Maya City Research Articles

Margin for error: Anthropogenic geomorphology of Bajo edges in the Maya Lowlands

Many early Maya cities developed along the edges of large structural or karst depressions (bajos). This topographic position aided growing populations to more effectively capture and store rainwater, a necessity for year-round occupation of interior portions of the Maya Lowlands of Mexico and Central America. Ancient Maya forest clearance on sloping terrain led to accelerated soil loss and the aggradation of the bajo margins. These newly created margins of colluvial lands became a focus of subsequent intensive agriculture and helped underwrite further urban expansion. We document this long-term landscape transformation with data derived principally from field investigations at Tikal, Guatemala, and Yaxnohcah, Mexico, but with reference to other Maya centers in the Elevated Interior Region (EIR). Data are derived from field investigations, interpretation of lidar imagery, and laboratory analyses. We present a model of three variants of bajo margin landscape change with differences attributable to topography, lithology, hydrology, and cultural processes. We present preliminary data on crops that were cultivated on bajo-margin soils. We further describe how agriculture was adapted to evolving bajo margins as evidenced by systems of field walls, terraces, and ditches.

Imperial resource management at the ancient Maya city of Tikal: A resilience model of sustainability and collapse

Over the time span of more than a millennium, the ancient Maya polity of Tikal went through periods of growth, reorganization and adaptive cycles of various connected scales. Recent data show that following the reorganization of the Late Preclassic period, Tikal experienced an extended period of technological innovation and population growth that eventually stretched the carrying capacity of the available landscape. A hydraulic system was constructed that provided water for the community during the dry seasons: a powerful development in an area without a permanent water source. Agriculture was intensified using a combination of root crop agriculture, irrigated fields, arboriculture, household gardens, short fallow cropping systems and bajo margin cultivation. The net product of these diverse production activities helped to underwrite an enormous amassing of economic and political capital during the Late Classic period. Ultimately, in the mid-9th century CE, expansive growth combined with multiple system disturbances led to a collapse of the city’s social structure followed by abandonment of the site. The application of resilience theory as a conceptual framework is useful in helping to interpret the complex web of the underlying social and ecological domains that contributed to Tikal’s demise.

Análisis léxico sobre la opacidad ortográfica de una crónica de indias: el caso del verbo haber

Hasta finales del siglo XVIII los cronistas de indias europeos recrearon con sus manuscritos la cultura, paisajes y formas de vivir de América en los imaginarios del mundo europeo; sin embargo, tal recreación a veces obvió la mirada y experiencia americana. Este es el caso de la Crónica Teatro Crítico Americano o Nueva Tentativa para la Solución del gran problema histórico sobre la población de la América (Cabrera, 1794), que fue conocida a través de una traducción al inglés que, en razón de la opacidad ortográfica que presenta, pudo haber dejado ocultas imágenes, historias y visiones de la América de 1794 y que, aun 193 años después de su envío a Europa, el mundo desconoce. Por medio de la elaboración de un corpus lingüístico del contenido léxico de la Crónica se tomó el caso del verbo Haber para hacer un análisis léxico que propone la interferencia de la lengua materna del cronista –el italiano– como factor que conllevó a la opacidad ortográfica de la Crónica, la cual, a su vez, impacta la fidelidad de la traducción del editor Henry Berthoud de 1822 en la que Europa se ha apoyado para entender la ciudad Maya de Palenque. Después de más de 500 años, la historia de América contada en boca y lengua de americanos sigue sin ser contada.

Early construction at Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala: An architectural-footing and -bonding sample

The lowland Maya city of Nixtun-Ch'ich' (Petén, Guatemala) exhibits an atypical gridded layout featuring quadrilateral blocks of architectural construction, established in the Middle Preclassic period (~800–500BCE). Early levels of some excavated structures revealed unusual dark-colored, sticky sediments used as architectural footings overlying limestone bedrock and as adhesives for binding construction stones. Physical, mineralogical, and soil nutrient (chemical) properties of two samples of this material were analyzed. The samples were found to be highly organic (high %LOI), and composed primarily of smectite clay. They are characterized by low green strength, marked swelling when mixed with water, and corresponding shrinkage on drying, suggesting low load-bearing capacity. Chemical analyses revealed a slightly elevated pH of 7.8 and high levels of six soil nutrients but low phosphorus, likely making the material unsatisfactory for agriculture. We conclude that these sticky organic clays, probably of lacustrine origin, functioned as bonding agents in early architectural construction.

The fossil fishes of the archaeological site of Palenque, Chiapas, southeastern Mexico

Since the end of the nineteenth century, different remains of fossilized fishes had been observed or recovered from the Mayan City of Palenque. Although some efforts had been made to identify these objects, their taxonomical nature and possible origin within the geological environment of this archaeological site are poorly understood. In this work, we review these fossils recovered in Palenque and other two Mayan cities, Agua Clara and the El Lacandón, which are deposited into the collections of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (Mexico); we describe the morphological characteristics that allow us to identify them taxonomically. This research also reports the results of a paleontological exploration through the different Paleocene-Miocene sedimentary geological units in the surroundings of Palenque; the fossils thus collected belong to the same groups of those found within the archaeological Maya context. These results suggest that such geological units are the sources of all these fossils. In this exercise, three types of anthropogenic features produced by the Maya people were discovered on the fossils. Paint stains and plaster spots suggest that these fossils were painted. The pronounced differential wearing marks in some regions along the cutting edges of shark teeth and ray tail spines show that these fossils were used as cutting tools. Besides, the surfaces excavated around fossils preserved in slabs demonstrate that some Maya people intended on discovering and recognizing these objects, as modern paleontologists do.

A FRAMEWORK FOR LOW-COST MULTI-PLATFORM VR AND AR SITE EXPERIENCES

Abstract. Low-cost consumer-level immersive solutions have the potential to revolutionize education and research in many fields by providing virtual experiences of sites that are either inaccessible, too dangerous, or too expensive to visit, or by augmenting in-situ experiences using augmented and mixed reality methods. We present our approach for creating low-cost multi-platform virtual and augmented reality site experiences of real world places for education and research purposes, making extensive use of Structure-from-Motion methods as well as 360° photography and videography. We discuss several example projects, for the Mayan City of Cahal Pech, Iceland’s Thrihnukar volcano, the Santa Marta informal settlement in Rio, and for the Penn State Campus, and we propose a framework for creating and maintaining such applications by combining declarative content specification methods with a central linked-data based spatio-temporal information system.

Soil and slaughter: a geoarchaeological record of the ancient Maya from Cancuén, Guatemala

Excavation of a small valley-fill sequence at the East Port of the ancient Maya site of Cancuén, Guatemala has revealed a sedimentary record spanning the last c. 1300years of the Common Era (CE). Our study location within the centre of a pre-Columbian Maya city has allowed tandem records of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental history to be preserved in the sediments, offering the opportunity to reconstruct how the Maya and their environment co-evolved during the Late Classic period (600–c. 800CE). The sedimentary record from Cancuén's East Port has preserved clear evidence of the city's rise and abandonment; we have used these chronostratigraphic markers to estimate rates of aggradation and erosion over the two centuries of human occupation. Evidence of fire and major social upheaval features prominently in the sedimentary archive as thick deposits of charcoal, artefacts, and a human mass-burial that date from the final years of Cancuén. After Cancuén was rapidly abandoned at the start of the 9th century CE, changes in the East Port sequence (mainly variations in sediment provenance and accumulation rate) record the sharp decline in aggradation, and also evidence of substantial hydroclimatic variability. This research provides a new dataset capable of testing and refining archaeological theories from Cancuén, while also offering new insights into the impact of the ancient Maya on their environment in the lowland region of Central America in recent millennia.

Kaylee R. Spencer. Review of "Engaging Ancient Maya Sculpture at Piedras Negras, Guatemala" by Megan E. O'Neil and "Space and Sculpture in the Classic Maya City" by Alexander Parmington.

Kaylee R. Spencer. Review of "Engaging Ancient Maya Sculpture at Piedras Negras, Guatemala" by Megan E. O'Neil and "Space and Sculpture in the Classic Maya City" by Alexander Parmington.

Dietary Stress and Animal Resource Use at the Postclassic Maya city, Mayapán (Mexico)

ABSTRACTEnvironmental changes resulting in drought and reductions in the availability of animal resources during the Late Classic Maya have been linked with the Maya ‘collapse’. Decreases in availability of dietary staples such as artiodactyls, and particularly white-tailed deer, during the Late Classic period would have placed food stress on populations during later periods. To test this hypothesis, here bone breakage patterns are examined at the Postclassic Maya city, Mayapán, to assess whether artiodactyl bones were being intensively processed for bone fats (marrow and grease). Fragmentation morphology, size and surface markings, along with skeletal part representation and distribution of large mammal bones were recorded for bone assemblages from several houselots. Evidence suggests the Maya were likely utilising bone marrow from artiodactyls but not intensively and they were not extracting bone grease. These results indicate that decreased accessibility to artiodactyls during the Postclassic was not causing high levels of dietary stress for the Maya at Mayapán, which is consistent with recent evidence demonstrating dietary consistency during the Postclassic in northern Yucatan.

A likely cranial osteodystrophy (Paget’s disease of bone) in a Precolumbian, Mesoamerican stone sculpture

This short note illustrates facial and head features found in a stone sculpture of the ancient, Precolumbian period in a temple of the Mayan city of Copan (Honduras). The authors believe that this observation may support paleoanthropological evidence of Paget's disease of bone, an osteodystrophy described in the Mesoamerican Indian populations before the first millennium A.D.

Caracol, Belize, and Changing Perceptions of Ancient Maya Society

Archaeological research at Caracol, an ancient Maya site that was rediscovered in 1937, has become a major resource in the interpretation and understanding of the ancient Maya. Caracol, in west-central Belize, is situated in a subtropical region once characterized as being unsuitable for the development or maintenance of complex societies, yet it is one of the largest, if not the largest Classic period Maya site in the southern Maya Lowlands, home to over 100,000 people at its height between AD 600 and 700. The investigations at Caracol underscore the utility of long-term archaeological projects incorporating large-scale settlement study that combine excavation with varied research designs and the use of a contextual approach. By employing Maya epigraphic history, traditional archaeology, and modern technology like LiDAR, research at Caracol details the rise, maintenance, and fall of an ancient Maya city, affording a large window into ancient Maya lifeways. Archaeological work provides evidence of sustainable agriculture, a market economy, city planning that included a road system, the impact of warfare on the site’s inhabitants, the sociopolitical status of women, the role that archaeology can play in refining written history, and the significance of commemorating the cyclical passage of time to the ancient Maya. This article summarizes archaeological research efforts at the site by the Caracol Archaeological Project over the last three decades.

El noreste de El Petén, aportes al urbanismo prehispánico

En 1987 se inició un registro de la condición del patrimonio edificado en el cuadrante noreste de Petén, Guatemala. El estudio abarcó varios temas, y uno de ellos fue recopilar en forma de plantas arquitectónicas esquemáticas y proyecciones isométricas el espacio construido en 128 sitios arqueológicos. La metodología utilizada para el análisis espacial de las ciudades mayas se basó en trabajos similares realizados en el área maya por diversos especialistas. Entre los resultados podemos decir que identificamos 34 tipos diversos de edificaciones, con 87 variantes, los cuales podrán ayudar a definir el estilo arquitectónico propio del noreste de Petén.

Ancient Maya Cities of the Eastern Lowlands ‐ by Houk, Brett A.

Ancient Maya Cities of the Eastern Lowlands ‐ by Houk, Brett A.

Using Lidar and GIS to Investigate Water and Soil Management in the Agricultural Terracing at Caracol, Belize

AbstractIn April 2009, a lidar survey flown by the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping recorded 200 square kilometers of terrain that comprised the Classic Period Maya city of Caracol, Belize. The data revealed a highly manipulated landscape of dense settlement, agricultural terraces, and residential reservoirs. Literature on Maya agriculture has discussed the benefits of terraces in controlling soil erosion, retaining water, and managing the gravitational flow of water; however, until now these benefits have not been quantified or demonstrated on the ground at scale. This research utilizes these lidar data and data derivatives in order to test the degree to which the ancient Maya manipulated their environment and were able to support large-scale populations through their landscape management practices. As such, the research provides evidence supporting the significance of agricultural terraces and their impact on limiting soil erosion, increasing water retention, and permitting flow control over rainfall runoff. This research also highlights the conscious effort by the ancient Maya to manage the hydrology of their terraced landscape.

The Economic Basis of a Maya Political Entity. The Case of Toniná

La entidad politica de Tonina, por su ubicacion marginal en un valle abun-dante en recursos naturales, ocupaba un lugar especial entre las ciudades mayas. A pesar de la riqueza natural del valle de Ocosingo, Tonina carece de un acceso facil a varios bienes de prestigio, lo que influyo probablemente sobre su actitud belica en contra de ciudades rivales y su busqueda de esos productos indispensables para la dinastia local. PalabRas clave: Tonina, recursos naturales, economia politica, intercambio. abstRact: Because its marginal location, in a valley rich in natural resources, the Toni-na polity had a special place among Maya cities. In spite of the abundant natural resources of the Ocosingo valley, Tonina lacks easy access to several luxury products, which might have influenced its bellicose attitude towards many rival entities, and its search of the prestigious resources needed by the local dynasty. (source editeur)

A King's Apotheosis: Iconography, Text, and Politics from a Classic Maya Temple at Holmul

Excavations at the ancient Maya city of Holmul, Petén, have led to the discovery of a building decorated with an intricately carved and painted plaster frieze. The iconography of the frieze portrays seated lords, mountain spirits, feathered serpents, and gods of the underworld engaged in the apparent rebirth of rulers as sun gods. Large emblems carved on the side of the building identify the structure as a shrine for ancestor veneration. A dedicatory text carved along the bottom of the frieze contains a king list and references to the political and familial ties of the ruler who commissioned the temple. Together, the iconography and text of this structure provide evidence of function and meaning. They also shed new light on a century during Classic Maya history known as the Tikal “Hiatus,” for which a limited number of texts are available. The information derived from this monument also broadens our understanding of the nature of hegemonic relationships among Classic Maya states.

In the Wake of the Great

AbstractWhen the Maya city of Uxul, a small kingdom in the rainforest, came under the rule of the powerful Kaan dynasty, it was the beginning of a blossoming that was later followed by their joint downfall. A team of German and Mexican archaeologists are excavating new evidence of this story of political power and the history of a city.

Geochemical characterization of inorganic residues on plaster floors from a Maya palace complex at Actuncan, Belize

This report describes the results of a geochemical analysis using a mild acid extraction and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy of 198 samples from plaster surfaces at the palace complex at Actuncan, a prehispanic Maya city located in a karst landscape of western Belize. Archeologists working in the Maya region of Central America often refer to many different kinds of building complexes as “palaces” without a clear understanding of how they functioned. Often, the rooms inside these structures are devoid of features and artifacts, making it difficult to infer how they were used. Geochemical characterization of inorganic residues on plaster floors as a means of prospecting for activity areas is therefore critical for studying the function and meaning of ancient Maya palaces. At Actuncan, due to the high degree of preservation of many of the floors, overlying plaster surfaces were able to be sampled, thus informing not only how the buildings were used, but how their uses changed over time. Multivariate quantitative modeling and spatial interpolation of the chemical data demonstrate that a variety of domestic, ritual, and possibly administrative activities took place in the palace complex, a finding that challenges previous assessments of palaces as primarily royal residential compounds.

Réparer la surface de la Terre

L’archéologie des Mayas anciens documente depuis des décennies les habitats. Dans certaines maisons et alentour, la fouille soigneuse met au jour de grandes quantités de vestiges non périssables d’occupation, dans des contextes et selon des configurations suggérant qu’ils résultent en réalité de pratiques rituelles particulières. Ce sont les témoins matériels figés de gestes rituels liés à la construction des maisons, leur reconstruction, ou leur abandon. Combiner ainsi déchets et rites reflète une conception maya de l’action humaine située dans le temps et dans l’univers, qu’il convient de décrire, puis d’interpéter dans sa complexité. On présente un cas de dispositif élaboré de cinq dépôts trouvés dans un bâtiment voûté du centre du site de La Joyanca (Petén, Guatemala).

SET IN STONE: HIATUSES AND DYNASTIC POLITICS AT TIKAL, GUATEMALA

AbstractStone stelae and altars inscribed with dates and bearing a portrait of the ruler they commemorate define the Classic period in the Maya lowlands. They attest to the ruling elite's awareness of history and its uses to assert their authority and legitimacy. The power of Maya history remains evident when text decipherments override archaeological evidence. Privileging of texts is especially problematic in interpretations of gaps or hiatuses in the sequence of dates on carved monuments as indicators of site-wide decline. Archaeological evidence from the Lowland Maya city of Tikal contradicts the assumption of general decline during its longest hiatus, as well as a widely accepted historical explanation of its cause. Placing stone monuments and their texts in past cultural context indicates gaps were more likely due to a venerable Mesoamerican tradition of monument desecration carried out by rival elite factions than to specific historical events.