An official website of the United States government
Intensified social complexity emerged in some parts of the lowland Maya region during the Middle Preclassic period (800–300 BC). Though data for Middle Preclassic complexity remain very thin, states may have formed in the Mirador Basin and other areas that exhibit settlement hierarchy, evidence of centralized administration, and specialization. However, these developments have been obscured by a shift from a more cooperative to a more competitive system during the Late Preclassic period (300 BC–AD 200). Unilinear thought has confused this change in organization with a shift toward greater complexity. Such positions incorrectly assume that divine kingship and its accouterments are a baseline for complexity. Judging Middle Preclassic period complexity according to Classic period developments is dubious given the cooperative–competitive oscillations; the tendency in the Maya area for states to have been secondary with longstanding interactions among Chiapas, Pacific Coast, Isthmian, and the Gulf Coast areas; and internal innovations. New data are needed to characterize early complexity in the Maya lowlands on its own terms.
more »
« less
Early Pottery and Construction at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Petén, Guatemala: Preliminary Observations
Early occupation at Nixtun-Ch'ich’, on the western edge of Lake Petén Itzá, is dated by two ceramic complexes, K'as and Chich. These represent the Late and Terminal Early Preclassic or the early and late “Pre-Mamom” periods, respectively (ca. 1300–800 BC), including a “Transitional” period incorporating Nix Middle Preclassic (Mamom) pottery. Comparisons with complexes at other sites in the region permit the dating of 10 construction loci, including 3 in the civic-ceremonial core. Low late Pre-Mamom platforms were raised and expanded in Transitional and Early Middle Preclassic times, when they were elaborated into two E-Groups and a Triadic Structure on the central axis. This building activity is interpreted in terms of cooperative or corporate labor organization and related to evolutionary game theory. The ritual foundation of such organization is evident in the site's gridded layout based on a mythical world-creation crocodile.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1734036
- PAR ID:
- 10110316
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Latin American antiquity
- ISSN:
- 1045-6635
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1-19
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Abstract Nixtun-Ch'ich', on the western edge of Lake Peten Itza in Peten, northern Guatemala, features an axis urbis and an urban grid dating to the Middle Preclassic period (800–500 b.c. ). New research reveals that Middle Preclassic constructions—five circular or oval artificial pools and planned surface drainage—facilitated or impeded the movement of water. Large limestone rubble lines at least two of the pools ( aguadas ) in the city's core; two pools lie on the axis urbis, demonstrating that they were central ceremonial constructions. The gridded streets facilitated drainage: they consistently slope from west to east and from the center to north and south. In some areas seeing intense water flow, the streets divide into waterways and pedestrian-ways and/or were given special paving. Many scholars argue that water management contributed to the power of despotic kings, but no evidence of such rulers exists among the Middle Preclassic Maya. Nonetheless, we believe that such systems emerged in the Middle Preclassic. Nixtun-Ch'ich' appears to have been cooperative in its organization and its water management system was a public good.more » « less
-
Public goods are “non-excludable” and “non-rivalrous” resources, including roads, water management systems, and plazas, as well as “symbolic public goods,” such as religious architecture and social identity. Public goods occur in greater abundance in cities with more cooperative and inclusive forms of organization, which seems to undermine arguments that elites constructed them to augment their power. Such goods are major “pull” factors drawing migration to modern cities, but ancient cities also had public goods that likely attracted immigrants, increasing their population and diversity. We examine these ideas at Middle Preclassic-period (cal 800–300 BC) Nixtun-Ch'ich', in Petén, Guatemala. This city and other Preclassic metropoles in the Maya lowlands seem to have been on the more-cooperative end of a cooperative–competitive spectrum, compared to most cities of the Classic period (AD 200–900). We also speculate about how symbolic public goods were coopted to create a more exclusive social system in the Late Preclassic period (300 BC–AD 200).more » « less
-
We report on a large area of ancient Maya wetland field systems in Belize, Central America, based on airborne lidar survey coupled with multiple proxies and radiocarbon dates that reveal ancient field uses and chronology. The lidar survey indicated four main areas of wetland complexes, including the Birds of Paradise wetland field complex that is five times larger than earlier remote and ground survey had indicated, and revealed a previously unknown wetland field complex that is even larger. The field systems date mainly to the Maya Late and Terminal Classic (∼1,400–1,000 y ago), but with evidence from as early as the Late Preclassic (∼1,800 y ago) and as late as the Early Postclassic (∼900 y ago). Previous study showed that these were polycultural systems that grew typical ancient Maya crops including maize, arrowroot, squash, avocado, and other fruits and harvested fauna. The wetland fields were active at a time of population expansion, landscape alteration, and droughts and could have been adaptations to all of these major shifts in Maya civilization. These wetland-farming systems add to the evidence for early and extensive human impacts on the global tropics. Broader evidence suggests a wide distribution of wetland agroecosystems across the Maya Lowlands and Americas, and we hypothesize the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane from burning, preparing, and maintaining these field systems contributed to the Early Anthropocene.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)Modern Homo sapiens engage in substantial ecosystem modification, but it is difficult to detect the origins or early consequences of these behaviors. Archaeological, geochronological, geomorphological, and paleoenvironmental data from northern Malawi document a changing relationship between forager presence, ecosystem organization, and alluvial fan formation in the Late Pleistocene. Dense concentrations of Middle Stone Age artifacts and alluvial fan systems formed after ca. 92 thousand years ago, within a paleoecological context with no analog in the preceding half-million-year record. Archaeological data and principal coordinates analysis indicate that early anthropogenic fire relaxed seasonal constraints on ignitions, influencing vegetation composition and erosion. This operated in tandem with climate-driven changes in precipitation to culminate in an ecological transition to an early, pre-agricultural anthropogenic landscape.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2019.26
