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New Light on the End of Classic Maya Culture at Benque Viejo, British Honduras

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Euan W. MacKie
Euan W. MacKie*
Affiliation:
Hunterian Museum, Glasgow University, Glasgow, Scotland
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Abstract

The excavation of two structures in 1959 showed that the end of the Classic came suddenly at the end of Benque Viejo IIIb. One building, probably a palace, had completely collapsed and buried Benque Viejo IIIb pottery; the other, probably residential, was badly damaged at the end of Benque Viejo IIIb and its ruins were reoccupied in Benque Viejo IV, probably by local peasants. No attempt to reconstruct either building was made and this, with the nature of the post-destruction occupation of one of them, suggests that the whole of Period IV was Postclassic. The severe damage to both structures seems to imply that an earthquake hit this center at the end of Period IIIb and the geology of the area supports this idea. The fact that the Classic had disappeared after this event suggests that an earth tremor could actually have caused the collapse of the authority of the hierarchy at this site. At Uaxactún and San José the Classic continued well into the final phase at each site, equivalent to Benque Viejo IV, so it seems that the old order at Benque Viejo declined some time before that at the other two sites. It is therefore possible that the abrupt and unusual fashion of the decline at Benque Viejo, whatever its cause, played a significant part in the end of the Classic culture at some neighboring centers.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , October 1961 , pp. 216 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1961

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