New Directions in Classic Maya Household Archaeology

Over the past two decades, household studies have coalesced into a recognized subfield within archaeology. Despite this relatively short history, household archaeologists are now taking a leading role in epistemological shifts that are placing people and their practices and differences at the center of archaeological interpretations of the past, rather than subsuming these into the noise of passive and depersonalized depictions of ancient social systems. As Maya archaeologists have played a critical role in the development of household archaeology, examining recent trends in Maya household research provides a perspective on the directions of both Maya studies and household archaeology more generally. This article explores three interrelated trends: (1) understanding ordinary people; (2) understanding social diversity among households; (3) understanding households in articulation with the broder social universe. Through a discussion of these three trends, this review uses Classic Maya household archaeology as a case study to illustrate how household research has led to the development of theoretically rich and empirically substantive understandings of an ancient society, which repeople the past and foreground the active roles of and structural constraints on ancient people.     

A royal Maya country house: Archaeology at Bejucal,Guatemala

This article presents three years of archaeological investigations at the minor Maya center of Bejucal, Guatemala. A complete site history is presented relying on data from artifact analysis, architectural study, epigraphy, and bioarchaeology, with a goal towards identifying the site's function within the broader El Zotz polity. The authors argue that Bejucal underwent significant transformation following its establishment as a sacred hilltop site during the Late Preclassic period (400 b.c.–a.d. 250). The El Zotz royal family gradually appropriated the space, converting it into a royal country house and elite burial place. Bejucal's proximity to a large permanent water source suggests that the country house was situated within favorable hunting grounds. The research contributes to a broader discussion about the role of minor centers in regional settlement patterns, highlighting the benefit of textual data in making interpretations. The article also highlights the important role of salvage work in lowland Maya archaeology.     

Cluster analysis of mixed-level data: Pottery provenience as an example

Provenience or “sourcing” studies of archaeological objects most commonly employ quantitative measurements of amounts of chemical constituents in the artifacts and source materials. These are then used in statistical grouping procedures known as cluster analyses. Many additional attributes of artifacts and sources, yielding lower-level qualitative data, are also of potential importance in determinations of artifact origins. These attributes are usually neglected because of the longstanding difficulty in treating “mixed-level” data, that is, combining both qualitative observations and quantitative information in a single powerful statistical procedure. A series of cluster analyses were run on two data sets consisting of archaeological pottery, using mixed-level characterization data in the CLUSTAN program with Gower's coefficient of similarity. The clustering solutions are interpretable in terms of provenience and production strategies.     

Spatial autocorrelation tests and the Classic Maya collapse: Methods and inferences

Spatial autocorrelation, resulting in pattern or structure in geographically distributed data, is discussed in theoretical and practical terms. Tests for spatial autocorrelation are presented, along with an explication of the relationship between autocorrelation models, the product-moment correlation coefficient and the spatial autocorrelation test statistic. Two archaeological examples illustrate the application of the auto-correlation test statistic. The first uses a hypothetical data set, which shows the type of map patterns that appear with various levels of spatial autocorrelation, and the second examines the terminal distribution of long-count-dated monuments at lowland Classic Maya sites. The results of the second example fail to support arguments for simple patterning in the cessation of the erection of these monuments and, by inference, in the Maya collapse itself. Finally, it is argued that while the identification of spatial autocorrelation is often the goal of spatial analyses, the presence of autocorrelation violates the assumptions of certain statistics used in such analyses.     

Architectural Energetics, Ancient Monuments, and Operations Management

Architectural energetics, subsumed within replicative archaeology, provides a means through which buildings are translated into labor-time estimates. To date, the majority of architectural energetics analyses have generated comparative measures of architectural costs, equating these with a vertical structure of political power and authority within and among societies. The present analysis expands the application of architectural energetics by subjecting construction labor costs to an analysis based on concepts central to the Theory of Constraints, which is widely applied in modern operations management. This modeling generates a hypothetical set of behavioral patterns performed by general laborers within a construction project and explicates a method which allows further exploration into the question of labor organization (i.e., allocation and articulation of workers), as well as perhaps other economic organization, in an archaeological context. The case example is Structure 10L-22, a large Mayan palace at the site of Copan, Honduras.     

Building a high-resolution chronology at the Maya archaeological site of El Palmar,Mexico

This paper discusses how detailed analyses of archaeological contexts and macrobotanical remains are critical for building a high-resolution chronology in archaeological research. While the application of Bayesian modelling has improved chronology-building significantly, archaeologists have sometimes neglected different dates recovered from the same depositional layer without further scrutiny. Based on 78 radiocarbon samples, this problem is challenged by building a high-resolution chronology of the Guzmán Group, a small plaza compound of the ancient Maya city of El Palmar, Mexico. The results permit a deeper understanding of relationships between dynastic interactions and the emergence of non-royal elites in Classic Maya society.     

半坡“人面衔鱼”图案再分析

半坡"人面衔鱼"图案表现的是一条俯视视角下的鱼,而非戴有装饰的人,应定名为"人面鱼"纹。对观者来说,它是"对视"和"远观"两种视角的结合,其设计目的在于通过二维的方式表现三维场景。参考玛雅文明关于地下水世界和人化鱼重生的观念,依据此类图形的出土情境,我们推测它很可能表达了半坡人群希望部分死者能够转化为鱼,穿过象征死亡的水域,进而重生或转世的愿望。     

A Chak'an Itza Center at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Petén,Guatemala

Recent excavations conducted by Proyecto Itza investigated a Late Postclassic (a.d. 1400–1525) community at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Petén, Guatemala. This community was likely occupied by a faction of Itza Mayas called the Chak'an Itzas. Recent work focused on the community's civic-ceremonial architecture and nearby residences. The former was dominated by two colonnaded halls standing abreast. These buildings, believed to have been popol najoob (council houses), likely represented socio-political dualism in Chak'an society. The halls included various sculptures that seem largely associated with the deity Itzamna mounted into architecture so that they were clearly on display. Most sculptures were associated with one of the two halls suggesting that one faction was more powerful and more strongly advertised its connections with Yucatán. Excavations also revealed the avoidance of masonry in residential areas, which differentiated Chak'an residences from their civic-ceremonial areas and also distinguished Chak'an residences from those of their neighbors.     

Coastal Maya Obsidian Tool Use and Socio-Economy in the Late Postclassic-Early Spanish Colonial Period at San Pedro,Ambergris Caye,Belize

Microscopic use-wear analysis of the obsidian artifacts recovered from Late Postclassic-Early Spanish Colonial occupations at the site of San Pedro yields useful information for interpreting Maya socio-economic activities. Obsidian traded into the community was used for a variety of tasks with emphasis placed on subsistence and domestic manufacture associated with marine resources, including intermittent and contingent crafting. Trade in obsidian and marine resources likely provided San Pedro community members access to inland economic networks and enabled the acquisition of resources not found on the caye. Microwear on chert and obsidian tools indicates relative stability in the traditional lives of the San Pedro Maya in the 15th–17th centuries a.d. Although the San Pedranos likely suffered to some degree from coastal raiding and the introduction of epidemic diseases by the Spaniards, their off-shore location provided them some protection from the upheaval experienced by the Maya in mainland communities.