Maya Classic Period Research Articles

Upland and Lowland Soil Resources of the Ancient Maya at Tikal, Guatemala

Debate over agricultural methods and productivity during the Preclassic and Classic Maya period (1000 BCE to 900 CE) focuses on the agronomic utility of both upland and lowland soil resources of the karst topography characteristic of northern Guatemala and much of the Yucatan peninsula. In settings where direct evidence of agriculture is sparse, stable carbon (C) isotope evidence from soil organic matter (SOM) provides information on past vegetation changes related to ancient maize agriculture. Areas of ancient sustained maize cultivation can be identified in an ecosystem dominated by C3 forest vegetation because of the unique C4 photosynthetic pathway of maize. The decomposition of plant materials with divergent photosynthetic mechanisms (C3 versus C4) results in SOM with correspondingly distinct stable C isotope ratios (δ13C). Such differences are preserved and detectable within the refractory humin fraction of the SOM. This study analyzes the physical and chemical soil properties including stable C isotopes of soils collected from upland and lowland locations near Tikal, Guatemala. Toeslope soils contained strong isotopic evidence of C4 vegetation likely the result of ancient maize agriculture, while the evidence from shallow soils of the summit and backslopes was less conclusive. In both upland and lowland contexts, however, the stronger evidence of ancient vegetation shifts associated with maize agriculture was found in the deeper fine‐textured soils in the footslopes and toeslopes. Examination of soils on toeslopes revealed evidence of deposition from erosional processes upslope that may have been related to the spread of agriculture to less productive soils over time.

What is a “natural” ecosystem?

It's a few days after Christmas, but I'm enjoying a warm tropical day at the top of a pyramid in the ancient Maya city of Kohunlich (in southern Quintana Roo, Mexico; Figure 1). This city is best known for its Temple of the Masks, a massive pyramid of limestone blocks, with a central stairway flanked by large, red-painted stucco masks, that was constructed around 500 CE. This visit is more than a bucket list experience. For most of my career, I have been interested in how various human populations have inter acted with their environment. Kohunlich is named for the cohune palm (Attalea cohune), which is abundant in the surrounding tropical forest and pro vided the Maya with food, oil, thatch, and other products (Schlesinger 2001 ). The city was established about 2000 years ago, during the Pre-Classic period, and developed as a major regional center at the intersection of several trade routes. The ruin includes more than 200 structures, most of which were built during the Early Classic period (250-600 CE). Maya engineering skill is evident in the regularly shaped and tightly placed limestone blocks, balanced multistoried dwellings, and carved doorways, but Maya culture also represented the zenith of mathematics, astronomy, agriculture, silviculture, and writ ing in the pre-Columbian New World. When active, the city would have been surrounded by fields of corn, beans, squash, and other crops, as well as orchards. The Maya cultivated sev eral forest tree species for their food or medicinal resources and conserved resources in protected forests, at least initially (Lentz and Hockaday 2009; Ross and Rangel 2011). Touching the stone blocks that were shaped and placed by these people and feeling a connection with them over the millennia is a moving experience. 1 imagine the city's thou sands of inhabitants going about their daily activities: farm ing, trading, building, cooking, and visiting with one another. What were the Maya thinking as they worked? Did they worry about crop failures? Did they anticipate that overcutting forests could lead to the collapse of their civilization (Lentz and Hockaday 2009)? Or did the Maya (like contemporary humans) take the ecosystem services including food, water, medicine, clothing, building materials, and fuel provided by the forest for granted? Maya civilization began to decline long before the appearance of European explorers, due to a combi nation of influences, including population growth, drought, deforestation, changes in agricultural practices that led to massive erosion, and warfare (Schlesinger 2001; Lentz and Hockaday 2009). The Classic Maya period ended around 900 CE. Although a few inhabited cities survived until the Spanish conquest, many cities including Kohunlich had been abandoned by that time and reclaimed by forest. Unfortunately, the Spanish destroyed Mayan texts that might have explained the reasons for the decline. J

Linking Past and Present: A preliminary paleoethnobotanical study of Maya nutritional and medicinal plant use and sustainable cultivation in the Southern Maya Mountains, Belize

Paleoethnobotanical analysis of anthropogenic soils sampled from archaeological features dating to the Classic Maya Period (A.D. 250-900) reveal diagnostic phytoliths that help the authors bring to light evidence of a novel sustainable agricultural strategy and a variety of nutritional and medicinal plants that were utilized by the Classic Maya of the Maya Mountains, Belize, Central America. Given the archaeological context of these phytoliths, the authors infer that the plants from which they were derived were exploited by the Classic Maya of the region. These discoveries have the potential for improving health and wellness regionally in the present since the agricultural strategy that is reconstructed demonstrates an intensive means of cultivation that has the potential of sustaining large, dense populations. The nutritional and medicinal plants eluded to, in turn, provide further evidence in support of the utilization of traditional knowledge in sustaining community health and wellness.

Carbon isotopic ratios of wetland and terrace soil sequences in the Maya Lowlands of Belize and Guatemala

Abstract This article provides new data and synthesizes earlier findings on the carbon isotope ratios of the humin part of soil organic matter from a range of sites in the central Maya Lowlands. Changes down the soil profile in carbon isotope ratios can provide an important line of evidence for vegetation change and erosion over time, especially in well dated aggrading profiles. Research thus far has provided substantial evidence for significant inputs from C4 vegetation in buried layers from the Ancient Maya periods in depositional soils but equivocal evidence from sloping soils. We present new findings from soil profiles through ancient Maya wetland fields, upland karst wetlands, ancient Maya aguadas (reservoirs), and ancient Maya terraces. Most of the profiles exhibited δ13C enrichment greater than the 2.5–3‰ typical from bacterial fractionation. Seven of nine ancient Maya wetland profiles showed δ13C enrichment ranging from 4.25 to 8.56‰ in ancient Maya-dated sediments that also contained phytolith and pollen evidence of grass (C4 species) dominance. Upland karst sinks and ancient reservoirs produced more modest results for δ13C enrichment. These seasonal wetland profiles exhibited δ13C enrichment ranging from 1 to 7.3‰ from the surface to ancient Maya-period sediments. Agricultural terraces produced mixed results, with two terraces having substantial δ13C enrichment of 5.34 and 5.66‰ and two producing only equivocal results of 1.88 and 3.03‰ from modern topsoils to Maya Classic-period buried soils. Altogether, these findings indicate that C4 plants made up c. 25% of the vegetation at our sites in the Maya Classic period and only a few percent today. These findings advance the small corpus of studies from ancient terraces, karst sinks, and ancient wetland fields by demonstrating substantial δ13C and thus C4 plant enrichment in soil profile sections dated to ancient Maya times. These studies are also providing a new line of evidence about local and regional soil and ecological change in this region of widespread environmental change in the Late Holocene.

Kings and commoners at Copan: Isotopic evidence for origins and movement in the Classic Maya period

Eight human interments were excavated in the 1990s beneath the Acropolis at the Classic Maya site of Copan in Honduras, which was the capital of a Maya kingdom from ca. AD 400 to 800. These human remains come from both royal tombs and less elaborate burials dating to the early part of this period and lie deep in the accumulated architectural layers of the Acropolis. We present a brief summary of the context, contents, and external links represented by these interments. Several lines of evidence point to connections between early Copan and Teotihuacan in the Central Highlands of Mexico, and Tikal in the central Maya lowlands of the Petén in Guatemala. The bioarchaeology of the interred individuals from the Copan Acropolis is summarized in terms of major characteristics and life history. The focus of this study is the isotopic investigation of these individuals, which included both light and heavy isotopes. We have measured carbon and nitrogen in some of the burials along with strontium, carbon, and oxygen in tooth enamel. In addition, we have a substantial database of strontium isotopes from human burials and both ancient and modern fauna at the site that help to characterize the local isotope ratio at Copan. This information is compared with the larger Maya region and the site of Teotihuacan in the Central Highlands of Mexico to examine questions of human migration and interaction in the Classic Maya period. Focus is on the primary burial identified as K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’, the first dynastic ruler of Copan. Epigraphic information on his early years and subsequent events in his life are compared to isotopic data on his place of birth and possible movements. The isotopic evidence suggests that several of the individuals buried in the Acropolis at Copan, including K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’, were not born in the local area, but came to this ancient city from elsewhere.

Linear enamel hypoplasia at Xcambó, Yucatán, during the Maya Classic period: An evaluation of coastal marshland impact on ancient human populations

Non-specific stress markers such as linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) have been associated in the literature with a large number of possible conditions disrupting the individual's homeostasis, though metabolic strain originating synergistically by disease and malnutrition has been held to be the main cause behind enamel disruption. The analysis of LEH in the Maya Classic period site of Xcambó, located along the northern coast of the Yucatán peninsula, reveals high exposure to stressful conditions during infancy regardless of age and sex. Yet, the inhabitants of the site were of a medium to high social and economic status, with access to balanced and protein-rich nutritional resources, which should have functioned as a cultural buffer to the impact of stress. In the light of this apparent contradiction, this paper discusses the impact of environmental conditions on the record of metabolic stress. Our conclusions pose a cautionary caveat for inferring nutrition and status in ancient pre-antibiotic populations solely from the occurrence of linear enamel hypoplasia.

DISCOVERY AND CHARACTERIZATION OF AN UNKNOWN BLUE‐GREEN MAYA PIGMENT: VESZELYITE*

Blue‐green mosaic and polychrome masks and funerary offerings from the royal tombs of Calakmul, Mexico, were analysed by scanning electron microscope equipped with energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy (SEM‐EDS), X‐ray diffraction (XRD), and particle induced X‐ray emission (PIXE). This led to the first identification of the use of veszelyite, a rare hydrated copper‐zinc phosphate, as green pigment. Analyses of a geological sample of this mineral have been done to confirm the characterization of this Mayan pigment, which might help determine pre‐Columbian trade routes of precious and luxury objects in the ancient Maya Classic period (ad 250–800).

Procedures in Human Heart Extraction and Ritual Meaning: A Taphonomic Assessment of Anthropogenic Marks in Classic Maya Skeletons

The present study reports on the cultural marks encountered in three (possibly four) skeletons retrieved from primary deposits of the Maya Classic period at Palenque, Calakmul, and Becán, Mexico. We propose that the patterns of cut and stab lesions encountered in the trunks of these individuals stem from perimortem violence that accompanied heart removal from below the rib cage rather than from postmortem evisceration. We confirm the feasibility of this procedure by experimental replication in modern corpses. The interpretation of those procedures synthesizes information obtained from osteological, archaeological, and iconographic sources and leads to a broader discussion concerning the techniques, impact, and meanings of human heart sacrifice and associated body manipulations in Classic period Maya society. Methodologically, we conclude that direct skeletal evidence of heart sacrifice can be rare, imposing a cautionary caveat on the current discussion of mortuary remains in the Maya area.

Strategic Location and Territorial Integrity: The Role of Subsidiary Sites in the Classic Maya Kingdoms of the Upper Usumacinta Region

The Upper Usumacinta region was the scene of an intense interaction between the different kingdoms of the Classic Maya Period. This interaction took the form of political and marriage alliances as well as warfare and is well attested in the inscribed monuments of the region, especially towards the Late Classic Period (c. AD 600-900). Through this interaction the Maya rulers would not only assert their claim to power but also ensure the boundaries of their kingdoms, with an eye to accruing a vaster domain. Collage of images from article The definition of the political organisation and territorial extent of the Maya Lowland kingdoms is an issue that has attracted the attention of various scholars (Adams 1981; Adams and Jones 1981; Ball and Taschek 1991; Flannery 1972; Freidel 1981; Hammond 1974; 1981; Inomata and Aoyama 1996; Mathews 1988; 1991; Sanders 1981). Like these scholars, I have presented a model aimed at estimating the territorial extent of the kingdoms of the Upper Usumacinta region, taking into account the physical characteristics of the terrain (Anaya Herná ndez 2001). In this article I approach this issue again, focusing this time on the importance that the subsidiary centres located at strategic locations across the landscape had for the maintenance of the territorial integrity of the kingdoms of Pomoná and Piedras Negras. The political importance of these sites is reflected in the efforts that the kings of these polities went through to warrant the loyalty of the rulers of these secondary centres, as can be attested by the presence of a sculptured stela at the site of Panhalé, in the vicinity of Pomoná , and an inscribed wooden box found within the Redenció n del Campesino Valley that makes reference to a Piedras Negras ruler. To address this issue I took advantage of the capabilities that GIS offers to model movement across the physical setting in order to define the potential boundaries between the aforementioned kingdoms in the light of the available archaeological and epigraphic data. Regarding the latter, the hieroglyphic inscriptions record a couple of devastating attacks that Piedras Negras launched upon Pomoná in AD 792 and 794. I argue on the basis of the characteristics of the physical landscape and the territory controlled by each of these polities that, in order to carry out a successful campaign, Piedras Negras must have exercised control of one of the few natural passes that separate the coastal plains, where Pomoná lies, from the remainder of the Upper Usumacinta region, where Piedras Negras is located. One of these passes lies in the Redenció n del Campesino Valley; however, no subsidiary site of significance was known to exist in this valley. In this sense our 2004-2005 archaeological reconnaissance of the valley was geared to search for a site of this nature. Once again taking advantage of the spatial modelling capabilities of GIS, a probability model based on Dempster-Shafer Theory was designed to identify the areas of high potential where the presence of this type of site may occur. The probability model was tested in the field and a site located that, due to its monumental architecture, could be characterised as a subsidiary site of high strategic and political relevance.

Raman spectroscopic analysis of the Maya wall paintings in Ek’Balam, Mexico

Raman spectroscopy has been applied to the examination of wall painting fragments from the archaeological site of Ek’Balam (Yucatán, Mexico). Thirty-three samples have been studied, all originating from room 23 of the Acropolis, and being representative of the painting technique at Ek’Balam during the late Classic Maya period. Several pigments such as haematite, calcite, carbon, cinnabar and indigo were identified in these samples. The latter pigment was presumed to be present as ‘Maya blue’, which is an intercalation product of indigo and palygorskite clay. The observed Raman spectra are reported and some band assignments have been made. This survey is the first Raman spectroscopic examination of a whole set of pigments in archaeological Maya wall painting fragments.

Elite Maya Pottery and Artisans as Social Indicators

Pre‐Columbian Maya Classic period (A.D. 250–850) polychrome pottery underwent a metamorphosis during the sixth century A.D. to become a polyvalent pictorial and hieroglyphic narrative phenomenon whose transformation is tied directly to the period's sociopolitical developments. These specialized ceramics, created for and sometimes by members of the ruling stratum, are important indicators of the social and political dynamics of the Late Classic period (A.D. 550–850). This pictorial pottery informs on the heightened sociopolitical role of specialized crafting and also on that of the artists during this dynamic period. The elevated social identities of some of these artisans, in part created by a perceived connection between them and the gods of Creation, lent prestige to their crafted items. This constructed identity increased the social value of these crafted objects in their role as important accouterments of the sociopolitical power structures of the Late Classic period.

From Codex to Calabash: Recovery of a Painted Organic Artifact from the Archaeological Site of Cerén, El Salvador

AbstractDuring the 1989 field season, a layered deposit of paint fragments was excavated at the site of Ceren, El Salvador, and thought to be the remains of a classic Maya Period codex. Information gained from materials analysis and conservation treatment now suggests that it once was a painted calabash (or gourd), with the strongest evidence provided by the reconstructed decorative scheme and impressions of the disintegrated substrate preserved on the fragments' reverses. Supporting archaeological and literary evidence for this interpretation is presented, and treatment procedures and mount design are discussed.