ANCIENT MESOAMERICA

This study explores the identification and gender attribution of the “Great Goddess” of Teotihuacan through re-examining what purportedly constitutes feminine and masculine in these representations. Recent efforts to reattribute this deity's gender have not offered satisfactory re-interpretations, but instead reify a binary model of Western ideas of gender. Transcending this binary model, I propose that one of the key figures identified as female—the central figure from the Tepantitla mural at Teotihuacan—can better be said to show characteristics of a mixed gender, a tradition for which there is significant precedence in the Americas.

Aguadas, either natural or human-made ponds, were significant sources of water for the ancient Maya.Aguadasare common features in the Maya Lowlands and make valuable locations for collecting archaeological and paleoenvironmental data. This article discusses research conducted at fouraguadasaround two adjacent Maya sites, San Bartolo and Xultun in Peten, Guatemala. Both San Bartolo and Xultun were established during the Preclassic period. However, the fates of the two sites differed, as Xultun continued to prosper while the city of San Bartolo was abandoned near the close of the Late Preclassic period. We argue thataguadasprovide important clues for understanding the fate of these two ancient communities and many others in the Maya Lowlands.

LiDAR coverage of a large contiguous area within the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin (MCKB) of northern Guatemala has identified a concentration of Preclassic Maya sites (ca. 1000 b.c.–a.d. 150) connected by causeways, forming a web of implied social, political, and economic interactions. This article is an introduction to one of the largest, contiguous, regional LiDAR studies published to date in the Maya Lowlands. More than 775 ancient Maya settlements are identified within the MCKB, and 189 more in the surrounding karstic ridge, which we condensed into 417 ancient cities, towns, and villages of at least six preliminary tiers based on surface area, volumetrics, and architectural configurations. Many tiered sites date to the Middle and Late Preclassic periods, as determined by archaeological testing, and volumetrics of contemporaneously constructed and/or occupied architecture with similar morphological characteristics. Monumental architecture, consistent architectural formats, specif...

The Dresden Codex (Codex Dresdensis) is, along with the Paris Codex (Codex Pérez), Madrid Codex (Codex Tro-Cortesiano) and Maya Codex of Mexico (Codex Grolier), one of four Mayan hieroglyphic manuscripts that have survived to the present day. Mayan hieroglyphic manuscripts, despite the brevity and monotony of their presentation, provide rich material for studying the culture of the pre-Columbian Maya. Some sections of the manuscripts date back to very early times and reflect traditions that had already disappeared among the Classic Maya. In general, the manuscripts are a kind of encyclopedia, covering all aspects of life in ancient Indian villages. An attempt to fully translate the text of the Dresden Codex was undertaken in 1975 by Y. V. Knorozov, however, it should be considered outdated. In 1996, Edwin Barnhard offered an analysis of the contents of the first 23 pages of the Сodex, but he does not provide a translation of the text in the proper sense of the term. A partial translation of the manuscript was proposed in 1997 by L. Schele and N. Grube, but it also requires significant improvements. Given the current state of research into Mayan hieroglyphic writing and the language of hieroglyphic texts, a complete translation of all sections of the Dresden Manuscript is not possible. In this regard, a translation of selected sections is offered to the reader.

The Dresden Codex (Codex Dresdensis) is, along with the Paris Codex (Codex Pérez), Madrid Codex (Codex Tro-Cortesiano) and Maya Codex of Mexico (Codex Grolier), one of four Mayan hieroglyphic manuscripts that have survived to the present day. Mayan hieroglyphic manuscripts, despite the brevity and monotony of their presentation, provide rich material for studying the culture of the pre-Columbian Maya. Some sections of the manuscripts date back to very early times and reflect traditions that had already disappeared among the Classic Maya. In general, the manuscripts are a kind of encyclopedia, covering all aspects of life in ancient Indian villages. An attempt to fully translate the text of the Dresden Codex was undertaken in 1975 by Y. V. Knorozov, however, it should be considered outdated. In 1996, Edwin Barnhard offered an analysis of the contents of the first 23 pages of the Сodex, but he does not provide a translation of the text in the proper sense of the term. A partial translation of the manuscript was proposed in 1997 by L. Schele and N. Grube, but it also requires significant improvements. Given the current state of research into Mayan hieroglyphic writing and the language of hieroglyphic texts, a complete translation of all sections of the Dresden Manuscript is not possible. In this regard, a translation of selected sections is offered to the reader.

Archaeological studies worldwide have revealed a wide range of cultural contexts within which practices of violence and warfare have occurred. In Mesoamerica, ongoing studies have enriched our understanding of social contexts of violence and warfare in Maya societies. This expanding body of field data allows deeper exploration of the ways violence was intricately linked to different aspects of cultural life for many Maya communities. In this article, we contemplate the culturally embedded nature of violence and warfare with a specific focus on the Classic period and questions related to political strategy, ritual practices, and total warfare. We provide empirical frameworks for the study of war to address issues of ritual warfare and societal impact, and we emphasize a regional scale of analysis.

Across many decades of Maya archaeology, the study of war has typically been focused on its geopolitical, systemic, evolutionary, and structural implications. We argue these approaches stand to benefit from deeper interrogations of practice. Such a perspective shifts scholarly attention toward the ways in which Maya peoples prepared for and engaged in combat, and how they administered the outcomes of war. Deploying this approach requires the study of tactics, strategy, fortifications, materiel, landscape, embodiment, and a host of other related factors. With the issue of practice at the forefront of our analysis, we demonstrate how the study of war has been “blackboxed” in Maya archaeology, then undertake a comparative analysis to highlight how digging into the details of past martial practice enriches debates in Mesoamerican studies regarding the role of war in the rise and disintegration of states.

This paper explores the production of Late to Terminal Classic Ulua marble vases (ca. 600/650–800/850a.d.), the hallmark luxury good from the lower Ulua Valley of northwestern Honduras. Unlike other areas of the greater Maya world, no one center appears to have held political sway in the valley. Yet marble-vase production at Travesia indicates that, through the patronization of this specific artifact, the site was able to celebrate its identity at home as well as abroad. Here the long-term production of the vases is investigated through a detailed analysis of stylistic groups and corresponding stable-isotope signatures from vases and potential procurement zones. The stylistic data suggest centralized production, which is confirmed through chemical signatures of vases and one specific procurement site. We argue that longstanding traditions of carving vases from marble in the Ulua Valley guided Travesian artisans in their procurement choices. The stylistic and chemical data augment se...

Acanmul is a medium-size center located at the north end of the Bay of Campeche about 25 km northeast of the city of Campeche. Between 1999 and 2005, three independent sets of investigations and major architectural consolidation were carried out at the center by archaeologists from the Universidad Autónoma de Campeche (UAC), the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), Centro Regional de Campeche, and UAC in collaboration with San Diego State University. These efforts produced a wealth of new information on the archaeology of the central Campeche coast, including new insights into the emergence and evolution of the northern slateware tradition and the architectural history of the central coast from Preclassic through Postclassic times. New data concerning changing relationships through time of the central coast Maya to both the interior central and southern lowlands and to the northern plains also were documented, as was the mid ninth century sacking of the center. This...

Colonialism came late to northern Guatemala. The Spanish began to establish missions in the Peten Lakes region in the early 1700s, nearly 200 years after initial contact with the Mayas. Excavations in 2011–2012 at the Mission San Bernabé revealed European goods, nonnative animal species, and burial patterns that marked a new lifestyle. Who lived at the Mission San Bernabé, and where did they come from? The Spanish resettled indigenous populations to facilitate the colonization process; however, isotopic data are inconsistent with large population movements. Instead, strontium and oxygen isotope values in the tooth enamel and bones of individuals buried at the mission suggest a mostly local population. The data suggest in-migration from Belize, a region under nominal Spanish control, but with pre-Hispanic ties to the Peten. Changes did not come from migrants crossing a border; instead, the border itself moved and brought the colonial world to the Peten Mayas.

This article presents a collection of photographs representing Maya vessels decorated with pre-Columbian art is qualitatively analyzed in this paper. It examines the artistic, iconographic and stylistic patterns of these objects using a wide range of visual resources to offer an in-depth understanding of various aspects of Maya aesthetics including symbolism. In the article are illustrated images that reveal how cultural complexity is shown by pottery, significantly emphasizing the role played by such vessels as important tools which help to interpret Maya cosmology and rituals. In future, this book will serve as an indispensable visual material for archaeological and anthropological researchers.

Mexica (Aztec) stone sculpture is recognized on a global scale by its emblematic monumental pieces, like the Sun Stone or Coatlicue, but despite this popularity, more than half of the artifacts that have been recovered remain unpublished and understudied, which prevents researchers from truly understanding the range of narratives depicted on stone. Since the beginning of scientific studies in 1790 until the present, stone sculpture has been understood under a common framework that focuses on the creation of taxonomies. The goal of this chapter has a double objective: first to show a general view of Mexica history to situate the relevance of stone sculpture and its significant developments over time; and second to examine what these objects can tell us about the emerging Aztec empire. I will discuss the different perspectives that previous scientific literature has used to study these artifacts but also propose a new interpretative approach. Under this new perspective, stone sculpture is seen as being part of a social context of change and becoming through a succession of historical events rather than as one single event. In this view, each stone monument was an active agent of Mexica culture, and I will explore the ideo-logical narratives of a series of people in charge of the Mexica state by examining and interpreting their material culture from the island of Tenochtitlan. Archaeological material from the Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlan is used as a mean to explain how visual works promoted the physical force of the Mexica army but also served as a mechanism to achieve unity within the dominant group and as the medium for ideological agendas. From this perspective, these narratives carved in stone served to present, perpetuate, validate, and normalize violence and inequality by fusing together cosmological and social order that make certain norms of behavior seem worthy. In this chapter, I will concentrate on the sculptures made of volcanic stones after the Aztec empire gained its autonomy in 1428 until the arrival of the Spanish in 1519. In less than 91 years, this art underwent a revolutionary transformation that is evident in an authentic explosion of creativity and increase in production.

ABSTRACTThe importance of emblem glyphs to Maya studies has long been recognized. Among these are emblems that have yet to be conclusively matched to archaeological sites. The Water Scroll emblem glyph is one such example, although it appears numerous times in the Classic Maya written corpus between the sixth and the eighth centuries. These many references are found at a variety of sites across the lowlands, attesting to the importance of this ancient kingdom and the kings who carried this title. In the present paper, we review the epigraphic and archaeological evidence and propose that this may be the royal title of the kings who reigned from Altun Ha, in the east central Maya lowlands, in what is now Belize. In so doing, we also begin to reconstruct the dynastic history of the Water Scroll kings, from the vantage of both local and foreign sources.

Although the Cascajal Block (CB), an incised greenstone slab from southeastern Veracruz, Mexico, arguably contains the earliest written text in the New World, debate remains regarding the object's authenticity, dating, and cultural affiliation. To address these issues, this article details recent analyses of the CB via polynomial texture mapping (PTM), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). PTM revealed new details that have resulted in a new epigraphic drawing of the block's incised text and allowed for improved identification of several constituent signs. Spectrometric analysis confirmed that the chemical composition of the CB matrix is consistent with serpentine and identified a uniform patina on its surface, which provided additional contextual data. SEM micrographs of polymer replica molds taken from the incised text evidence manufacturing traces that correspond to lapidary techniques observed on other Formative-period Olmec objects of secure ...

Mortuary interments from Formative and Early Classic deposits of the Maya site of K'axob, northern Belize, show significant variation in four aspects: burial position, number of interments within a burial facility, incidence of secondary interments, and types of associated burial accoutrements. Burial data for more than 100 individuals of both sexes and all age grades indicate that these changes over time are significant. The implications of these patterns for heightening our understanding of mortuary ritual are explored in depth. Evidence suggests that tightly wrapped seated and flexed burials represent the Late Formative onset of more protracted rituals involving prolonged displays of ancestors. Terminal Formative mortuary deposits featuring collections of curated ancestor remains indicate the “gathering of ancestors,” generally at a locale at which a monumental structure was later built. Sex and age distributions within multiple interments (both primary and secondary) reflect...

This report investigates supernatural zoomorphic representations discovered at ancient Maya sites, initially known as the Cauac Monster for two decades and subsequently as the Witz Monster for five years. These enigmatic figures were first identified at Palenque and Copan in the 19th century; however, early scholarly interpretations lacked differentiation among the diverse long-snouted creatures. The term "Cauac Monster" was not coined until the 1960s, with earlier researchers like Spinden and Thompson facing challenges in classification due to differing theoretical frameworks and interpretations of Maya deities. Michael Coe's seminal work in 1973, The Maya Scribe, constituted a significant milestone by categorizing a specific subgroup of these monsters under the unified term "Cauac Monster," subsequently widely adopted in academic discourse. Dicey Tylor's subsequent comparative analysis in 1979 further explored and validated the use of this designation. This study traces the scholarly evolution in understanding and categorization of these ancient Maya zoomorphic figures, emphasizing the transformative impact of Coe and Tylor's contributions in establishing a cohesive analytical framework for their study and interpretation.

This report presents the findings of a decade-long research project on Maya ceramic art, which amassed 23,000 photographs from private collections and museums globally. The focus is on Early Classic Maya art and mythical waterscapes, integrating murals, stelae, and seashell art to delineate the distinctive style of this period. The study includes a critical review of prevailing theories on Maya religion, drawing on the scholarship of Seler, Spinden, Morley, Proskouriakoff, Kubler, and Franz. It explores the Maya's emphasis on natural forms and their veneration of natural forces, distinguishing the historically oriented Classic art from the non-secular Post Classic art.

The excavations of Frans Blom and Clarence Weiant at the small hilltop site of Moxviquil in the early 1950s represent one of the pioneering archaeological projects in highland Chiapas. The results of their excavations, which were minimally published, provide important data on one of the largest Late Classic-Early Postclassic communities in the region. In this paper, we reconsider Moxviquil in light of recent scholarship on Maya urbanism, and present new interpretations of the site as a small city that fulfilled a diversified set of urban functions for residents both within the monumental zone itself, and in the surrounding hinterland areas. Consistent with its likely role as the administrative center of a small, independent highland polity, the monumental center of Moxviquil likely served political, economic, and ritual functions; was an important nucleus of residential settlement; and supported a wide range of household-based craft production and food preparation activities.

Despite the commercial, economic, and military importance of the Valley of Atlixco to the history of Mesoamerica, it has not received as much attention from ethnohistorians and archaeologists as it warrants. This paper illustrates that importance by attempting to correlate different types of evidence from the sites of Atlixco and Cuauhquechollan. Atlixco—the settlement referred to in the ethnohistoric sources as Cuauhquechollan—was occupied continuously from the Early Preclassic period to the middle of the Late Postclassic period (a.d.1443), when it was relocated 20 km to the southwest (present-day Huaquechula). The new settlement retained the name, Cuauhquechollan, while Atlixco became referred to as Huehuecuauhquechollan (Old Cuauhquechollan). The evidence consists of a variety of ethnohistoric sources, the archaeological record (settlement patterns and ceramic materials), and the iconography of Late Postclassic sculptures and carvings located in and around Huaquechula, and in the...

The architectural sculpture legacy of Late Classic Copan provides a source for understanding the sociopolitical and ideological adaptations of the rulers of this ancient city. Fieldwork conducted since 1985 has been directed toward documentation and conservation of the tens of thousands of mosaic sculpture facade pieces covered for centuries by collapsed debris or lichens. Hypothetical reconstructions of motif configurations and their rearticulation within building facades compose larger iconographic themes. The iconological study of these compositions opens a window for analyzing the nature of the religious and political symbolism produced by the last four rulers of Copan. Using these data, a shift from the cosmological and fertility themes employed by the thirteenth and fourteenth rulers to the emphasis on warfare by the fifteenth and sixteenth rulers can be documented.

The Copan Sculpture Museum houses an extensive collection of Tlaloc statues, primarily displayed as individual pieces rather than integrated into stelae. The façade of Temple 26 is particularly notable, featuring approximately twelve full-figure Tlaloc hieroglyphs. Several of these hieroglyphs exhibit similarities to the motifs found on the upper sections and ceremonial bar of Copan Stela 6. This study systematically examines these Tlaloc representations, offering a comparative analysis with similar iconographies from other archaeological sites. These findings are also detailed in separate FLAAR Reports, which focus on various aspects of Tlaloc iconography, Yearsigns, and the specific full-figure Tlaloc hieroglyphs on the façade of Temple 26 at Copan.

Between a.d. 760 and 930, millions of Maya disappeared from the Earth. We examine changes in the physical environment in which the Maya lived. The ice-core evidence from Greenland indicates that around the time of the Maya Collapse, a minimum in solar insolation and a low in solar activity occurred, accompanied by severe cold and dryness over Greenland, indicating hemispheric climatic conditions propitious for drought in the Maya Lowlands. In the northeastern Caribbean, sea-surface salinity (SSS) was lowered. The most severe drought of the past 7,000 years devastated the Yucatan Peninsula. Large Maya cities collapsed in four phases of abandonment spaced about fifty years apart around a.d. 760, 810, 860, and 910. A new core taken from Lake Chichancanab in Quintana Roo shows three peak episodes of brutal drought within a 150- to 200-year drought. A marine core from the Cariaco Basin off Venezuela precisely dates four severe drought episodes to 760, 810, 860, and 910, coincident with t...

This article presents a preliminary, revised life history of Punta Laguna, Yucatan, Mexico, and considers in detail the site's relationship to nearby communities. More specifically, this article presents the results of a type-variety analysis of the cumulative palimpsest of ceramics excavated at the site between 2017 and 2022. Unlike initial studies conducted in the 1980s, the current study suggests that Maya peoples occupied Punta Laguna continuously or recurringly from 600/300 b.c. through a.d. 1500/1550. Punta Laguna is therefore usefully understood as a persistent place. By offering a composite life history of Punta Laguna, this article aims to augment current understandings of the complex social, political, and economic landscape of the northeastern Yucatan Peninsula. It also considers the utility of archaeological studies of persistent places to scholarship on urban sustainability and suggests that research investigating the connections between early occupation and site lo...

The structure of power underlying the hegemonic control Chichen Itza held over the Northern Maya Lowlands has been debated for decades. In this article, we present the idea of a dominant discourse on masculinities, which played a fundamental role in both practice and on a symbolic level among the strategies designed to support this emblematic pre-Columbian capital. Our discussion of archaeological evidence will focus on spaces where men are represented, where they would meet and carry out rituals. We contend that gallery-patios such as Structure 2D6 served as instruction and socialization locales for groups of warriors. The architectural configuration of this building is very similar to a series of venues at Chichen Itza and other Mesoamerican cities. In these spaces, associated iconography depicts male individuals in processions and ritual practice, including sacrifice and self-sacrifice. We argue that the gallery of Structure 2D6 was a semi-public, performative space, whose theatr...

The Archaic period in the Maya region represents six millennia (7000-1000 BCE) when non-ceramic-using peoples began to experiment with domesticates and reduce their settlement ranges. The single longest epoch of the Mesoamerican chronology, these early millennia are often overshadowed by the investigation of more recent peoples who built cities and have left evidence of elaborate artistic traditions. The Belize Archaic Project (BAP) began work over 20 years ago after the fortuitous discovery of aceramic deposits containing heavily patinated lithic tools and debitage under Postclassic settlements in the Freshwater Creek drainage of northern Belize. The 2019 field season marks a renewed phase of this project and initiates a program of systematic settlement survey and test excavations. This paper presents initial results of a systematic program of auguring that documented 87 Archaic-period sites and excavations at four of these locales during the summer of 2019. The renewed BAP investigates local land use patterns and foraging adaptation as well as the dynamic manner in which they affect (and are impacted by) climate change and evolving local forest and lacustrine ecology.

The word *kakaw(a)(‘cacao’,Theobroma cacao) was widely diffused among Mesoamerican languages, and from there to much of lower Central America. This study provides evidence establishing beyond reasonable doubt that this word originated in the Mije-Sokean family; that it spread from the Mije-Sokean languages in or around the Olmec heartland into southeastern Mesoamerican languages; that its diffusion into Mayan languages took place between about 200 B.C. and A.D. 400; and that it spread from a Mije-Sokean language in or near the Basin of Mexico into languages in the region. It shows that each of the arguments presented by Dakin and Wichmann (2000) against a Mije-Sokean origin is either unworkable, is based upon false premises, or is not relevant; and that their proposed alternative — that it originated in and spread from Nawa into other Mesoamerican languages — conflicts with the mass of evidence relevant to the issue.This study also discusses the linguistic details of vocabulary for ...

This paper reports source identifications for a sample of obsidian prismatic blades from the site of Cerro Portezuelo, Mexico. Although the sample is highly biased and stratigraphically mixed, some interesting results were obtained. Compared to contemporary sites in the region, the frequency of green Pachuca obsidian was unusually low (65%), while obsidian from the distant Ucareo source was unusually abundant (14%). This pattern appears to hold for both the Classic and the Postclassic periods and differs from Classic Teotihuacan. This contrast implies that Cerro Portezuelo was not importing all of its obsidian directly from Teotihuacan during the Classic period but, rather, was obtaining some quantity of Ucareo obsidian from other sites, most likely located to the west. This trade pattern would eventually spread throughout the Basin of Mexico, after the fall of Teotihuacan, but it is foreshadowed during the Classic period at Cerro Portezuelo.

Obsidian was an important commodity in the Aztec empire. The obsidian industries from several Late Aztec sites in the northeastern Basin of Mexico are briefly summarized. These sites represent both urban centers and their rural dependencies. Site TA-80, the urban center of the Otumba city-state, contained numerous surface concentrations of obsidian debris, representing refuse from workshops where obsidian tools were produced or consumed. Seven of these concentrations represent debris from specialized production of large quantities of prismatic blades. Others represent workshops where blades were consumed in substantial numbers in the process of producing some other commodity. Households at rural sites in the Otumba city-state did not produce blades but probably obtained them through exchange from the specialized producers at TA-80. However, some rural sites did contain evidence of specialized quarrying, preparation of macrocores, and production of bifacial tools, apparently for expo...

Thirty-eight radiocarbon dates from Mayapan provide new information about the Postclassic chronology of this city. We analyze ceramic frequencies associated with our radiocarbon samples and discuss temporally diagnostic types in the Mayapan sequence. Radiocarbon samples from early construction contexts suggest that the Postclassic center was founded by at least the twelfth century, or possibly the eleventh centurya.d.on a modest scale. Additional dates help to assign much of the city's later architecture to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuriesa.d., and provide hints of violence, conflict, and abandonment events prior to the final collapse. Our results imply that Mayapan may have begun as a small center while Chichen Itza waned from its dominant political position on the peninsula, and that the establishment of Mayapan as a major regional capital may have been a process that took a century or longer to complete.