Maya Civilization Research Articles

Scrutinizing the paleoecological record of the Maya forest

Human expansion into and occupation of the New World coincided with the great transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene epoch, yet questions remain about how we detect human presence in the paleoecological record. In the Maya area of southern Mesoamerica, archeological evidence of the human imprint is largely invisible until ∼4,000 years ago. How do environmental changes after that time correspond and relate to human impacts? Are the archeological signatures of initial settlements in the Early Preclassic detected? Later, by ∼2,000 years ago when the Maya had fully settled the landscape, how does the evidence of forest compositional changes relate to human intervention? This paper evaluates published paleoecological data in light of the rise of the Maya civilization and reflects on interpretations of how swidden agriculture and the milpa cycle impacted the environment. Evaluating the contrast between the long archeological sequence of successful Maya development and paleoecological interpretations of destructive human-induced environmental impacts requires a concordance among pollen data, archeological evidence, ethnohistoric observations, ethnological studies of traditional Maya land use, and the historical ecology of the Maya forest today.

Northeast Yucatan hurricane activity during the Maya Classic and Postclassic periods

The collapse of the Maya civilization in the late 1st/early 2nd millennium CE has been attributed to multiple internal and external causes including overpopulation, increased warfare, and environmental deterioration. Yet the role hurricanes may have played in the fracturing of Maya socio-political networks, site abandonment, and cultural reconfiguration remains unexplored. Here we present a 2200 yearlong hurricane record developed from sediment recovered from a flooded cenote on the northeastern Yucatan peninsula. The sediment archive contains fine grain autogenic carbonate interspersed with anomalous deposits of coarse carbonate material that we interpret as evidence of local hurricane activity. This interpretation is supported by the correlation between the multi-decadal distribution of recent coarse beds and the temporal distribution of modern regional landfalling storms. In total, this record allows us to reconstruct the variable hurricane conditions impacting the northern lowland Maya during the Late Preclassic, Classic, and Postclassic Periods. Strikingly, persistent above-average hurricane frequency between ~ 700 and 1450 CE encompasses the Maya Terminal Classic Phase, the declines of Chichén Itza, Cobá, and subsequent rise and fall of the Mayapán Confederacy. This suggests that hurricanes may have posed an additional environmental stressor necessary of consideration when examining the Postclassic transformation of northern Maya polities.

A Re-Evaluation of Past to Present-Day Use of the Blissful Neuronal Nutraceutical “Cannabis”

The chronological events associated with cannabis utilization are viewed perceptively as matters/issues that happened from the period “before Christ” (BC) or “anno domini” (AD, “in the year of our Lord”) to the present time. Cannabis is one of the oldest natural products known to humanity worldwide and has been used by various civilizations, cultures, and religions before the birth of Christ. Interestingly, it is used to date and has the potential for future usage for centuries to come. Currently, the major religions around the world are Christianity, Islamism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Taoism, Judaism, Confucianism, Bahá'í, Shinto, Jainism, and Zoroastrianism, with their precepts regarding the use of cannabis products. Similarly, the most noted ancient civilizations, including the Incan Civilization, Aztec Civilization, Roman Civilization, Ancient Greek Civilization, Chinese Civilization, Mayan Civilization, Ancient Egyptian Civilization, Indus Valley Civilization, and Mesopotamian Civilization, have reported cannabis use. This review discusses cannabis in various civilizations and religions from the past to the present day.

Environmental legacy of pre-Columbian Maya mercury

The Mexico and Central American region has a history of mercury use that began at least two millennia before European colonisation in the 16th century. Archaeologists have reported extensive deposits of cinnabar (HgS) and other mercury materials in ancient human settlements across the region. However, there has been no consideration to date of the environmental legacy of this long history of anthropogenic mercury use. This review begins by synthesising our knowledge of the history and nature of anthropogenic mercury in ancient Mesoamerica based on archaeological data, with a particular focus on the Maya culture of lowland Guatemala, Belize, the Yucatan of Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras. The Classic Period Maya used mercury for decorative and ceremonial (including funerary) purposes: Cinnabar (HgS) predominantly, but the archaeological record also shows rare finds of elemental mercury (Hg0) in important burial and religious contexts. In this review, we have located and summarised all published data sets collected from (or near) ancient Maya settlements that include environmental mercury measurements. Comparing mercury determinations from pre-Columbian Maya settlements located across the region confirms that seven sites from ten have reported at least one location with mercury concentrations that equal or exceed modern benchmarks for environmental toxicity. The locations with elevated mercury are typically former Maya occupation areas used in the Late Classic Period, situated within large urban settlements abandoned by c. 10th century CE. It is most likely that the mercury detected in buried contexts at Maya archaeological sites is associated with pre-Columbian mercury use, especially of cinnabar. In more complex contexts, where modern biological or specifically anthropogenic inputs are more probable, legacy mercury in the environment will have a more complex, and time transgressive input history. This review identifies current research gaps in our understanding of the long history of Maya mercury use and in the collection of robust total mercury datasets from the Maya world. We identify important areas for future research on the environmental persistence and legacy of mercury, including the need to interpret environment mercury data in the context of mercury exposure and human health at Maya archaeological sites.

Ethnobotanical History: Duckweeds in Different Civilizations.

This presentation examines the history of duckweeds in Chinese, Christian, Greek, Hebrew, Hindu, Japanese, Maya, Muslim, and Roman cultures and details the usage of these diminutive freshwater plants from ancient times through the Middle Ages. We find that duckweeds were widely distributed geographically already in antiquity and were integrated in classical cultures in the Americas, Europe, the Near East, and the Far East 2000 years ago. In ancient medicinal sources, duckweeds are encountered in procedures, concoctions, and incantations involving the reduction of high fever. In this regard, we discuss a potential case of ethnobotanical convergence between the Chinese Han and Classical Maya cultures. Duckweeds played a part in several ancient rituals. In one, the unsuitability of its roots to serve as a wick for Sabbath oil lamps. In another reference to its early use as human food during penitence. In a third, a prominent ingredient in a medicinal incantation, and in a fourth, as a crucial element in ritual body purifications. Unexpectedly, it emerged that in several ancient cultures, the floating duckweed plant featured prominently in the vernacular and religious poetry of the day.

Benefits of Biochar Addition in a Sustainable Agriculture Practice: Soil Nutrients Dynamics, Enzyme Activities and Plant Growth

Biochar is a carbon-rich material resulting from the pyrolysis of plant and animal biomass. Biochar has a long history as a soil amendment for centuries since the Mayan civilization. Attaining sustainability in agriculture is not easy; however, the addition of biochar may reduce the adverse effects of numerous malpractices in conventional agriculture. Biochar benefits soil physicochemical properties such as soil bulk density, aggregate stability, porosity, water holding capacity and soil organic carbon content. However, it is essential to focus on the negative aspects of biochar in terms of atmospheric emissions during the production and occupational health and safety at the time of use. Still, there are many benefits and detriments of the application of biochar, i.e., the priming effect; thus, this review highlights the importance of further research on the application of biochar as a soil amendment. It has been understood that the lack of long-term field studies in various soils using commercially produced biochar may restrict the knowledge of biochar's true potential and effect on soil nutrient dynamics, microbial structure, and crop yield.
 Keywords: Land degradation, Biochar, Nutrient retention, Soil quality, Microbial community

The Chilam Balam of Ixil: Facsimile and Study of an Unpublished Maya Book

This study continues to demonstrate why the Books of Chilam Balam rank among the most significant writings produced by Indigenous people and are extremely valuable in the study of the Maya. Authored and preserved throughout the colonial period by literate Maya, the books contain a potpourri of subjects ranging from medicinal remedies, to local histories, to Christian texts. As technically forbidden compilations, these books offer scholars rare insights into what the Maya recorded and preserved, largely of their own volition, and how they made sense of European concepts within their own worldview. Although other Chilam Balams have received scholarly attention for years, that from Ixil has remained in relative obscurity. With this work, Laura Caso Barrera brings the first translation of the Chilam Balam of Ixil in its entirety to English readers. First appearing in Spanish in 2011, this updated edition brings the same beautiful color images of and astute insight into the manuscript that appeared nearly a decade earlier. The first part of the book contains a facsimile of the manuscript, while the second part holds essays written by Caso Barrera and Mario M. Aliphat Fernández, followed by a full transcription and translation of the manuscript. Two appendixes illustrating the flora and fauna appearing in the Ixil complement the main text.The two essays that introduce the translation of the Ixil are important and of significant value in understanding not only the contents of the manuscript itself but also the colonial Maya in general. In her essay, Caso Barrera examines the European and Indigenous contributions to the Chilam Balam of Ixil to reveal the impact of both foreign and local ideologies on its various texts. Throughout, she demonstrates how European works such as almanacs and medical and biblical texts all informed the content of the Maya manuscript. Here, Caso Barrera’s detective work in locating possible Old World archetypes is impressive, as she identifies specific texts as likely suspects. Moreover, the essay gives due credit to Maya culture and its influence on the final text while recognizing the authorial and creative role of its composers who acted as more than mere copyists of European genres. As such, the Books of Chilam Balam became “tools used by the Maya to understand and modify the latest European concepts and theories to amalgamate them with their own knowledge” (96). Aliphat Fernández authors the second essay, which provides additional details and insights into Maya calendrics, numerology, and cosmic worldview. The excellent overview delivers the background necessary to appreciate the appearance of such themes in the Ixil and how the Ixil incorporated and familiarized similar European concepts into their own culture.Overall, this important work joins those previous in the historiography that reveal the importance of locating both the European and Indigenous elements of Maya texts to better understand how the Maya negotiated their colonial world. The Books of Chilam Balam provide an excellent observatory from which to view these elements, and English-language readers will welcome this new addition.

PLANTS OF THE POPOL VUH, THE SACRED BOOK OF THE MAYA

A compilation of the plants mentioned in the sacred book of the Mayans Popol Vuh, recognized as the framework of their cosmogony that was written in the K’iche’ area in Guatemala around the year 1550 was made. Thirty- two different species were identified, from 21 plant families, all native to Mesoamerica. The largest number of species were in Fabaceae with four species, Moraceae and Solanaceae with three species each, in addition to Bromeliaceae, Cucurbitaceae, Malvaceae and Poaceae with two species each. The five most important and frequently named species are maize (Zea mays), jícaro (Crescentia cujete), copal (Protium copal), rubber (Castilla elastica) and cocoa (Theobroma cacao). Eleven species were identified, such as pito wood (Erythrina berteroana) and zibak (Cyperus canus), considered of cosmogonic significance and food plants that are integrated into five groups: fruit trees [zapote (Manilkara zapota), nance (Byrsonima crassifolia), jocote (Spondias mombin), anona (Annona reticulata), matasano (Casimiroa edulis)], grains and seeds [maize, beans (Phaseolus lunatus), cocoa, pataxte (Theobroma bicolor)], vegetables [squash (Cucurbita moschata), tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), chilacayote (Cucurbita ficifolia)], flavourings [chili (Capsicum annuum)], and beverages [maguey (Agave americana)]. Seven species were domesticated: maize, squash, chilacayote, tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), beans, tomato and cocoa and others for medicinal purposes, fuel and instruments. The description of the creation of man asserts the close relationship of the Mayan culture with plant biodiversity; moreover, the famous milpa, a multi-species Mesoamerican agroecosystem is mentioned that was practiced by their gods.

Her Cup for Sweet Cacao: Food in Ancient Maya Society

This compelling collection of essays reveals the key role that food played in all dimensions of Maya society, including economics, politics, and religion. Through analysis of the kitchen, feasts, banquets, rituals, and “memory work,” the collection emphasizes food's importance as a social fact and its role in cultural reproduction and identity construction. From a wide range of disciplines, the contributors skillfully connect historical, archaeological, chemical, biological, anthropological, ethnohistoric, epigraphic, and iconographic evidence.Though the volume focuses on the Classic period, Traci Ardren wisely includes a chapter by M. Kathryn Brown and Carolyn Freiwald that analyzes the potluck festival during Middle and Late Preclassic periods as a key element in the following period's social complexity. The book's core—chapters 3 to 9—submerges the reader in an in-depth exploration of the role of food and foodways in the social construction of identities in Classic Maya society.In chapter 3, Jon Spenard, Adam King, Terry Powis, and Nilesh Gaikwad adopt an ethnographic approach to emphasize the social importance of caves as spaces of communication between gods and men, especially between Maya royalty and divine essence. Their analysis shows both cacao's great value in the caves of Pacbitun and women's importance in these rituals. Furthermore, the chapter suggests that the caves may have also been used by specialists for other purposes, such as healing. The following chapter, by Nicholas Carter and Mallory Matsumoto, explores the epigraphy of food and beverages in the Maya courts. The chapter analyzes all dimensions of maize, cacao, and pulque: the way that they were prepared, their mythical meaning, and the social and religious norms that governed their consumption, including preparation processes and table settings.Shanti Morell-Hart next argues that food plants should also be recognized as “dynamic actors, mediators, and messengers” (p. 149). Morell-Hart explains how ancient Maya's plant-based diet was complemented by the intake of animal protein. Petra Cunningham-Smith, Ashley Sharpe, Arianne Boileau, Erin Kennedy Thornton, and Kitty Emery build on the importance of animals in their chapter, which analyzes the role of dogs in Maya culture, whether as food, funeral offerings, or symbols.Chapters 7 and 8 move on to examine culinary and food service equipment as a form of social distinction and a sign of identity. Lilia Fernández Souza, Mario Zimmermann, and Socorro del Pilar Jiménez Álvarez demonstrate how the distribution of culinary and food service equipment in Sihó evinces the existence of social divisions, including the selective use of certain culinary tools in relation to those in privileged power positions. Similarly, Julia Hendon's spatial analysis of the Copán and lower Ulúa valleys shows how food (especially cacao), ceramics, and other goods increased stratification within cities with a central power, such as Copán, and decentralized areas with greater ethnic diversity, such as the lower Ulúa valley.Maxime Lamoureux-St-Hilaire's contribution, the last to address the Classic period, illustrates the role of festivities as channels of communication and as processes of social differentiation. Lamoureux-St-Hilaire explores how the great sophistication of La Corona's feast meant to perpetuate the power and identity of increasingly unstable elites. Lamoureux-St-Hilaire demonstrates how this festival's great economic cost placed a huge stress on the environment and the population. The festival, the author argues, thus played an important role in the deterioration of social and political relations and in triggering the collapse of Classic Maya society.Following this comprehensive analysis of the Classic Maya, the collection's last three contributions focus on the transformations resulting from the collapse of Maya society and the Maya cultural reformulation, due to the arrival of new human groups in the area during the Postclassic period. Ardren's chapter shows how the arrival of new foods and technology organized regional elites and newcomers as new identities emerged, despite the cultural exchanges between both parties. Moreover, in a study of the food consumed in Mayapán, Marilyn Masson, Timothy Hare, Bradley Russell, Carlos Peraza Lope, and Jessica Campbell reveal the unusual growth in the consumption of meat, probably due to several factors including the existence of markets, tribute demands, and sumptuary laws. This contrasted with the countryside, where the intake of animal protein was scarce. Gabrielle Vail and Maia Dedrick analyze the relationships between men, gods, and animals through balche’ rituals from the Postclassic era to the present day, exposing the drink's great relevance to the study of social transformations. Closing out this coherent yet diverse collection, Jeffrey Pilcher contextualizes the book within Maya historiography, recalling the contributors' key arguments and suggesting future lines of research.Ardren and the collection's contributors painstakingly advance a unique, compelling, and thorough analysis of the social uses of food and foodways in Classic Maya culture, grounded in rich evidence analyzed from a diverse range of approaches. This volume sets the groundwork for further studies to explore other periods and regions in order to gain a broader understanding of this phenomenon in Maya culture.

Organic compositional analysis of ancient maya tooth sealants and fillings

One of the major unknowns regarding the ancient Maya practice of dental inlaying is the nature of the cement, used to affix small stones inside artificially drilled cavities on labial tooth surfaces. These cements endured the harsh buccal environment of a lifespan and secured the inlay firmly in the tooth even through centuries of subsequent postmortem decay. Beyond their adhesive properties, the sealant materials probably reduced cariogenic activity and periodontal infectious disease. Prior analysis of dental sealings was limited to the identification of inorganic components. Among the materials identified are hydroxyapatite and Portland cement-related compounds, materials that hardened and strengthened Maya dental adhesives. However, the substances that provided the agglutinant and resistance properties to the sealants and fillings remain unknown. The present study involved the analysis of the organic fraction of tooth sealants and fillings in samples from three Classic-period Maya archaeological sites, Holmul (Guatemala), Baking Pot (Belize), and the Copan Valley (Honduras). Attenuated total reflectance infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) and gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC–MS) of eight dental specimens, revealed compositional variety and provide further clues as to the organic materials used in the sealing potions prepared by the ancient dental practitioners. Organic molecules suggest that vegetal resins from Pinaceae species, a probable Lamiaceae-derived essential oil, an Asteraceae preparation, and bitumen, were among the main ingredients. The results of these analyses further attest the chromatic properties of dental fillings and suggest the sealants may also have had antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. Overall, the results of this analysis highlight the high degree of sophistication of ancient Maya dental practice.

Multi-millennial human impacts and climate change during the Maya early Anthropocene: implications on hydro-sedimentary dynamics and socio-environmental trajectories (Naachtun, Guatemala)

During the Maya early Anthropocene (2000 BCE – 1000 CE) in Mesoamerica, socio-environmental interactions contributed to the rise and decline of the ancient Maya civilisation. At the scale of the exploitation territories of the Maya cities, the temporal variations of hydrological and sedimentary dynamics in response to anthropogenic and climate drivers are still poorly known. This constrains diachronic analyses of socio-ecosystems and, more particularly, of water and soil resources in the hinterlands. This manuscript analyses and presents a regional comparison of the dynamics of one of the most transformed hydrosystems and morpho-sedimentary systems by the societies of the Southern Maya Lowlands (SMLs), during the second half of the Holocene. It focuses on the lake basin of the polje named El Infierno bajo and its watershed, which was the main water storage area for the Maya city of Naachtun – a large regional capital between 150 and 950 CE –, and which contains many remains of hydraulic and agrarian structures. This integrated palaeolimnological, geoarchaeological and hydrological approach, based on the analyses of morpho-sedimentary archives, LiDAR altimetry data and hydrological data, resulted in the construction of hydro-sedimentary baselines (pre- syn- and post-ancient Maya anthropogenic impacts). Currently, the intermittent lake (civale) of this bajo responds to strong seasonal and interannual hydrological variabilities, under climate control. During the past 5500 years, hydro-sedimentary fluctuations were marked by the alternation of seven main hydrological periods (HP), characterised by high and low lake levels (alternately perennial, intermittent and dry lake) and six main erosion and sediment transfer periods (ESTP), marked by strong and low alluvial and colluvial detrital inputs in the lowlands. Anthropogenic and climate forcings have independently or jointly controlled the hydrologic and sedimentary budgets of the lake basin. Lithofacies, depositional processes, accumulation rates and drivers of the anthropogenic detrital inputs – the so-called “Maya clays” –, are analysed and quantified from ∼1500 BCE to ∼1150 CE. It thus reveals one of the longest periods of occupation and exploitation of natural resources of the SMLs, for over 2500 years during the Preclassic, Classic and Post-classic Maya periods. The hydro-sedimentary dynamics in the bajos of the SMLs Elevated Interior Region (EIR), such as El Infierno, enabled the long-term exploitation of water and soil resources for agrarian purposes, thanks to the construction of hydraulic and agrarian palimpsest landscapes shaped by the socio-ecosystems.

All that is old is new again: Epigraphic applications of photogrammetry in ancient Mesoamerica

The close collaboration between researchers of the Institute of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies, the Copenhagen University Library (KUB) of the Royal Danish Library, and members of the Rigsters 3D Scanning team in the private sector has led to highly productive interchange and applications of some of the most recent photogrammetric modelling, especially with applications to archaeology, cultural heritage and epigraphy. In this paper, we highlight some of the most recent collaborative efforts, focusing on a series of case-studies that are particular to ancient Maya civilization (ad 250–900), especially from archaeological sites in present-day Belize. The photographic documentation, processing and resultant modelling as well as some of the final drawings are presented, as are some of the historic finds that have been brought about by these collaborations.

Rewriting Maya Religion: Domingo de Vico, K'iche’ Maya Intellectuals, and the “Theologia Indorum.”

Garry Sparks's recent book examines the interreligious encounters in the highland Maya region of Guatemala during the early decades after Spanish contact. In this volume, intended as a companion to The Americas' First Theologies: Early Sources of Post-contact Indigenous Religion (2017), Sparks presents a theological and intertextual analysis of the Theologia Indorum, or the “Theology for and of the Indians,” presumably written in K'iche’ Maya by the Spanish Dominican friar Domingo de Vico. Completed in 1554 and never published, the Theologia Indorum spanned two volumes and over 800 manuscript pages, becoming the first original theology produced in the Americas. Sparks's assiduous theological and linguistic analysis of the remaining fragments from multiple Theologia Indorum copies uncovers its important role in the transmission of Catholic and Maya religions. Sparks argues that to fully understand its impact, it must be evaluated in relation with contemporaneous religious and legal highland Maya texts, especially the Popol Wuj (1554–58) and the Title of Totonicapán (1554). Sparks demonstrates how Vico, literate K'iche’ Maya intellectuals, and later mendicant priests learned and borrowed from each other to reconfigure highland Maya religious theology.Through careful evaluation of Vico's understudied work and a broader corpus of K'iche’ Maya texts, Sparks focuses on the challenges of translation and the commensurability of ideas between Hispano-Catholic and K'iche’ Maya worldviews. Sparks highlights the diversity of Catholicism in early modern Iberia, which had to be reconciled into the highly localized contexts of the Americas. While Vico's Franciscan counterparts used either Latin or Spanish to present key topics, Vico relied instead on Indigenous terms. Sparks explains Vico's use of K'iche’ Maya linguistic ideology and moral anthropology as evidence of his training in scholastic Thomism, which emphasized the importance of language and the value of analogical reasoning (chapter 2). While the Theologia Indorum was designed for Maya conversion to Catholicism, Vico did not view the two religions as incompatible, nor did he rule out a “mixture of Catholic theology and indigenous culture” in creating the manuscript (p. 162).Sparks traces how Vico and highland Maya intellectuals such as Diego Reynoso reconciled their religions and used Maya terms and images to establish analogies for Catholic concepts. To do so, the volume's first of three parts establishes the “Old World” backgrounds of the highland Maya and Iberian mendicants. Vico's life and work are carefully evaluated in part 2, which provides background on Vico (chapter 3), discusses the Theologia Indorum's structure and creation (chapter 4), and explains his theological method (chapter 5). Through impressive linguistic analysis, Sparks examines how Vico adeptly utilized both the high register (language for ritual speech and elders) and low register (quotidian speech) of K'iche’ Mayan in the Theologia Indorum. By balancing high and quotidian speech and drawing on Maya knowledge, Vico constructed a text that accommodated Maya culture and religiosity. Transcribed or translated over 18 times, the Theologia Indorum became a foundational text in the region, as it was mentioned implicitly or explicitly in many contemporaneous highland Maya writings.In the same way that Vico accommodated Maya religiosity in his work, Sparks reveals how the K'iche’ Maya authors accommodated Vico, as the Theologia Indorum often became synonymous with Christianity in their writings. Part 3 assesses the Theologia Indorum's impact via expert intertextual analysis of contemporaneous K'iche’- and other Mayan-language texts, including the Popol Wuj (chapter 6), the Title of Totonicapán (chapter 7), and other legal writings (chapter 8). Sparks defines these diverse manuscripts as theologies that reveal the various levels of engagement with and responses to the Theologia Indorum by Maya intellectuals. The Title of Totonicapán's authors, for example, took a more conciliatory approach to the Theologia Indorum while also redacting, rather than merely copying, the manuscript in their work. In contrast, the authors of the Popol Wuj presented a slight resistance to Vico by portraying the Theologia Indorum as an “incomplete and deficient” version of the creation story and Maya ancient truths offered by the Popol Wuj (p. 198). Later sixteenth-century writings, however, increasingly saw the Theologia Indorum as an authoritative text and as “truth of God” (p. 297).Sparks's latest work reflects his mastery of the K'iche’ language and offers a welcome addition to the fields of religious studies, ethnohistory, and Maya linguistics. The book contains extensive footnotes and charts comparing the intertextual analysis of the various manuscripts, including a useful “Maya and mendicant intertextual reception history” chart (p. 287). The inclusion of maps could have helped situate readers and further illustrate aspects of the argument, such as the emphasis on locality and the geographical influence of the Theologia Indorum. This is a fascinating, detailed, and insightful work that will be of particular interest to a scholarly audience, as it deepens our knowledge of understudied highland Maya writings and the early evangelization process in Guatemala.

Archaeological landscape, settlement dynamics, and sociopolitical organization in the Chactún area of the central Maya Lowlands.

Until recently, an extensive area in the central lowlands of the Yucatán peninsula was completely unexplored archaeologically. In 2013 and 2014, during initial surveys in the northern part of the uninhabited Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in eastern Campeche, Mexico, we located Chactún, Tamchén and Lagunita, three major Maya centers with some unexpected characteristics. Lidar data, acquired in 2016 for a larger area of 240 km2, revealed a thoroughly modified and undisturbed archaeological landscape with a remarkably large number of residential clusters and widespread modifications related to water management and agriculture. Substantial additional information was obtained through field surveys and test excavations in 2017 and 2018. While hydraulic and agricultural features and their potential for solving various archaeologically relevant questions were discussed in a previous publication, here we examine the characteristics of settlement patterns, architectural remains, sculpted monuments, and ceramic evidence. The early Middle Preclassic (early first millennium BCE) material collected in stratigraphic pits at Tamchén and another locale constitutes the earliest evidence of colonization known so far in a broader central lowland area. From then until the Late Classic period, which was followed by a dramatic demographic decline, the area under study witnessed relatively constant population growth and interacted with different parts of the Maya Lowlands. However, a number of specific and previously unknown cultural traits attest to a rather distinctive regional development, providing novel information about the extent of regional variation within the Maya culture. By analyzing settlement pattern characteristics, inscriptional data, the distribution of architectural volumes and some other features of the currently visible archaeological landscape, which largely reflects the Late Classic situation, we reconstruct several aspects of sociopolitical and territorial organization in that period, highlighting similarities with and differences from what has been evidenced in the neighboring Río Bec region and elsewhere in the Maya area.

COMPLEXITY, FUNCTION, AND RURALITY: PREHISTORIC MAYA COMMUNITIES OF NORTHWEST BELIZE

AbstractThe northwest region of Belize, known as the Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area (RBCMA), is a research set-aside of interest for investigating hinterland communities of the prehistoric Maya. The hinterland or rural communities of the RBCMA are as diverse and complex as any across the Maya lowlands. The Programme for Belize Archaeological Project (PfBAP), of northwest Belize, provides various data for identifying and interpreting ancient Maya interactions in the region. With more than 25 seasons of Maya archaeological research in the region, PfBAP researchers are well placed to present aspects of nonurban life that helped make Maya civilization possible. The PfBAP utilizes survey and mapping strategies, material culture analyses, Light Detection and Ranging, and theoretical interests for evaluating ancient Maya life in the region's rural areas. There are four essential components herein contained for the PfBAP investigations of ancient Maya rural settlements in northwest Belize: (1) hinterland study strategies, (2) rural settlements, (3) rural diversity, and (4) nonurban life and rural elites. Sociopolitical systems (and/or interactions) are also posited for the prehistoric rural Maya. Where possible, suggested relationships between communities of varying size and complexity are discussed. The manifestations of production, identity, and equality are also defined as appropriate and integrated into the discussion of function(s) associated with rurality.

THE SERVICE-LEARNING APPROACH AS A TOOL TO IMPROVE SUSTAINABILITY IN HOUSES OF A MAYAN COMMUNITY

Service-learning is a hands-on educational approach where students apply the knowledge they acquire in the classroom, while serving in a community. This paper reports the results of applying this approach at the University of Yucatán. During 2014, a “Social Project” was developed in the community of Yaxunah (“Green house”, in Mayan language), Yucatán. Students from several disciplines (engineering, architecture, medicine, biology, social service and agro-ecology) followed an ecosystem approach to improve the health and the environment of the community. The specific goal was to improve the backyards (here after referred as patios) of the houses in the community. In the Mayan culture, the patio is the family’s reunion center, since it has several purposes. In this space are located: the kitchen, bathroom, garden, pet area, and, in many instances, livestock. Faculty, students and community partners worked closely together over six months, finding the best ways to improve their patios and houses using local materials, and their own labor, while taking care of the environment. After the project’s completion, members of the community reported their experiences as a very productive one, helping them to maintain the patios’ sustainability and family health. Participating students answered a questionnaire, reporting that their learning experience was very rewarding.

“Me Gustaría que Habláramos También de mi Cultura”: A Yearlong Case Study of Two Maya English Learners

ABSTRACT This article describes the journey I embarked on as a teacher-researcher to better understand the realities of two of my Maya English learners (ELs) in our learning environment. This yearlong (2018–2019) study took the form of a qualitative case study inquiry whose purpose was to explore how two Maya migrant youth from Guatemala experienced and negotiated language, culture, and identity in a suburban U.S. high school. Findings highlight the need for acknowledging the participants’ Mayan culture, and including academic resources and support in their first languages (Mam and Q’eqchi’), instead of Spanish, to learn English. In addition, recorded conversations with the participants shed light on the complexities dwelling at the intersection of language, culture, and identity in formal education settings and beyond.

Ecological Embeddedness in the Maya Built Environment: Inspiration for Contemporary Cities

Cities nowadays are the most significant source of environmental degradation threatening local and global ecosystems. Interestingly, many ancient settlements present excellent lessons and inspiration for addressing our current urban predicaments, given their environmental stewardship. This research explores how the ecologically embedded settlement patterns, building configurations, urban agriculture and home gardening, and water conservation of the Maya-built environment can offer insights about mitigating contemporary urban sustainability challenges. Mayans’ respect for nature not only guaranteed sustainable habitats but also engendered one of the most remarkable civilizations in a region that did not offer generous support for human accommodation. The Mayan world view promoted the idea of one spirit dwelling in all humans and other-than-human entities in an environment, making everything sacred and kin to everything else. The regional climate was kept under control by protecting the vegetation that also provided other ecological benefits. Land use was mixed, and residences were constructed with native and recyclable materials utilizing natural light and ventilation. The Mayan civilization inspires us to manage and protect plants, not cut them down; conserve water, not waste it; listen to the environmental feedback, not reject it; and, most importantly, it begs us to embrace nature as our own mother, not disown it as something dispensable. These principles have significant implications on urban land-use planning and policies today.

Maya Ruins, Cultural Tourism and the Contested Symbolism of Collective Identities

The more accessible archaeological sites of the ancient Maya have become cultural attractions for international mass tourism. Their development is a function of occupational and economic factors that construct an unrepresentative image of Maya civilization as a modem cultural production. While this image is part of the official heritage of modern nation states, the interaction of mass tourism and cultural resource management is creating a supranational structural framework conducive to the development of Maya ethnonationalism.

Repensando a San Simón, el sincretismo y la autoridad antropológica

The tradition of San Simón in Guatemala has long garnered considerable interest among foreign and national academics, tourists, and Guatemalans in general from a range of backgrounds. Many, though not all, are drawn to the ambiguity and multiple identities often attributed to this deity, including associations with Pedro de Alvarado and Judas Iscariot as well as autochthonous figures such as the Maya deity Mam or other figures from Indigenous history and culture. In this article, based primarily on ethnographic research conducted since 1994, I trace opinions and assessments concerning San Simón, from a range of interlocutors, and consider how these have developed over time. I argue that academics especially need to rethink the concept of syncretism as we go about identifying and interpreting cases of “religious mixture”, noting that considerable reflexivity is required when applying thisterm. For many indigenous Guatemalans, especially at the community level, little if any contradiction or ambiguity is expressed regarding the identity(s) of this deity, which leads to the question “syncretic for whom”? That said, others, especially those involved (often beyond the local level) in the promotion and institutionalization of Maya Spirituality, may work to establish a more stable Maya pedigree for this tradition. The way these various points of view are expressed and placed in dialog with each other speaks to a dynamism and creativity which is typical of Maya culture at present and through time.