest cover since c. 1000 BP, humans inhabited it for millennia, especially during the Maya Preclassic and Classic, c. 3000–1000 BP. We studied soils and floodplain formation in four excavation transects in the Rio Bravo to understand long-term human impacts on this watershed. Archaic to Preclassic (c. 3000–1700 BP) sedimentation rates ranged from 0.82 mm yr−1 at Chawak But’o’ob to 1.5 mm yr−1 on the Gran Cacao floodplain. The late Preclassic through Classic (c. 2300–1000 BP) rates rose 0.98–2.03 mm yr−1, and the Classic (c. 1700–1000 BP) rates ranged from 1 mm yr−1 to as high as 9.12 and 16.27 mm yr−1 at ancient Maya wetland field sites. Post Classic rates dropped back in the one dated profile, and the well-developed topsoils indicate long-term surface stability. Older soils at the edges and higher islands of the valley had more vertic features and full Vertisols, whereas Vertic Mollisols and Aquerts have formed in younger sediments. We also present new evidence for late Classic Maya wetland field formation at Chawak But’o’ob, which shows field raising with canalization in this wetland of low ionic water. All the soil profiles with dating and stable carbon isotope evidence exhibited increased δ13C in the profiles through the Classic period sediments, although some were equivocal. The two wetland field δ13C profiles through the Classic period sediments increase by c. 6‰ at Chawak But’o’ob and 3‰ at the Birds of Paradise (BOP) Field center, although earlier BOP profiles increased by as much as 7‰. Hence, this watershed exhibits three large diachronic shifts: from lower to higher and again to lower deposition over pre-Maya, Maya, and post-Maya times. These changes along with earlier evidence for ancient intensive agriculture from 3000 and 1000 BP lie sandwiched between the ancient and contemporary little-altered tropical forest.

An Ancient Maya Dock and Dam at Blue Creek, Rio Hondo, Belize

A precolumbian Maya dock and dam complex was located on the Rio Hondo in northwestern Belize near the site of Blue Creek. Survey and excavation showed a range of activities to be associated with the complex, including lithic raw material procurement and manufacture. The discovery also underscores Blue Creeks role in long-distance commercial exchange involving lowland riverine systems. Large quantities of exotic commodities, including jadeite from the Motagua River val ley in Guatemala and stone tools from the industrial manufacturing site of Colh?, Belize, have been recovered from Pre classic and Classic period deposits at Blue Creek, and the site is posited as a vital point of transshipment responsible for the filtering of peripheral resources into the central lowlands. The Blue Creek dock and dam provides a rare glimpse of Maya riverine architecture and offers tangible evidence of infrastructural supports associated with maritime commerce.

E-GROUPS, PSEUDO–E-GROUPS, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CLASSIC MAYA IDENTITY IN THE EASTERN PETEN

The identity of the Classic Maya was expressed through public architecture and the creation of sacred landscape, which incorporated the landscape of creation and the concept of the world tree. Pyramids, plazas, stelae, and ballcourts were important components of this landscape. In the Peten, architectural complexes known as “E-groups” were another component. E-groups are well-known astronomical “orientation calendars” that were first built in the Terminal Preclassic period. Named after Group E at Uaxactun, they consist of three buildings on the east side of a public plaza and a fourth in the middle of the plaza or on the west side. Terminal Preclassic E-groups functioned as solstice and equinox markers. However, their function changed in the Early Classic period, arguably due to influence from Teotihuacan, to a focus on agricultural seasons. In this paper, I argue that pseudo–E-groups were built well into the Late Classic period in the eastern Peten and were a defining architectural complex for the region. The original, functional Terminal Preclassic E-groups were based on ritual activities focused on solar events. By the Early Classic, E-groups had become multipurpose parts of the sacred landscape of public architecture. Late Classic pseudo–E-groups, however, had become nonfunctional for either solar or agriculturally oriented observation. Nevertheless, they had become so deeply embedded into the template of sacred space and architecture that pseudo–E–groups were constructed to reinforce the identity of cities and the validity of their rulers.

The Origins of Maya States. Loa P. Traxler and Robert Sharer (eds.). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016, p. xxi, 681,

Too rarely, a truly important book comes our way. The Origins of Maya States is surely one such volume. While published in 2016, it derives from a 2007 conference at the Penn Museum. It is also, sadly, a posthumous accomplishment of one of the editors, Robert Sharer. Intellectually, this volume is the successor to the publication of the 1973 School of American Research Advanced Seminar on the same topic (Richard E. W. Adams, The Origins of Mayan Civilizations, 1977). During the decades between, the pace of Maya archaeology has accelerated with three to four generations of scholars following the participants in the SAR conference. Not only have the number of scholars and amount of data produced grown, but the theoretical underpinnings of Maya archaeology have evolved in complex and nuanced ways. What this book does not do, and I wish it did, is to construct a shared theoretical framework for the causality of the origin of Maya states and states in general. In this case, though, Mick Jagger was right. “You can’t always get what you want, you get what you need!” And what we need is this near-encyclopedic presentation of detailed summaries of the status of our understanding of the origins of Maya states in a regional framework. Each author, though, in constructing their data presentation, has done so within theoretically grounded models. In the process, the authors’ disagreements show as clearly as their agreements. In some cases, the interpretations are genuinely surprising. Some of these will trigger debate for many years. These 680 pages provide the most detailed treatment of the topic in archaeology’s history. If the SAR volume survived nearly 40 years, this will be a standard work for even longer. Given the detail of this book, it is no surprise that a decade was needed to move from conceptualization to publication. Loa Traxler is to be congratulated on ushering it to publication after Sharer’s passing. There is no need to individually review the chapters of this volume as they are uniformly very strong. Sharer and Traxler clearly define the issues in the first chapter and Astrid Runggaldier and Norman Hammond outline a history of research and theory. These are followed by contributions by David Grove (central Mexico), Ann Cyphers (Olmec), John Clark (Preclassic western Kingdoms), Francisco Estrada-Belli (Maya regional Interactions), Michael Love (Southern Maya region), and Richard Hansen (central and southern Maya lowlands). These are followed by theoretical contributions by Eleanor King (early economies), Marcello Canuto (Middle Preclasssic society) and Simon Martin (ideology and society). This is not a book to check out of the library, read and return. This is worth buying and keeping on a nearby shelf. Any archaeologist or