Recent research in the Sayula Basin of central Jalisco is gradually presenting a fuller view of the lifeways that characterized the people who lived on this thoroughfare, traditionally known for its vast salt flats. Salvage excavations undertaken at two major sites have supplied a number of new elements that are confirming and expanding previous knowledge of the chronological sequence, the ceramic complexes, the uses of space within an apparently closed area, and the possible sphere of interactions developed by the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of this part of western Mexico. Special attention is given to evidence relating to the study of native salt production.

Site-wide, assemblage-based lithic analyses help to elucidate community dynamics including variability in domestic economies, technological skill and decision making, exchange networks, and ritual practices. In this study we present the results of an analysis of over 36,000 lithic artifacts from the site of La Laguna, Tlaxcala. We compare Middle to Late Formative period (ca. 600–400 b.c.) and Terminal Formative period (ca. 100 b.c.–a.d. 150) deposits to examine transformations associated with urbanization and state formation during this interval. The residents of La Laguna had relatively equal and ample access to obsidian, and most production was organized independently by households. We identify blade production zones and variability in consumption patterns suggestive of different domestic, communal, and ceremonial activities. The introduction of bloodletters, elaborate large bifacial knives, and zoomorphic eccentrics to the Terminal Formative assemblage may indicate the emergence of higher statuses, new social roles, and militaristic symbolism during this period.

The discovery of cultural remains on or above the floors of rooms and courtyards at several Maya sites has been interpreted by some archaeologists as problematic deposits, squatter's refuse, as evidence for feasting, termination rituals, de facto refuse, or rapid abandonment as a result of warfare. Investigations by the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project have recorded similar deposits at several surface and subterranean sites in Western Belize. Our regional, contextual, and methodological approaches for studying these deposits, coupled with ethnohistoric and ethnographic information, provide limited support for the interpretation of these remains as de facto refuse or due to rapid abandonment. Instead, we argue that these deposits are more likely the result of peri-abandonment activities such as propitiation rituals and/or pilgrimages during and after the gradual abandonment of sites in the Belize River Valley.

This paper seeks to define and discuss the nature, size, variety, ideology, and change in the polities of three regions of the Maya Lowlands: the Greater Peten, Central Yucatan (Río Bec/Chenes), and the Puuc Hills. Patterned variety is demonstrable on all levels of analysis and even within stylistic regions, within suggested regional states, and within sites.

Se presenta una nueva interpretación de un importante grupo de la nobleza teotihuacana, cuyos miembros portaban tocado de borlas, como parte de su vestimenta. En base al análisis iconográfico se establece que los señores portadores de la versión más compleja de este tocado (el Gran Tocado) eran gobernantes sagrados que poseían poderes sobrenaturales: se dedicaban al servicio del Dios de la Lluvia y en la guerra eran capaces de usar como arma el rayo del propio Dios. Los miembros de menor rango de dicho grupo también eran ofrendantes del Dios de la Lluvia y aparentemente cumplían funciones políticas. El grupo tenía varios niveles jerárquicos, planteándose la hipótesis de que quizás pudo haber sido regido simultáneamente por varios señores con Gran Tocado. Se sugiere que el ejemplo de este grupo de principales puede servir como clave para descifrar la naturaleza de la clase gobernante de Teotihuacan.

The Maya area has long been characterized as a mosaic of polities large and small, with cultural connections, linguistic dialects, ethnicities, and economic networks that shifted, expanded, and contracted over time. In this paper, we examine different ways of constructing boundaries. From physical demarcations in the landscape to habitual practices of interaction and affiliation, the lines that tied and divided were both unstable and multiple. We draw on definitions and theories from anthropology, history, and geography to review the concepts of borders, frontiers, and boundaries and their implications for the Maya area over the long term.

Many Tarascan settlements surrounded Lake Patzcuaro in Michoacan, Mexico, during the Late Postclassic period. A hierarchy of settlements existed from the capital of Tzintzuntzan to secondary administration sites and small tributary communities. Obsidian artifacts from the large site, Erongaricuaro, have been studied by the author. Analysis of the obsidian from this site highlighted particular patterns in the production and consumption of prismatic blades and large scrapers. Data from another site, Urichu, was collected and analyzed more recently. Urichu was a tributary center to Erongaricuaro during the Tarascan empire. Local and state elites inhabited both sites, and analysis of obsidian manufacture indicates that the sites may have had different functions. Obsidian from the sites also varies by source location. This too may indicate site function and the changing sociopolitical organization of obsidian production and use throughout the Tarascan empire.

Archaeological excavations at the site of Xochicalco, Morelos, have explored several elements of public architecture important for clarifying aspects of urban organization and civic life during the Epiclassic period. Excavations confirm the presence of a ditch and terrace defensive system, strategic control of access leading into the site, and the presence of walled streets entering the site and extending throughout the city. The urban design also included systems for surface drainage that were linked to street networks. A section of the drainage system was constructed as a subterranean sewer using corbeled arch construction where it passed beneath a large platform mound. Analysis of the materials recovered from buildings throughout these excavations also provide the basis for identifying domestic activities and differentiating between residential and nonresidential structures.

Archaeological survey and excavations in the mangrove-estuary zone south of Izapa have generated an understanding of how the environment and human exploitation patterns changed during the Archaic and Formative periods. Archaic-period archaeological remains are not present, but the sedimentary record shows that Archaic people were clearing the coastal-plain forest for agricultural purposes. This activity augmented delivery of sediments to the littoral zone, which expanded the mangrove forest and created a productive environment that could be colonized by Early Formative villagers by around 1600 cal b.c. Population growth during the Early Formative created conditions that favored emergence of specialized pyro-industries, especially salt production, by around 1000 cal b.c. Production intensity increased thereafter, especially during the Late Formative period, coincident with the apogee of Izapa. Salt production became more episodic during the Terminal Formative period, when interior populations were declining to a nadir after cal a.d. 250.

This study addresses the role of prehistoric ethnopolitical divisions, factionalism, and alliances in macroregional economic models. The Mesoamerican Late Postclassic period (a.d. 1350–1525) is characterized by its “cosmopolitan” economy featuring long distance exchange of raw materials and finished products. Such characterizations are examined through a provenance analysis of small obsidian projectile points from the Maya lowlands of Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, and Honduras. Obsidian artifacts are analyzed using portable x-ray fluorescence (pXRF) and social network analysis (SNA) methods, revealing at least four sub-networks of point procurement that belonged to nine different ethnopolitical divisions. Local production of points is approached using a novel method of two-mode analysis, demonstrating in some cases that the sources of local obsidian debitage and debris did not coincide with the sources of finished point assemblages. Such information reveals the intricacies of Maya exchange and stresses the importance of local political geography during the Late Postclassic.

This paper addresses activities carried out in a late-sixteenth or seventeenth century Maya council house (popol nah) just before its abandonment. Structure 719 at the site of Zacpeten in the central Peten lakes district is considered a noble residence remodeled into a council house with an adjacent temple. Excavations revealed quantities of de facto refuse inside the structure's two rooms and around the exterior; recent studies focused on ceramics, lithics, faunal remains, and net sinkers. The back room held abundant lithics and diverse fauna, with evidence of grinding red pigment and snapping obsidian prismatic blades into segments for fashioning arrow points. Pottery and faunal remains indicate feasting, as well as possible use of animal parts in ritual and in making ceremonial objects. The Group 719 complex served as a center of production of various goods and community ritual until its abrupt abandonment, likely in the first decade or so of the eighteenth century.

Paleoenvironmental and geoarchaeological data generated over the past three decades for parts of the Basin of Mexico are little known among archaeologists working in the region. This paper summarizes and evaluates what is currently known about the prehistoric environment, landscape development, and human impact in the region. Archaeological evidence indicates that human activity became important in ecosystem evolution in the basin during the Middle-Late Holocene. Most traditional paleoenvironmental studies based on lake sediments, however, generalize results corresponding to this period simply as evidence for human impact. Essentially the same vegetation communities extant in the basin today appear to have been present during most of the Holocene, albeit with broader distributions and variability in secondary taxa. Recognizing potential contributions of archaeology to understanding human adaptation to climatic and ecosystemic change, past and present, should stimulate future research on paleoenvironment in the region.

A new obsidian source has recently been discovered in the highlands of Guatemala, near the city of Sansare, El Progreso. Ten samples have been subjected to neutron activation analysis, and the results are presented. While ceramic affinities tie the Sansare area with Formative and Classic period Highland Maya sites, linguistic evidence suggests that Postclassic inhabitants of this region were Xinca speakers.

The first part of this two-part essay discusses the important roles crocodiles and sharks played in Preclassic (and later) political geography and myths of cosmogenesis in Mesoamerica. They are associated with sacrifices resulting in creation of the world and births of some major gods. Crocodiles are also associated with fertility, rebirth, and renewal of seasonal and temporal/calendrical cycles. Recent investigations at Nixtun-Ch'ich’ show that its gridded urban landscape, established in the Middle Preclassic period (ca. 800–400 b.c.), was likely modeled on a crocodile's back. The second part of the essay presents some speculations on the early role of this site and crocodiles in central Peten. At Tikal, archaeology and retrospective texts indicate that crocodiles appeared in early versions of the site's emblem glyph and in the name of an early ruler. Nixtun-Ch'ich’ might be the legendary chi place, important in the dynastic foundations of several lowland Maya centers.

The article discusses the 1473 civil war between the two polities that formed the capital of the Aztec empire, Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco, as presented in the Codex Durán. I argue that the literal, European-style rendition of the events of the war includes remnants of the pre-Conquest symbolic thought behind those events' original choreography. The remnants indicate that the war was staged to follow the outlines of the story of the battle between the god Huitzilopochtli (“Hummingbird, Left”) and his sister Coyolxauhqui (“Bells, Painted”) at the mountain site of Coatepetl (“Serpent Mountain”), an allegory for the rise and fall of powerful rulers. I also suggest that the enemy king and his second in command, after being thrown from the Tlatelolco Templo Mayor, were buried in the funerary vessels beside the Great Coyolxauhqui Stone discovered in 1978 at the base of the Tenochtitlan Templo Mayor, proved by the war to be the “true” and only Coatepetl.

Obsidian from known outcrops in the Mesoamerican highlands has been recovered from lowland Maya sites, providing significant evidence for long-distance procurement and local redistribution of obsidian by the ancient Maya. Prior chemical-characterization studies of obsidian from the lowland Maya area provide a foundation for the study of Tikal-Yaxha obsidian presented here. The samples used in this analysis came from middens associated with 12 residential units located between Tikal and Yaxha and dating from the Preclassic through Terminal Classic periods. The results of chemical sourcing of the Tikal-Yaxha samples generally lend support to current interpretations of changes in obsidian distribution and procurement in the central Maya lowlands. During the Preclassic period, most obsidian was imported from the San Martín Jilotepeque-Río Pixcaya source area. Obsidian from the El Chayal source predominated throughout the Classic period, although some Mexican Pachuca obsidian appeared in Early Classic contexts, and Ixtepepque obsidian was apparently restricted to the Terminal Classic period.

In 1997, the Chan Chich Archaeological Project excavated a Terminal Preclassic/Early Classic period Maya tomb at Chan Chich, Belize. Tomb 2 represents the earliest royal tomb in the Three Rivers Region of the east-central Yucatan Peninsula and has striking similarities to Burial 85 at Tikal, the tomb of the dynastic founder Yax Ehb' Xook. This paper describes Tomb 2 and its contents and considers its significance within the context of the significant political and cultural changes that marked the transition from the Late Preclassic to the Early Classic period. We argue that the tomb is an early example of a regional expression of elite competition for status and power in the Central Lowlands that included the use of a subcomplex of ceramics and exotic artifacts to express prestige. Tomb 2 is also an example of an early royal burial pattern that may be more widespread than believed but has been overlooked due to excavation bias.

This article examines rural social differentiation in Chunhuayum, Yucatan, a rural village continuously occupied from approximately 800 b.c.–a.d. 1000. Focusing on the late Early Classic (a.d. 400/500–600/630), a time when other settlements of the Uci polity experienced political and population disruptions, I examine how households shaped and expressed local social differentiation, particularly wealth, occupation, and social connectivity. Residential architecture provides the most salient marker of wealth differences at Chunhuayum, while ceramic, shell, and obsidian assemblages indicate that households also varied in terms of their occupations and external social networks. Within this predominantly agrarian village, two households attempted to improve their economic and immaterial well-being through locally innovative strategies—shell crafting and group-oriented ritual orchestration. Such strategies ultimately had different outcomes both for the household and community. These points underscore the heterogeneity of the rural ancient rural Maya, and that social differentiation was actively constructed by rural people rather than a trickling-down of the normative hierarchical social order. Through habituated practice and innovative action, Chunhuayum's Early Classic residents continued participating in external networks while shaping locally meaningful relations of differences.

While changing views of the sociopolitical history of the northern Maya lowlands now recognize that Chichen Itza's emergence as a major polity on an unprecedented scale occurred during the Terminal Classic period, rather than the Early Postclassic period, the ramifications of significant chronological overlap between Chichen Itza's rise and the demise of neighboring polities have been largely unexplored. The ancient Maya center of Xuenkal, located in the Cupul region about 45 km northeast of Chichen Itza, is one of the few known interior sites to contain substantial (and discrete) Cehpech and Sotuta occupations. The Proyecto Arqueológico Xuenkal (PAX) was initiated in 2004 to elucidate Chichen Itza's role in the history of the Cupul region and what role local Xuenkal elites may have played in negotiating regional political dynamics. As with many surrounding centers, it appears that Xuenkal's occupational history reached its zenith with the Late Classic–Terminal Classic Cehpech ceramic sphere. However, unlike neighboring sites associated with Cehpech, such as Ek' Balam or Yaxuna, Xuenkal also contained a substantial Sotuta settlement concentrated within the site core during the Terminal Classic period. These populations adapted into an evolving regional economy by dramatically increasing household production as compared to Late Classic groups. While Sotuta households were tightly integrated into Chichen Itza's regional economy, evidence for their direct state control is not readily apparent. We suggest that the relationship between Chichen Itza and regional communities was more dynamic than current models contend, and that Chichen Itza's political machinations across the peninsula must be considered in local contexts that varied across households, communities, and regions.

Over the past thirty years, Mayanists have increasingly discussed the relationships between large polities. Advances in our understanding of epigraphy have largely driven this increased focus. Yet in areas where the epigraphic record is less understood, as is the case with the northern Maya lowlands, archaeologists have turned to other data to piece together political relationships. These data often consist of architectural and ceramic styles. Models based on such data generally assume that styles of material culture will cluster among social groups that are more closely knit than others (familial or political ties) or will occur in an area after it has been subordinated by a particular polity. One case where such a model has been applied is the site of Yaxuna, which was connected to the metropolis of Coba by a 100 km-long causeway during the Late Classic period. The difference between this case and others is that not only do the two sites share some aspects of material culture during this period, but we can also physically see that the sites were integrated by an actual road. In most cases where stylistic models have been applied, the possible routes connecting sites do not preserve, making the correlation between styles and social interaction more speculative. In this paper, we reevaluate the Yaxuna-Coba case using a modal analysis of the Arena ceramic group shared by Yaxuna and Coba during that time. Our data suggest that one particularly important type (Arena Red) was produced in Yaxuna and exported in a limited range of forms down the causeway toward sites in Quintana Roo. Although several archaeologists have argued that the causeway represents the subordination of Yaxuna by an expanding Late Classic Coba polity, our data suggest that the resulting impact on material culture may be more complex than current models imply. Ceramic economies operating in a very limited fashion within or outside of spheres of political action may have been common among the Maya, although the idea that trade follows flag certainly appears to have existed in this case.