Household Craft Production in the Prehispanic Urban Setting of Mayapán,Yucatan, Mexico

The complexity of the organization of craft production mirrors multiple aspects of the larger political economies of premodern states. At the late Maya urban center of Mayapán, variation in the social contexts of crafting within a single settlement defies simple classificatory models that once held sway in the literature of nonWestern state societies. Most surplus crafters were independent and affluent commoners; notable exceptions include artisans working under direct elite supervision or elites who were directly engaged in crafting. Although household workshops concentrated around the city’s epicenter, others were dispersed across the site in unassuming residential neighborhoods or near outlying monumental groups. We consider the significance of pronounced household and regional economic interdependencies founded on well-developed surplus crafting practices, imported raw materials, market exchange, and tribute obligations at Mayapán. As for other premodern states, craft production also gave rise to greater opportunities for wealth differentiation within the commoner class. Producers in this urban political capital contributed in significant ways to a stable political economy by supplying goods that were required at all levels of the social hierarchy.     

Trauma,Male Fantasies,and Cultural Capital in the Films of Pablo Larraín

This paper explores the visualization and intersection of trauma, male fantasies, and cultural capital in the first four feature-length films of Chilean director Pablo Larraín: Fuga (2006), Tony Manero (2008), Post Mortem (2010), and No (2012). Larraín’s first feature sketches out these themes in individual and familial terms; the subsequent three, forming what Larraín has called an ‘unintentional trilogy’ of the Pinochet dictatorship, visualize them in a more collective, historical, and political register. Categorizing these films as examples of ‘posttraumatic cinema,’ I demonstrate how Larraín images the fantasy scenarios that structure Chile’s ‘true horror’: namely, the weaponization of male fantasies and of cultural capital – the combination of which induced indelible traumas during the dictatorship. The attendant institutionalization of injustice, impunity, and neoliberalism – which, as Larraín shows, was conserved during the country’s transition to democracy – has limited the possibilities of working through the recurring traumas ever since.     

Estimating the Number of Combatants during the Mixtón War in the Peñol de Nochistlán

Abstract

The objective of this article is to determine the number of combatants in the Mixtón War (1541–42), one of the most important military confrontations of the early years of the vice-royalty in Western Mexico, by analysing the Peñol de Nochistlán. To this end, information provided by historians has been compared with the population estimates established from the density of settlements known from archaeological evidence in order to define the area occupied by the armies involved in the conflict. This exercise resulted in a shifting array of spaces that could have been used by the combatants during confrontations. However, it will enable more intense archaeological prospecting in the area around the site of El Tuiche — the place identified as the Peñol of Nochistlán — revealing new evidence of the events that occurred on this battlefield.     

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

ABSTRACT

The 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.     

Working the Yucatán in the neoliberal landscape: household management,consumption and the lives of intellectual elite women

This article examines the lives of academic women in Mérida, the state capital of the Yucatán in southern Mexico. In particular, I consider the relationship between work – including household management – and consumer practices in light of Mérida's changing socioeconomic climate. I address how women's lives have been impacted by the neoliberal restructuring of Mexico's political economy and what these changes mean to their experience of university life, household management styles and consumption practices. I point out how labor and consumption are deeply interrelated cultural practices, which have acquired new meanings in the neoliberal landscape. Accordingly, consumption practices must be understood in connection with women's social and professional identities.     

Ceramic Microtypology and the Territorial Expansion of the Early Monte Albán State in Oaxaca,Mexico

Abstract

The Late and Terminal Formative (ca. 300 B.C. to A.D. 200) was the crucial period during which the early Monte Albán state came into being and began to extend its political influence over a wide area in what is now the Mexican state of Oaxaca. One of the most distinctive and frequent ceramic types of this period is the G.12, which is a grayware (gris) bowl with characteristic incising on the interior rim and base. Originally defined by Alfonso Caso, Ignacio Bernal, and Jorge Acosta based on their excavations at Monte Albán, the G.12 bowl has also been found at many other Oaxacan sites. The incised motifs on the interior bases of G.12 bowls show substantial variability, but researchers have been uncertain whether any portion of this variability shows chronological patterning. We present a new microtypology of G.12 bowls based on our recent excavations at three sites near SanMartín Tilcajete, some 27 km south of Monte Albán. Our analysis yields a finer-grained chronology that helps elucidate the step-by-step territorial expansion of the emergent Monte Albán state.     

Mound ZZl,Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén,Guatemala: Rescue Operations at a Long-Lived Structure in the Maya Lowlands

Abstract

Mound ZZl, located on the tip of the peninsular portion of the large lowland Maya site of Nixtun-Ch’ich’ in Petén, Guatemala, was investigated in 2007 during a salvage operation. An axial trench revealed a long sequence of activity in the area, beginning before 1000 B. C. and extending into the early 18th century. Early platform construction was accompanied by feasting and smashing of Middle Preclassic (1000—400 B.C.) pottery in a termination and/or dedication rite. The mound grew through the construction and reconstruction of numerous platforms and structures—and further episodes of termination and dedication—that primarily extended it laterally, rather than vertically. The location of Mound ZZl and its features—reincorporation of Middle Preclassic fill materials; secondary burials; clay figurines; protection by a large wall-ditch complex; pecked plaster symbols; and the presence of a Spanish mission church—suggest that it was a key civic-ceremonial component of the region's sacred landscape for nearly three thousand years.     

Kush-e Pildandān,the Anti-Hero: Polemics of Power in Late Antique Iran

This study examines the character of Kush-e Pildandān, the anti-hero of the Kushnāmeh, by arguing that the protagonist of the poem represents the monarchs of the Kushan dynasty. In order to substantiate this claim, the Kushnāmeh is introduced and the process of its formation and its reflections of Kushan history are examined. Then the various components of this image of the enemy are discussed. What is revealed is a polemical strategy of creating an enemy, a unique insight into the political ideology of the Sasanian period. The study offers a glimpse into the ideological discourse of political power in the Late Antique period, and how they drew upon a shared conceptualization of the past.     

Twilight optical studies of the El Chichón volcanic dust over Ahmedabad,India

Following the spectacular twilights associated with the El Chichón volcanic eruption, noticed in Ahmedabad, India (23°03′N, 72°30′E) since late May 1982, twilight sky brightness measurements were carried out from the same place for about a year between June 1982 and May 1983. The measurements made mainly in the near infrared I band (λ_eff = 0.87 μm) show a novel feature representative of the volcanic aerosol layer in the plot of sky brightness against solar depression. The height of the lower end of the aerosol layer (H_L) derived from the measurements has remained at ∼ 18 ± 2 km over a period of about one year. The strength of the aerosol feature, determined by an index Q, shows a gradual decrease, suggesting a slow dispersal of the layer with a detectable existence in the I band till the middle of 1984. Multispectral observations indicate that the near infrared transmission window (λ_eff = 2.2 μm) may be a more sensitive indicator of aerosol layer than visible wavelengths.     

Inscribing the border: Schizophrenia and the aesthetics of Aztla´n

Late modernity is replete with new borders that defy traditional geographic notions of scale. The irruption of such transverse borders is seen by some as signalling a threatening loss of the link between place and identity. Yet others have viewed this as a productive decentring. The Chicano movement and the aesthetic production that arises from it illustrates this productivity. Chicano national identity is actively produced through the revisioning of space that both draws from and defies geopolitical borders. This challenges geographers and other border-based scholars to rethink the ways that borders manage late modern power.     

Activity Areas,Form, and Social Inequality in Residences at Late Postclassic Zacpetén,Petén,Guatemala

Abstract

Zacpetén, Petén, Guatemala was densely settled front the Late Postclassic to Contact periods. During initial contact with the Spaniards and after the conquest of Petén in A.D. 1697, a group called the Kowoj occupied the area where the site is located. Excavations in domestic contexts at Zacpetén revealed that occupants of larger residences had greater access to resources. Many common trade artifacts such as greenstone, serpentine, and obsidian strongly correlate with residence size, indicating that inequality in spatial resources was associated with access to trade. The scarcest non-local items, including copper alloy artifacts, were limited to public ceremonial areas and the residences of the highest Kowoj elite. Instead of corresponding with access to trade, the possession of these items was related to high-level participation in the religious hierarchy. There are a variety of activity areas that were structured by a dualistic division in domestic space that was not overtly related to gender.     

Ellen Key and Rudolf Kjellén on war,peace, and the future of post-First World War Europe

During the First World War, intellectuals in both combatant and neutral nations engaged in debates on the justification for the bloodshed and in envisioning solutions for a sustainable peace. In the latter regard, the issues of democracy and future forms of government were focal. This article examines two public intellectuals from Sweden, Ellen Key and Rudolf Kjellén, and their conflicting views. A comparative and transnational perspective on their thinking about war and peace sheds light on their political backgrounds and wider worldviews. The article further reveals the international contexts in which their ideas were embedded. Using the concept of ‘the ideas of 1914 versus those of 1789’, the conservative geopolitician Kjellén spoke for the justification of German expansion and Swedish military intervention, whereas the Left-liberal pacifist Key condemned all parties involved, defending the legacy of the French Revolution and Sweden’s neutrality. Based on his geopolitical tenets, Kjellén could not envision a future with peaceful cooperation between nation states, while, for Key, the solution lay in the development of democratic decision-making. In this respect, the granting of political citizenship to women, to whom she accorded a special competence for peace-keeping, based on their maternalism, was crucial.     

Donald Bán and the Bócan

Although ATU 510A, ‘Cinderella’, is known to have ancient origins, it was widely thought that the ash-name did not become a feature of the tale type until Giambattista Basile’s ‘La Gatta cenerentola’ (The Ashy Cat) in the seventeenth century. However, it is preceded in this regard by a little-known fourteenth-century Icelandic romance, Vilmundar saga viðutan (The Saga of Vilmundr the Outsider). Using this saga as a starting point, this article traces the literary transmission of ATU 510A through the extant corpus of Old Norse literature, with particular reference to the development of three key aspects of ‘Cinderella’: the persecuted heroine; the lost-and-found shoe; and the cinder-name.