Late fire ceremonies and abandonment behaviors at the Classic Maya city of Naachtun, Guatemala

Abstract

This paper focuses on the process of abandonment in pre-Hispanic Maya societies. Toward the end of the Classic period (250–950CE), the general desertion of the Central Lowland cities gave place to multiple acts – including fires and on-floor ash spreading – intended to ritually terminate the occupation of houses and buildings. While the urban area of Naachtun, Northern Peten, was apparently depopulated by the end of the Terminal Classic (830–950 CE), fire ceremonies were performed in two political buildings during the Early Postclassic (950–1250 CE). The detailed study of the remaining charcoal deposits and their comparison with habitual Late and Terminal Classic abandonment deposits in households allows us to examine the material, social and environmental dimension of these fire ceremonies. We argue that these late rituals were held by people who were still tied to the city and that they are thus distinct from those performed as part of pilgrimages to sacred landscapes during the Late Postclassic and Colonial times. Instead, we state that they reflect the continuity of rites and of collective memory drawn from Naachtun’s history, providing indirect evidence that human settlements persisted around the abandoned cities for some time after the collapse of Classic political systems.