Terminal Classic Period Research Articles

Ancient Recycling: Considerations of the Wasteful, Meaningful, and Practical from the Maya Site of Ucanal, Peten, Guatemala

Recycling practices among ancient societies are rarely systematically explored. When such practices are considered, they are often examined in dichotomous terms as either an elite artisanal capacity for producing meaning or as part of practical logics of rationality and efficiency in confronting scarcity. The study of groundstone tool, ceramic, and architectural recycling at the Maya site of Ucanal, Peten, Guatemala, challenges this false dichotomy in highlighting the varied ways meaning and value are produced. Diachronic and contextual analyses reveal that recycling practices of quotidian materials, such as groundstone and ceramics, did not increase during periods of crisis nor were they more common among modest households as compared to higher-status households. Likewise, evidence of substantial efforts to recycle elite and monumental building materials during the Terminal Classic period (ca. 830–950/1000 CE) did not coincide with a scarcity of labor or building materials. Such findings underscore the need to consider the role of abundance as it relates to recycling, a factor that also drives much contemporary recycling.

A Meta-Analysis Approach to Understanding Maya Fish Use on the Yucatán Peninsula

This meta-analysis uses seven previously published fish assemblages from sites in the northern Maya lowlands to evaluate if environmental or human social factors, such as elite status, provided impetus for the increased emphasis on coastal trade during the Terminal to Postclassic periods. Following the political decline of sites in the central and southern Maya lowlands during the Terminal Classic period, the northern Maya lowlands rose in prominence. As political systems changed, so too did economic systems. Using species area curves, richness, nestedness, non-metric multidimensional scaling, evenness, and differences in habitat, this paper addresses to what degree fish trade in the northern Maya lowlands was driven by habitat differences, site distance from the coast, time period, or social status. The results indicate social factors, rather than environmental, explain more of the variation in the fish taxonomic composition at each site. The different taxonomic communities are explained less by specific environmental factors, recovery methods, or identification procedures than by site distance from the coast and social context of the site (i.e., elite versus non-elite). These data demonstrate that meta-analyses can explain how access-based differences—such as site distance from the coast or due to the social context of a particular assemblage—are expressed among large faunal datasets within complex societies.

Ucanal Stela 29 and the Cosmopolitanism of Terminal Classic Maya Stone Monuments

The Terminal Classic period (ca. AD 800–1000) in the Southern Maya Lowlands witnessed a precipitous decline in the erection of carved stone monuments, a decline that corresponds to shifts in political ideologies and the disappearance of many prominent royal dynasties. Although Southern Lowland sites are often considered peripheral to the events and innovations occurring elsewhere in Mesoamerica during this time, a recently discovered stela, Stela 29, at the site of Ucanal in Peten, Guatemala, underscores the active role of the site in broader political movements in the ninth century. Our iconographic, textual, and stylistic analysis of this stela, in concert with other Terminal Classic monuments from the site, reveals a vernacular cosmopolitan aesthetic whereby local Classic Maya styles were infused with images and elements that referenced connections with peoples from northern Yucatan, the Gulf Coast, and Central Mexico.

Burying the Dead during the Maya Postclassic period: Saxe, Binford and Goldstein’s continued relevance to mortuary analysis

We explore Maya social organization after the Classic-period “collapse” using mortuary and osteological patterns. Our data consist of 78 burials from the Freshwater Creek drainage of northern Belize: 24 dating to the Terminal Classic period (AD 800–1000) and 54 to the Postclassic period (AD 1000–1500). These mortuary data allow us to infer continuity in the populations occupying a single river drainage between these periods. During the Postclassic, a greater diversity of grave inclusions interred with individuals at Caye Coco are consistent with the higher status of some of its residents who had greater access to wealth items and more elaborate domestic architecture compared to inhabitants of the smaller settlement of Laguna de On island. These grave inclusion results are consistent with cross-cultural patterns defined by the Saxe/Binford hypothesis that social organization can be inferred from mortuary patterns. A new development in Postclassic burial customs in our study region was the establishment of formal cemeteries. Consistent with the Saxe/Goldstein hypothesis, we interpret this change as the increased importance of local, lineage-based authority after large, Classic-period kingdoms had dissolved. Considering mortuary and osteological patterns together allows for a fuller understanding of Postclassic Maya social organization than either type of data would alone.

CONVERGENCE ZONE POLITICS AT THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF UCANAL, PETEN, GUATEMALA

AbstractThe Maya archaeological site of Ucanal is located in Peten, Guatemala, close to the contemporary border with Belize. In pre-Columbian times, the site also sat at the frontiers of some of the largest political centers, Naranjo in Peten, Guatemala, and Caracol, in Belize. Entangled between these dominant centers and with ties to peoples in the Upper Belize Valley, the Petexbatun region in Guatemala, northern Yucatan, and elsewhere, Ucanal was a critical convergence zone of political and cultural interaction. This paper synthesizes archaeological research by the Proyecto Arqueológico Ucanal to underscore the ways in which this provincial polity, identified epigraphically as K'anwitznal, maneuvered within and between different cultural affiliations and political networks. We find that the site's role as a political frontier during the Late Classic period was more of a bridge than an edge. During the later Terminal Classic period, the K'anwitznal kingdom gained independence, but continued to serve as a critical convergence of influences and interaction spheres from throughout the Maya area and beyond.

BOUNDARY THINGS IN THE EASTERN MAYA LOWLANDS: NEGOTIATING ALLIED RELATIONS FROM TERMINAL CLASSIC TO POSTCLASSIC TIMES

AbstractIn this study, we offer a relational approach to theorizing boundaries for the Maya, adapting Mills’ (2018) concept of “boundary objects” as a means of understanding how people and things bridge or cross boundaries and were critical for developing and maintaining allied relations. We trace a network of sites on both sides of the Guatemala–Belize border dating to the Terminal Classic and Postclassic, which are generally characterized as times of increased conflict, movement and migration of people, and disruption in dynastic succession with an emphasis on shared governance. We examine the introduction of northern-style traits in the eastern Maya lowlands during the Terminal Classic and Postclassic periods, including circular and colonnaded buildings and distinctive portable goods such as molded-carved ceramics, phallic and turtle effigies, and other material forms. We suggest that during fractious periods in Maya history, northern traits were implicated in boundary crossing negotiations and entangled relations, which included marriage alliances with “foreigners” as a means of elite legitimation.

POINT COUNTER POINT: INTERPRETING CHIPPED CHERT BIFACES IN TERMINAL CLASSIC “PROBLEMATIC” ON-FLOOR DEPOSITS FROM STRUCTURES A2 AND A3 AT CAHAL PECH, BELIZE

AbstractProblematic deposits, containing different types of artifacts and skeletal remains, are typically recovered on or near the surfaces of the terminal phase of elite civic-ceremonial architecture at ancient Maya sites. These contexts often date to the Terminal Classic period (~a.d.750–900). They have been variously interpreted as evidence for site abandonment, squatting, warfare, or dedication or termination rituals. Sixteen chert bifaces were recovered from problematic deposits at the bases of Structures A2 and A3 in the elite Plaza A at Cahal Pech, Belize. Stone tools from problematic deposits are rarely examined in significant detail. Based on stylistic, metric, and use-wear analyses, the bifaces were likely produced locally, used during important hunting or warfare activities, and then ritually deposited in the Terminal Classic. These bifaces were likely hafted to spearthrower darts and represented “success” at hunting or fighting. The recovery of weaponry in problematic deposits that is not the direct result of warfare is an important observation because Mayanists have generally interpreted their presence in these contexts as evidence of warfare. The fact that the points were recovered in groups of seven and nine may indicate that they had important symbolic meanings that connected them to supernatural or mythological places or entities.

THE LAST HURRAH: EXAMINING THE NATURE OF PERI-ABANDONMENT DEPOSITS AND ACTIVITIES AT CAHAL PECH, BELIZE

AbstractArchaeological investigations by the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project at Cahal Pech uncovered several Terminal Classic (a.d.750–900) peri-abandonment deposits and activity areas at this Belize River Valley center. The deposits contained a diverse assemblage of cultural remains located above and between collapsed architecture, associated with evidence for burning activities. In the past, archaeologists have generally interpreted similar assemblages as “problematic deposits”—“de facto” refuse (garbage)—as associated with building termination and desecration, or as evidence for rapid abandonment during the violent destruction of these ancient cities. It is argued here that the microstratigraphic excavation and contextual analysis of these features provide limited support for these explanations. Alternatively, we suggest that the deposits are more likely associated with peri-abandonment rituals that were conducted by a reduced remnant population at Cahal Pech, or by small groups who continued to reside in the site's periphery during the last stages of the Terminal Classic period.

Chromatic palette studies in sculptural architectonical elements of Maya buildings in the south of Campeche, Mexico

ABSTRACT The Maya sites Balamkú, Calakmul, Becán, Chicanná, Xpuhil, Hormiguero, Muñeca, and Chactún are located in the south area of the Mexican State of Campeche, immerse in a tropical subhumid climate. Surrounded by jungle vegetation, these archeological sites preserve some of the best examples of sculptural elements from the pre-Classic (1800 b. C. – 250 a. C.) to the terminal Classic (1000 d. C.) periods. These sites display how the Maya used sculptures as architectural elements in order to emphasize their cosmogony and political beliefs. The main purpose of this research is to comprehend the technology of paint layer materials and to register the chromatic palettes by using surface and microscopic analytical techniques such as optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer system (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) in order to analyze and interpret the pictorial technique used for the architectural sculpture decoration.

Architectural Aesthetics, Orientations, and Reuse at the Terminal Classic Maya Site of Ucanal, Petén, Guatemala

ABSTRACTThe Terminal Classic period (ca. a.d. 830–950/1000) in the Southern Maya Lowlands is known as a time in which investments in public architecture and vaulted masonry buildings began to wane. Masonry constructions have often been noted to be of poorer quality in comparison with previous phases. Moving beyond models of scarcity, this paper examines the aesthetics, meanings, and reorientations of architectural projects at the site of Ucanal, Petén, Guatemala during the Terminal Classic period. We highlight three processes that were central to the new architectural programs at the site: an emphasis on the aesthetics of wood, the reorientation of sacred space in residential contexts, and the fragmentation and reuse of buildings and monuments. Although these materials and processes are often associated with a loss of splendor, we suggest that they were part of an active architectural revisionism, one that remade history by reworking the old and reorienting the new.

Influencia de los aditivos orgánicos naturales en la resistencia a la cristalización de sales en morteros tradicionales de cal con distinto árido. Análisis del caso: sitio arqueológico La Blanca, Petén, Guatemala

La Blanca es un asentamiento maya del periodo Clásico Terminal, el cual se ubica en la selva del Petén guatemalteco. En las imponentes estancias que componen su acrópolis, se han hallado gran parte de los estucos que sirvieron de revestimiento interior, incluso con huellas de color. Desde que estas estancias fueron excavadas, los estucos se han visto afectados por el agua que asciende por capilaridad y la cristalización de sales, tanto en la superficie como en el soporte pétreo, que han causado graves patologías, como laminaciones y la desintegración del material. Por ello, se están realizando estudios de laboratorio con distintos morteros de cal que pueden ser empleados en la restauración con total garantía. En este trabajo, se presentan los resultados comparativos de estabilidad frente a los ciclos de cristalización de sales de dos tipos de morteros tradicionales de cal, y se evalúa la influencia que los aditivos orgánicos suponen en la mejora de la resistencia.

Infrastructures of moving water at the Maya site of Ucanal, Petén, Guatemala

It is increasingly common to conceptualize infrastructure not just as a built feature in the landscape, but as a shifting and entangled system that includes humans, different institutions and social groups, spiritual forces, and ecologies. These different aspects of infrastructure, however, are best identified at different temporal scales of analysis. Recent research at the Maya site of Ucanal in Petén, Guatemala, documents centrally managed water management features, such as canals and inverted causeways, that drain water away from the urban site core and into a nearby river, the Río Mopan. Their construction and use during the Terminal Classic period (ca. AD 830–1000), a period often associated with increasing aridity and drought, highlight the need to consider shorter temporal spans in which droughts were interspersed with hurricanes and periods of high precipitation. Furthermore, the consideration of even smaller temporal frames, on the order of annual dry-wet season cycles and daily practices, highlight the often overlooked aspects of ancient Maya water infrastructure systems: the labor necessary to maintain and repair canals and roads, deities or supernatural forces responsible for life-giving and life-taking rains, and the labor of common peoples who hauled water on a daily basis.

Palaeoenvironmental, epigraphic and archaeological evidence of total warfare among the Classic Maya.

Despite over a century of archaeological research, the nature and broader consequences of Maya warfare remain poorly understood. Classic period (250-950 CE) Maya warfare has largely been viewed as ritualized and limited in scope1-6. Evidence of violent warfare in the Terminal Classic period (800-950 CE) is interpreted as an escalation of military tactics that played a role in the socio-economic collapse of the Classic Maya civilization7,8. The implications of specific textual references to war events (war statements) remain unknown, however, and the paucity of field data precludes our ability to test collapse theories tied to warfare. Here we connect a massive fire event to an attack described with a Classic period war statement. Multiple lines of evidence show that a large fire occurred across the ancient city of Witzna, coincident with an epigraphic account describing an attack and burning of Witzna in 697 CE. Following this event, evidence shows a dramatic decline in human activity, indicating extensive negative impacts on the local population. These findings provide insight into strategies and broader societal impacts of Classic period warfare, clarify the war statement's meaning and show that the Maya engaged in tactics akin to total warfare earlier and more frequently than previously thought.

The Role of Diet in Resilience and Vulnerability to Climate Change among Early Agricultural Communities in the Maya Lowlands

The Terminal Classic Period (AD 750–1000) collapse of lowland Maya social, economic, and political systems has been temporally correlated with severe and extended drought in regional paleoclimate r...

Community Identity and Shared Practice at Actuncan, Belize

Shared identities create deep historical ties to community spaces and can facilitate or constrict political expansion. This research examines the relationship between the ways in which families engaged local landscapes and developed shared identities at Actuncan, Belize, during the Terminal Classic period, a time when the city experienced population growth as surrounding centers declined. The nature and location of activity patterns in and around three residential groups allow inferences about shared practices and the expression of identities that those activities enabled and constrained. Importantly, this research includes investigations of both residential groups and architecturally free areas. It uses multiple methods to explore activities and to produce overlapping datasets, including excavation and analysis of macroartifacts, microartifacts, and soil chemical residues. The results suggest that Actuncan residents used not only the formal patio spaces of residential groups but also the interstitial spaces between them. Moreover, one residential group, Group 1, appears to have been a locus for distinct activities including sequential burials and, possibly, affiliative ritual practices connected to ancestral landscape use. Understanding relationships among residents is an important foundation for exploring broader political dynamics, including relationships between residents and rulers and how rulers created, legitimized, and maintained power and authority.

Land Tenure Systems at the Ancient Maya Site of Actuncan, Belize

A common property regime was established at the founding of the Maya site of Actuncan, Belize, in the Terminal Preclassic period (175 BC–AD 300), which governed access to land until the Terminal Classic period (AD 780–1000). This interpretation is based on urban settlement patterns documented through household excavation and remote-sensing programs. Excavations of all visible patio-focused groups in the urban core provided data to reconstruct residential histories, and a 60,621 m2gradiometer survey resulted in a magnetic gradient map that was used to document buried constructions. Twenty ground-truth testpits correlated types of magnetic signatures to buried patio-focused groups and smaller constructions, including walled plots in agricultural field systems that were later exposed more fully through large-scale excavations. Combined, these methods provided data to reconstruct four correlates of land tenure systems: (1) the spatial proximity of residential units to land and resources, (2) diachronic changes in community settlement patterns, (3) land subdivision and improvements, and (4) public goods. Spatial analyses documented that houselots did not cluster through time, but instead became gradually improved, lending evidence to suggest the transgenerational inheritance of property rights in the Late and Terminal Classic periods.

Maya Monumental “Boom”: Rapid Development, Hybrid Architecture, and “Pretentiousness” in the Fabrication of Place at Alabama, East-Central Belize

ABSTRACTBoomtowns are the product of unique flows of development characterized by relatively rapid population growth and land conversion, and the sudden appearance of functional and place-making features, much of which may not be readily apparent in the archaeological record. While settlements may expand rapidly in the absence of these forms, and thus lie outside the boomtown definition, we propose that the process does, in fact, describe development at the ancient Maya site of Alabama, Belize. We invoke archaeological evidence in the description of the tempo and tone of development at Alabama during the Late to Terminal Classic period (ca. 700–900 a.d.): a dynamic interval of Maya civilization. If, as archaeologists, we are truly interested in understanding the social and demographic processes that drove change in prehistoric and historic human landscapes, we must take care to incorporate descriptions of the human-scale experiences of development itself.

A Filtered Past: Interpreting Salt Production and Trade Models from Two Remnant Brine-Enrichment Mounds at the Ancient Maya Paynes Creek Salt Works, Belize

ABSTRACTThe mounds at Witz Naab and Killer Bee are the only known remaining aboveground evidence of a once-thriving salt industry in Punta Ycacos Lagoon, a large saltwater system in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize. Over one hundred ancient Maya salt works dated to the Classic period (a.d. 300–900) have been submerged by sea-level rise in the lagoon. We have hypothesized that mounds were once numerous features on the landscape prior to a sea-level rise that occurred in the area during the Terminal Classic period. Lacking at these underwater sites are earthen mounds formed by discarded soil from the leaching process in which the salinity of seawater was enriched by leaching brine through salty soil. Enriching the salinity of seawater by leaching or by solar evaporation is virtually universal in ethnographic case studies. Data from the excavations are evaluated to interpret the ancient activities that produced the earthen mounds, scales of production, and how the coastal Maya of southern Belize participated in the larger Classic Maya economy.

Ritual responses to drought: An examination of ritual expressions in Classic Maya written sources

Planting and rain-beckoning rituals are an extremely common way in which past and present human communities have confronted the risk of drought across a range of environments worldwide. In tropical environments, such ceremonies are particularly salient despite widespread assumptions that water supplies are unproblematic in such regions. We demonstrate for the first time that two common but previously under-appreciated Maya rituals are likely planting and rain-beckoning rituals preferentially performed at certain times of the year in close step with the rainy season and the Maya agricultural cycle. We also argue for considerable historical continuity between these Classic Maya ceremonies and later Maya community rituals still performed in times of uncertain weather conditions up to the present day across Guatemala, Belize, and eastern Mexico. During the Terminal Classic period (AD 800-900), the changing role played by ancient Maya drought-related rituals fits into a wider rhetorical shift observed in Maya texts away from the more characteristic focus on royal births, enthronements, marriages, and wars towards greater emphasis on the correct perpetuation of key ceremonies, and we argue that such changes are consistent with palaeoclimatic evidence for a period of diminished precipitation and recurrent drought.

Quantification of drought during the collapse of the classic Maya civilization.

The demise of Lowland Classic Maya civilization during the Terminal Classic Period (~800 to 1000 CE) is a well-cited example of how past climate may have affected ancient societies. Attempts to estimate the magnitude of hydrologic change, however, have met with equivocal success because of the qualitative and indirect nature of available climate proxy data. We reconstructed the past isotopic composition (δ18O, δD, 17O-excess, and d-excess) of water in Lake Chichancanab, Mexico, using a technique that involves isotopic analysis of the structurally bound water in sedimentary gypsum, which was deposited under drought conditions. The triple oxygen and hydrogen isotope data provide a direct measure of past changes in lake hydrology. We modeled the data and conclude that annual precipitation decreased between 41 and 54% (with intervals of up to 70% rainfall reduction during peak drought conditions) and that relative humidity declined by 2 to 7% compared to present-day conditions.