Abstract
This study investigates the Protoclassic ceramic production at Nakum, Guatemala, using it as a proxy to explore the nature of the transition from the Preclassic to Classic period (100/50 BC – AD 300/350) in Central Maya lowlands. Petrographic analysis reveals that household specialisation existed in the local production of slipped serving and utilitarian wares at Nakum. The recovery of locally made polychrome vessels further indicates that Nakum might have participated in a new network of cultural interactions and trade, enabling the community to sustain stable growth at a time when many major Preclassic sites declined.
Highlights
The Classic period is widely accepted as the apogee of Maya civilisation, we know very little about how it emerged, as the phase leading to the Classic period remains poorly understood in many ways
In the Central Maya lowlands, some of the more noticeable and drastic changes that occurred during the Protoclassic period include the decline of El Mirador and other major Preclassic centres, the disruption of existing trade routes and exchange networks, and the emergence of new socio-political orders that paved the way to royal kingship—an element epitomising Classic Maya civilisation (Reese-Taylor and Walker 2002: 87–88)
We seek to explore the nature of the Protoclassic period in Central Maya lowlands by investigating the manners in which pottery production was organised at that time, given that craft organisation is often used as a proxy to gain insight into broader issues relating to social relations, economic system, and political structure of past societies
Summary
The Classic period is widely accepted as the apogee of Maya civilisation, we know very little about how it emerged, as the phase leading to the Classic period remains poorly understood in many ways. In the Central Maya lowlands, some of the more noticeable and drastic changes that occurred during the Protoclassic period include the decline of El Mirador and other major Preclassic centres, the disruption of existing trade routes and exchange networks, and the emergence of new socio-political orders that paved the way to royal kingship—an element epitomising Classic Maya civilisation (Reese-Taylor and Walker 2002: 87–88). Seventy-eight ceramic fragments, which comprise a variety of utilitarian and serving pottery, from the site of Nakum, Guatemala, are the focus of our study This assemblage is well-suited to address our objective, as Nakum is one of the few sites that yielded substantial amount of ceramic evidence securely dated to the Protoclassic period through stratigraphic excavations and radiocarbon dating (Źrałka et al 2011, 2018). Comparing the results with pottery production during the Preclassic and Classic period sheds further light on how the craft organisation, and by extension the socio-political context such craft was embedded in, might have evolved
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