<p>Chapter 5 examines eight rural houselots, homes of farmers, in the vicinity of the Postc... more <p>Chapter 5 examines eight rural houselots, homes of farmers, in the vicinity of the Postclassic Maya capital city of Mayapán, Yucatán. Four houselots date to the Terminal Classic Period, when the area was a marginally located vicinity surrounding a small central town. Four houselots date to the Postclassic Period, representing peripheral localities beyond Mayapán's walled urban zone. Comparisons of Postclassic Mayapán urban commoner activity differentiation and wealth are made to the rural houselots of both periods. Rural houselots differed in their relative affluence, some reflecting similar patterns to the late urban contexts. Although all were generally at the low end of the wealth continuum, rural farmers were fully dependent on regional trade for the most common items used in daily life, especially pottery vessels.</p>
Despite significant advancements in the reconstruction of activity patterns from skeletal remains... more Despite significant advancements in the reconstruction of activity patterns from skeletal remains and growing scholarly interest in ancient warfare, few biomechanical studies have investigated weaponry use. We adopt a biomechanical approach to investigate who participated in ancient Maya warfare and the types of weaponry used at the Late Postclassic (ca. 1200-1450 A.D.) regional political capital of Mayapán located in northwestern Yucatán, Mexico. This has implications for the nature and scale of Maya warfare and the size of territories that could be controlled by Maya polities. Comparative Finite Element Analysis is a powerful, non-destructive method that can be applied to skeletal remains to model strain, stress and deformation of structures in response to a defined loading regime. Here, biomechanical data extracted using cross-sectional geometry were combined with Finite Element Analysis models of three ancient Maya humeri from Mayapán: one elite male, one elite female, and one c...
Abstract The complexity of the organization of craft production mirrors multiple aspects of the l... more Abstract The complexity of the organization of craft production mirrors multiple aspects of the larger political economies of premodern states. At the late Maya urban center of Mayapán, variation in the social contexts of crafting within a single settlement defies simple classificatory models that once held sway in the literature of nonWestern state societies. Most surplus crafters were independent and affluent commoners; notable exceptions include artisans working under direct elite supervision or elites who were directly engaged in crafting. Although household workshops concentrated around the city’s epicenter, others were dispersed across the site in unassuming residential neighborhoods or near outlying monumental groups. We consider the significance of pronounced household and regional economic interdependencies founded on well-developed surplus crafting practices, imported raw materials, market exchange, and tribute obligations at Mayapán. As for other premodern states, craft production also gave rise to greater opportunities for wealth differentiation within the commoner class. Producers in this urban political capital contributed in significant ways to a stable political economy by supplying goods that were required at all levels of the social hierarchy.
Mortuary rituals at the mission church of Yacman, a sixteenth-century rural Maya community, refle... more Mortuary rituals at the mission church of Yacman, a sixteenth-century rural Maya community, reflect locally specific variants of cultural hybridity relevant to the comparative study of the archaeology of agency and social change in early Colonial settings of Mesoamerica. Burial practices in this church reveal early adoption of Christian norms, followed by a return to more traditional Pre-Columbian family mausoleum-like interments. At the same time, these Maya mission residents, like many of their contemporaries in the region, co-opted the Christian church as a new community nucleus and as a resting place for ancestors. These findings, with additional evidence for hybridity from domestic contexts, reveal strategic expressions of Colonial Maya identity at Yacman, a modest and remote rural settlement that exercised options to experience social change on its own terms, far from the supervisory gaze of Spanish friars.
The spatial contexts of effigy censer and figurine molds at Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico suggest a ti... more The spatial contexts of effigy censer and figurine molds at Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico suggest a tightly controlled industry in which elite representatives of state government and religious orders exerted oversight over production and distribution. Attached artisans at Mayapan made these and other restricted goods for residents of palaces and patrons of the city's public buildings. The study of effigy ceramic production reveals that, like earlier, Classic period Maya kingdoms, Postclassic elites also sponsored the crafting of symbolically charged goods. This finding expands understanding of Postclassic period economic organization, which is best-known for its expansive regional market exchange. The limited distribution of effigy censers and figurines further attests their primary use in the context of state-sponsored ceremonies and, to a lesser extent, high-status mortuary settings. Unlike other places and times in Mesoamerica, neither figurines nor effigy censers are representati...
The influence of climate change on civil conflict and societal instability in the premodern world... more The influence of climate change on civil conflict and societal instability in the premodern world is a subject of much debate, in part because of the limited temporal or disciplinary scope of case studies. We present a transdisciplinary case study that combines archeological, historical, and paleoclimate datasets to explore the dynamic, shifting relationships among climate change, civil conflict, and political collapse at Mayapan, the largest Postclassic Maya capital of the Yucatán Peninsula in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries CE. Multiple data sources indicate that civil conflict increased significantly and generalized linear modeling correlates strife in the city with drought conditions between 1400 and 1450 cal. CE. We argue that prolonged drought escalated rival factional tensions, but subsequent adaptations reveal regional-scale resiliency, ensuring that Maya political and economic structures endured until European contact in the early sixteenth century CE.
International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2021
Mortuary rituals at the mission church of Yacman, a sixteenth-century rural Maya community, refle... more Mortuary rituals at the mission church of Yacman, a sixteenth-century rural Maya community, reflect locally specific variants of cultural hybridity relevant to the comparative study of the archaeology of agency and social change in early Colonial settings of Mesoamerica. Burial practices in this church reveal early adoption of Christian norms, followed by a return to more traditional Pre-Columbian family mausoleum-like interments. At the same time, these Maya mission residents, like many of their contemporaries in the region, co-opted the Christian church as a new community nucleus and as a resting place for ancestors. These findings, with additional evidence for hybridity from domestic contexts, reveal strategic expressions of Colonial Maya identity at Yacman, a modest and remote rural settlement that exercised options to experience social change on its own terms, far from the supervisory gaze of Spanish friars.
One of the most distinctive features of the Postclassic capital of Mayapan is the immense wall th... more One of the most distinctive features of the Postclassic capital of Mayapan is the immense wall that encloses large portions of the site's settlement zone. This 9.1 km-long feature is the largest example of a walled enclosure known in Mesoamerica. Based on ethnohistoric references, it seems that the construction was well known to Postclassic and Colonial period residents of the Northern lowlands. The most common assertion regarding the enclosures is that the wall had primarily defensive functions. Unfortunately, little solid archaeological evidence or cross-cultural comparison has been offered to support this interpretation. In this paper, I correlate the form of the gates with cross-culturally derived and unambiguously defensive features, finding that the design of the gates strongly suggests that they are indeed defensive. Possible secondary functions of the wall are also explored, such as the control of people and goods entering the city, as ritual barrier, the control of inte...
... Six species of trees were utilized: chacah (Bursera simaruba)) jabin (Piscidia piscipula)) ch... more ... Six species of trees were utilized: chacah (Bursera simaruba)) jabin (Piscidia piscipula)) chucum (Pithecellobium albicans)) tzalam (Lysiloma latisiliquum)) katzin ... finished quicldime with the same &amp;quot;hotness;&amp;#x27; while the whiteness of the salt offered is intended to encourage puri-ty. ...
Report to INAH of 2001-2004 seasons of survey, surface collection, test-pitting and horizontal ex... more Report to INAH of 2001-2004 seasons of survey, surface collection, test-pitting and horizontal excavation of residential zone of Mayapan (in Spanish).
Abstract This article presents evidence from a mass grave at the Itzmal Ch’en administrative grou... more Abstract This article presents evidence from a mass grave at the Itzmal Ch’en administrative group, an outlying ceremonial center at the Postclassic period Maya political center of Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico. The grave contains the remains of at least 20 individuals, likely the group’s elite patrons. The remains were subject to extensive postmortem treatment that included butchering, burning, and scattering, along with ritual paraphernalia and midden debris. The deposit is significant in the context of the city’s prolonged sociopolitical collapse, as radiocarbon evidence suggests that the deposit predates the final abandonment of the city. The shallow grave is instead associated with an ethnohistorically-documented period of internal conflict from between CE 1302 and 1400. More broadly, we evaluate the Itzmal Ch’en mass grave as a rare form of mortuary deposit in the Maya region, an example of desecration and ritual violence. The abandoned ceremonial plaza and grave site would have represented a macabre monument to a period of violent conflict in the city’s history that would have been visible to the city’s remaining occupants for the last half century prior to Mayapan’s final abandonment.
<p>Chapter 5 examines eight rural houselots, homes of farmers, in the vicinity of the Postc... more <p>Chapter 5 examines eight rural houselots, homes of farmers, in the vicinity of the Postclassic Maya capital city of Mayapán, Yucatán. Four houselots date to the Terminal Classic Period, when the area was a marginally located vicinity surrounding a small central town. Four houselots date to the Postclassic Period, representing peripheral localities beyond Mayapán's walled urban zone. Comparisons of Postclassic Mayapán urban commoner activity differentiation and wealth are made to the rural houselots of both periods. Rural houselots differed in their relative affluence, some reflecting similar patterns to the late urban contexts. Although all were generally at the low end of the wealth continuum, rural farmers were fully dependent on regional trade for the most common items used in daily life, especially pottery vessels.</p>
Despite significant advancements in the reconstruction of activity patterns from skeletal remains... more Despite significant advancements in the reconstruction of activity patterns from skeletal remains and growing scholarly interest in ancient warfare, few biomechanical studies have investigated weaponry use. We adopt a biomechanical approach to investigate who participated in ancient Maya warfare and the types of weaponry used at the Late Postclassic (ca. 1200-1450 A.D.) regional political capital of Mayapán located in northwestern Yucatán, Mexico. This has implications for the nature and scale of Maya warfare and the size of territories that could be controlled by Maya polities. Comparative Finite Element Analysis is a powerful, non-destructive method that can be applied to skeletal remains to model strain, stress and deformation of structures in response to a defined loading regime. Here, biomechanical data extracted using cross-sectional geometry were combined with Finite Element Analysis models of three ancient Maya humeri from Mayapán: one elite male, one elite female, and one c...
Abstract The complexity of the organization of craft production mirrors multiple aspects of the l... more Abstract The complexity of the organization of craft production mirrors multiple aspects of the larger political economies of premodern states. At the late Maya urban center of Mayapán, variation in the social contexts of crafting within a single settlement defies simple classificatory models that once held sway in the literature of nonWestern state societies. Most surplus crafters were independent and affluent commoners; notable exceptions include artisans working under direct elite supervision or elites who were directly engaged in crafting. Although household workshops concentrated around the city’s epicenter, others were dispersed across the site in unassuming residential neighborhoods or near outlying monumental groups. We consider the significance of pronounced household and regional economic interdependencies founded on well-developed surplus crafting practices, imported raw materials, market exchange, and tribute obligations at Mayapán. As for other premodern states, craft production also gave rise to greater opportunities for wealth differentiation within the commoner class. Producers in this urban political capital contributed in significant ways to a stable political economy by supplying goods that were required at all levels of the social hierarchy.
Mortuary rituals at the mission church of Yacman, a sixteenth-century rural Maya community, refle... more Mortuary rituals at the mission church of Yacman, a sixteenth-century rural Maya community, reflect locally specific variants of cultural hybridity relevant to the comparative study of the archaeology of agency and social change in early Colonial settings of Mesoamerica. Burial practices in this church reveal early adoption of Christian norms, followed by a return to more traditional Pre-Columbian family mausoleum-like interments. At the same time, these Maya mission residents, like many of their contemporaries in the region, co-opted the Christian church as a new community nucleus and as a resting place for ancestors. These findings, with additional evidence for hybridity from domestic contexts, reveal strategic expressions of Colonial Maya identity at Yacman, a modest and remote rural settlement that exercised options to experience social change on its own terms, far from the supervisory gaze of Spanish friars.
The spatial contexts of effigy censer and figurine molds at Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico suggest a ti... more The spatial contexts of effigy censer and figurine molds at Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico suggest a tightly controlled industry in which elite representatives of state government and religious orders exerted oversight over production and distribution. Attached artisans at Mayapan made these and other restricted goods for residents of palaces and patrons of the city's public buildings. The study of effigy ceramic production reveals that, like earlier, Classic period Maya kingdoms, Postclassic elites also sponsored the crafting of symbolically charged goods. This finding expands understanding of Postclassic period economic organization, which is best-known for its expansive regional market exchange. The limited distribution of effigy censers and figurines further attests their primary use in the context of state-sponsored ceremonies and, to a lesser extent, high-status mortuary settings. Unlike other places and times in Mesoamerica, neither figurines nor effigy censers are representati...
The influence of climate change on civil conflict and societal instability in the premodern world... more The influence of climate change on civil conflict and societal instability in the premodern world is a subject of much debate, in part because of the limited temporal or disciplinary scope of case studies. We present a transdisciplinary case study that combines archeological, historical, and paleoclimate datasets to explore the dynamic, shifting relationships among climate change, civil conflict, and political collapse at Mayapan, the largest Postclassic Maya capital of the Yucatán Peninsula in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries CE. Multiple data sources indicate that civil conflict increased significantly and generalized linear modeling correlates strife in the city with drought conditions between 1400 and 1450 cal. CE. We argue that prolonged drought escalated rival factional tensions, but subsequent adaptations reveal regional-scale resiliency, ensuring that Maya political and economic structures endured until European contact in the early sixteenth century CE.
International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2021
Mortuary rituals at the mission church of Yacman, a sixteenth-century rural Maya community, refle... more Mortuary rituals at the mission church of Yacman, a sixteenth-century rural Maya community, reflect locally specific variants of cultural hybridity relevant to the comparative study of the archaeology of agency and social change in early Colonial settings of Mesoamerica. Burial practices in this church reveal early adoption of Christian norms, followed by a return to more traditional Pre-Columbian family mausoleum-like interments. At the same time, these Maya mission residents, like many of their contemporaries in the region, co-opted the Christian church as a new community nucleus and as a resting place for ancestors. These findings, with additional evidence for hybridity from domestic contexts, reveal strategic expressions of Colonial Maya identity at Yacman, a modest and remote rural settlement that exercised options to experience social change on its own terms, far from the supervisory gaze of Spanish friars.
One of the most distinctive features of the Postclassic capital of Mayapan is the immense wall th... more One of the most distinctive features of the Postclassic capital of Mayapan is the immense wall that encloses large portions of the site's settlement zone. This 9.1 km-long feature is the largest example of a walled enclosure known in Mesoamerica. Based on ethnohistoric references, it seems that the construction was well known to Postclassic and Colonial period residents of the Northern lowlands. The most common assertion regarding the enclosures is that the wall had primarily defensive functions. Unfortunately, little solid archaeological evidence or cross-cultural comparison has been offered to support this interpretation. In this paper, I correlate the form of the gates with cross-culturally derived and unambiguously defensive features, finding that the design of the gates strongly suggests that they are indeed defensive. Possible secondary functions of the wall are also explored, such as the control of people and goods entering the city, as ritual barrier, the control of inte...
... Six species of trees were utilized: chacah (Bursera simaruba)) jabin (Piscidia piscipula)) ch... more ... Six species of trees were utilized: chacah (Bursera simaruba)) jabin (Piscidia piscipula)) chucum (Pithecellobium albicans)) tzalam (Lysiloma latisiliquum)) katzin ... finished quicldime with the same &amp;quot;hotness;&amp;#x27; while the whiteness of the salt offered is intended to encourage puri-ty. ...
Report to INAH of 2001-2004 seasons of survey, surface collection, test-pitting and horizontal ex... more Report to INAH of 2001-2004 seasons of survey, surface collection, test-pitting and horizontal excavation of residential zone of Mayapan (in Spanish).
Abstract This article presents evidence from a mass grave at the Itzmal Ch’en administrative grou... more Abstract This article presents evidence from a mass grave at the Itzmal Ch’en administrative group, an outlying ceremonial center at the Postclassic period Maya political center of Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico. The grave contains the remains of at least 20 individuals, likely the group’s elite patrons. The remains were subject to extensive postmortem treatment that included butchering, burning, and scattering, along with ritual paraphernalia and midden debris. The deposit is significant in the context of the city’s prolonged sociopolitical collapse, as radiocarbon evidence suggests that the deposit predates the final abandonment of the city. The shallow grave is instead associated with an ethnohistorically-documented period of internal conflict from between CE 1302 and 1400. More broadly, we evaluate the Itzmal Ch’en mass grave as a rare form of mortuary deposit in the Maya region, an example of desecration and ritual violence. The abandoned ceremonial plaza and grave site would have represented a macabre monument to a period of violent conflict in the city’s history that would have been visible to the city’s remaining occupants for the last half century prior to Mayapan’s final abandonment.
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