Middle Preclassic Maya Society: Tilting at Windmills or Giants of Civilization? (original) (raw)
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The Origins of Maya States, 2016
Recent archaeological investigations throughout the Maya lowlands have provided new data pertaining to the sophistication and complexity of early Maya "civilization." The resultant information , reviewed here in diachronic format and in synchronic contexts, provides an empirical foundation for conclusions and hypotheses that can be further investigated and tested.This chapter proposes that the first lowland Maya states began to emerge in the Middle Preclassic period (ca. 1000–400 BCE), perhaps jointly with thedevelopments at La Venta, and flourished during the Late Preclassic period (ca. 300 BCE–150 CE), led by developments in the Mirador Basin of northern Guatemala, and southern Campeche, Mexico. The resultant hypotheses derived from a series of multi-disciplinary investigations suggest: (1) The Preclassic lowland Maya developed one of the first states in Mesoamerica through a sequentially defined process that evolved into a four-tier hierarchy of settlement distribution and socio-political organization within a specific territorial area; (2) the origins of states in Mesoamerica, and in particular within the Mirador Basin, are found in the Middle Preclassic period, between ca. 1000 and 400 BCE, with more expansive states appearing by the latter part of the Middle Preclassic and the early Late Preclassic periods (ca. 400–200 BCE); (3) lowland Maya states were the result of autochthonous processes likely inspired and spurred by competitive ideologies and peer polity interactions, consistent with other models of political and economic evolution; (4) in a two-way process other Mesoamerican societies, including those on the Gulf and Pacific coasts and in the Mexican Highlands (see Chapters 3–5, this volume), provided important ingredients to contemporaneous Mesoamerican social and political identities which the lowland Maya adopted, adapted, and integrated in their social memory, while contributing some of their own innovations to other Mesoamerican societies in the process; (5) the economic, architectural, and ideological components of early lowland Maya society provided the cultural foundations for later Maya states in the Classic period.
The Real Business of Ancient Maya Economies: From Farmers Fields to Rulers Realms, 2020
Archaeological mapping, excavations, and investigations in 51 ancient cities of varying sizes in the Mirador Basin of northern Guatemala have revealed a variety of data relevant to the economic catalysts that were involved in the rise of social, political, and economic sophistication among the Preclassic Maya. New technologies recently implemented in the Mirador Basin and other areas of Mesoamerica are helping to reveal and understand the nature of sociopolitical structure and vital economies among early complex societies. It can be emphasized, though, that the real “business” of the early Maya dealt initially with agricultural productivity and the formation of an administrative centralized organization to deal with the lack of critical resources such as water. Importantly, a powerful distribution mechanism developed in the form of a sophisticated causeway system to distribute goods and commodities and facilitate unification among a web of sites in the Mirador Basin. The initial formation and success of these kick-starting administrative formations led to a variety of other economic indicators such as the importation of exotic shells, domestic fauna, obsidian, jade, basalt, granite, coral, ceramics, and other lithic tools. These exchanges demonstrate the varying degrees of social and economic power that provided the foundations of rank, status, and functional requirements during the rise of Maya civilization.
FORMATION OF A COMPLEX POLITY ON THE EASTERN PERIPHERY OF THE MAYA LOWLANDS
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1 This paper pursues the application of a central tenet of the dual-processual framework, the corporate/network continuum, to the development of Uxbenká, a small monument bearing polity in the southern Maya Lowlands. During its growth, Uxbenká underwent a transformation from a small farming community to a complex polity with many of the trappings of elite authority that characterize Classic Maya centers. It was one of the earliest complex polities to develop on the southeastern periphery of the Maya lowlands during the Early Classic Period (AD 300-600). The polity was founded upon earlier agricultural communities that are now known to extend back to at least AD 100. Starting after AD 200 the location of the original agricultural village (Group A) was leveled and reorganized to form a public monument garden and the center of political authority throughout much of the Classic Period (AD 400-800). In this article we present radiocarbon ages from well-defined stratigraphic contexts to establish a site chronology. Based on these data we suggest that by AD 450 Uxbenká was the center of a regional political system connected to some of the larger polities in the Maya world (e.g., Tikal). We argue that at this time Uxbenká underwent a significant change from a polity organized by a corporate inclusionary form of rulership to a more networked one marked by exclusionary authority vested in elites who privileged their ancestral relations and network interactions across the geopolitical landscape.
Intensive Agriculture and Early Complex Societies of the Basin of Mexico: The Formative Period
Intensive agriculture was a key feature in the development of early complex societies in the Basin of Mexico. In this paper, I review the theoretical underpinnings of archaeological understandings of agriculture change, its relationship to culture change, and how these theoretical perspectives have shifted between top-down and bottom up perspectives. Next I examine current knowledge of intensive agriculture within the dynamic context of the Formative or Preclassic period. The paper concludes with a discussion of how our models and theories of the complex interplay between intensive agriculture and political economy to explain the change from village-based societies to states and cities outstrip available data in the basin.
Evolution of Maya polities in the ancient Mesoamerican system
International Studies Quarterly, 1999
The analysis of politics in antiquity presents new opportunities for political science and international relations, particularly the ancient New World (c. 2000 B.C. to A.D. 1521). Governance through leadership and institutions, collective action, war and peace, alliance dynamics, regional hegemonies, interstate rivalries, and other universal patterns of world politics existed in Mesoamerica, antedating the modern state system. We report findings from a study to record systematically the rise and fall of Maya polities in the Mesoamerican political system, using sources from archaeology and epigraphy. Based on tests of competing hypotheses and new distribution statistics and hazard rates (survival analysis) for 72 Maya polities, our findings support a model of Maya political dynamics based on Preclassic origins, punctuated phases of development, multiple cycles of system expansion and collapse, and weaker political stability for increasingly complex polities. We draw two main implications: (a) a new theory of the Maya political collapse(s), based on their failure to politically integrate; and (b) confirmation for a new periodization of Maya political evolution, different from the traditional cultural periodization, based on several cycles of rise-and-fall, not just one. Our findings may also make possible future investigations in areas such as the war-polarity and war-alliances hypotheses.
Science, 1967
During the last 15 years an increasing number of anthropologists and geographers have turned their attention to the pre-Hispanic civilizations of Mexico and Guatemala. The evolution of these ancient complex societies is of general theoretical interest because it seems to have taken place independently of the early Old World civilizations. Given the limitations of the archeological data, there has been considerable latitude for varied and competing theories about the origins of the early New World states. Some authors have theorized that Mesoamerican civilization arose in the arid highlands, because of the need for a strong centralized government to control large-scale irrigation projects (1). Others have argued that civilization began first in the humid tropical lowlands, where irrigation is not necessary (2). Still others have sought a middle ground between these positions, maintaining that Mesoamerican civilization began through the "intertwining of many regional strands," both highland and lowland (3). One of the most intriguing hypotheses of the evolution of early Meso-Dr. Flannery is an archeologist in the Office of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Mrs. Anne Kirkby is a geographer in the Centre of Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge, England; Dr. Michael Kirkby is a geomorphologist in the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge; Dr. Williams is an ethnologist in the