Continuing analysis of the site of Chichen Itza suggests that its construction dates primarily to the Late Classic period, ca. a.d. 700–1000, rather than the Early Postclassic. This paper examines the implications of this redating for the well-known “Toltec” problem. Since Chichen largely antedated Tollan-phase Tula, we conclude that what is usually identified as Toltec imagery in fact dates to an earlier Epiclassic horizon extending from Morelos and Puebla to the Gulf Coast and Yucatan. Chichen Itza, we suggest, was the eastern node in a network of shrine centers dedicated primarily to Quetzalcoatl/Kukulcan. This network transcended political boundaries and included such sites as Cholula, Cacaxtla, El TajIn, Xochicalco, and ultimately Tula. The Quetzalcoatl cult is manifested by a specific complex of traits and seems to have expanded militarily with messianic vigor. Pilgrimage was also an important activity at these centers. This cult axis apparently continued into the Postclassic period, and was responsible for the distribution of the Mixteca-Puebla art style. In Yucatan, Mayapan would seem to have assumed Chichen's position as the major Yucatecan node, although accompanied by several new shrines along the Caribbean coast.

Investigations at Punta Canbalam on the Gulf Coast of Campeche reveal it is probably the largest of several important but underreported trading sites on the pan-Mesoamerican maritime trade route. The coastline has been unstable for the last thousand years, subjecting the site to sea level changes and repeated episodes of beach erosion and redeposition. The relatively dense scatter of temporally mixed, highly weathered sherds and other artifacts on an exceedingly narrow, modern beach indicates that it is all secondarily deposited and that its original location was offshore. An interdisciplinary team is beginning to recognize clues in its environmental and cultural contexts as to where this peripatetic site was originally located and the extent to which it depended upon exchanges of salt, petty commodities from inland, and canoe-borne exotics from afar. This predominantly Terminal Classic and Early Postclassic site likely served as a port of entry for obsidian, jade, fine-paste ceramics, and other goods for the nearby inland city of Chunchucmil. It also probably supplied the interior with marine and estuarine food and ornamental and ritual products in exchange for inland agricultural products and other items.

A comprehensive site survey and excavation program took place in 1995 and 1996 at the Maya center of Chac II (Chac) located within the Puuc hills region of Yucatan, Mexico. This work presents a body of evidence in support of the idea that Chac was an important center beginning in the Early Classic period (a.d. 300–600) that experienced significant foreign contacts. In addition, multifaceted data from surface, soil, architectural, and excavated contexts are addressing major questions pertaining to architectural and ceramic chronologies, the founding of the Puuc stoneworking tradition, site activity areas, and patterns of land use. Furthermore, dating indicates that Chac predated Sayil and that the two sites have a close geographical relationship. Also, terrace agriculture appears to have been widespread at Chac, contrasting greatly with Sayil where intensive gardening was widely practiced. In light of the new information from Chac, we argue that the traditional models of Puuc origins are inadequate. Investigations at a major Early Classic site in the heart of the Puuc region suggests that the region's rise was indigenous coupled with external ties to foreign groups reaching to central Mexico. The site of Chac is thus taking on strategic importance for understanding the origins of Puuc civilization, providing a rare opportunity to study a Maya center that was on the brink of urbanism in one of the most urban ancient Maya areas. These new data are helping to elucidate the nature of Maya urbanism in the Puuc region and establish the kinds of cultural links that existed between the northern Maya Lowlands and the rest of Mesoamerica during the Classic period.

The term “Protoclassic,” employed regularly but inexplicitly in the literature of lowland Maya archaeology, has become increasingly nebulous and ambiguous in both meaning and usage. This paper reviews the history and use of the term and presents a formal redefinition of the Protoclassic as a ceramic stage based explicitly and exclusively on ceramic criteria. Some suggestions regarding future use of the term also are offered. The paper further addresses and resolves a number of persisting questions regarding Protoclassic orange wares, including problems concerning the actual existence of the “Aguacate ceramic group.” and the relationships of Aguacate-group pottery to other emergent orange wares of the terminal Late Preclassic and initial Early Classic periods. The nature and significance of the “Holmul I Style,” the “Floral Park Ceramic Sphere.” and the relationships of the two to each other and the larger, redefined “protoclassic” ceramic stage also are examined. A spatial distribution for protoclassic ceramics considerably expanded over what has ever been reported previously is described, and Chronometric data are presented to support a revised chronology for the protoclassic ceramic stage. Finally, ceramic data are offered that suggest a real subdivision of the protoclassic ceramic stage into an early, emergent facet originating entirely within Late Preclassic lowland traditions, and a later, fully “Classic” facet corresponding to the early Tzakol (Tzakol 1) ceramic horizon.

The following paper examines archaeological variability in community organization of sites in the parroquia de Yaxcaba. Yucatan, Mexico, from a.d. 1750 to 1847. Using historical and archaeological evidence, the course of political-economic change in Yucatan is followed from the recovery of the Indian population in 1750, through the Bourbon reforms and Independence from Spain, to the Caste War of Yucatan in 1847 in order to assess its implications for continuity or discontinuity of Maya adaptive patterns. Three settlements—a pueblo, a hacienda, and an independent rancho—were intensively mapped to reveal patterns of house lots, streets, features, plazas, and public architecture. Differences in spatial organization among the settlements can be specifically linked to variation in population growth, tax structure, and land stress coincident with changes in the colonial regime. Variation in household production strategies and the choice of tactics that minimize subsistence risk were largely dependent on the community's degree of integration with the colonial system. The evidence from Yaxcaba suggests that two key processes are particularly important in determining articulations between rural and urban areas: disenfranchisement from the means of production and the extension of credit. These two processes affect variation in the relations of production that partly explain how communities either become entangled in or remain apart from political-economic change.

This paper explores the nature of community leadership within the Late–Terminal Classic Maya site of Sayil, Yucatan, Mexico. The distribution of political and religious activities—as represented archaeologically by cylindrical stone monuments (“altars”) and Oxkutzcab Applique censers—is examined. It is argued that such activities are dispersed into the upper ranks of Sayil society, rather than concentrated in the royal, ruling sector. It is further argued that the residential areas in which political and religious activities were concentrated may have been the loci of lineage heads of Sayil, who maintained important leadership roles despite attempts at centralization by the rulers.

The site of Cuello in northern Belize provides a long ceramic sequence from the early Middle Preclassic, ca. 1200 b.c., to the Late Preclassic, sometime in the fourth century a.d. Excavations begun at Cuello in 1975 were completed in 1993. The initial controversy concerning the chronological placement of the earliest pottery of the Swasey and Bladen complexes is challenged by examining the 1992 and 1993 excavated material in a “blind analysis,” without benefit of stratigraphic information. The results demonstrate conclusively the stratigraphie priority of Swasey ceramics below Bladen, which in turn lie below pottery of the Middle Preclassic Lopez-Mamom complex. Cuello operated within the homogeneous Mamom ceramic sphere during the Middle Preclassic and within the Chicanel ceramic sphere during the Late Preclassic. The ultimate breakup of the Chicanel sphere resulted in Cuello's adherence to the older ceramic traditions, while other Maya sites had begun the production of polychrome pottery. Cuello represents one of the best-known Middle Preclassic Maya sites yet investigated, and it provides an important perspective on this poorly understood time period in the Maya lowlands.

In her studies of Maya hieroglyphs at the site of Piedras Negras, Guatemala, Tatiana Proskouriakoff (1960) observed that Maya rulers often celebrated the anniversary of their accession. She recognized that a number of repeated dates were not associated with accession, but could offer no explanation for them. Recent study of the inscriptions associated with these dates has revealed a wealth of ritual information: the rulers of Piedras Negras commemorated the anniversaries of births, deaths, and mortuary activities with a number of ceremonies. This report addresses those ceremonies at Piedras Negras and examines the hieroglyphic and archaeological evidence for similar events at other Classic Maya sites.

The study of deity images in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artworks and pictographic texts has been dominated by a concern to classify them for identification of the individual gods. The usual approach has been taxonomic classification, emphasizing the attributes consistently shared by various images to distinguish them as members of a single class (i.e., a single deity). However, identifying criteria are shared by more than one deity class, and the desired consistency in a set of traits for class membership has never been realized, such that scholars still disagree as to the proper identification of these images. This study takes a different approach, by examining the relationships among gods manifested in both imagery and text. It focuses on the Maya God L, who shares some identifying features with God M and also shares certain contexts with the God Bolon Yokte. These associations reflect their spatiotemporal alignments, with God L representing the stability of the primordial cosmic center, whereas Gods M and Bolon Yokte are “travelers” who move within the periphery. From these relationships we begin to explain not only the fluidity of deity imagery, but also how deities served as metaphoric representations of dynamic social and cosmic processes.

Analysis of Early Formative ceramics from the site of Paso de la Amada, on the coast of Chiapas, Mexico, yields a refined sequence for the period 1400–1000 b.c. A simple key has been developed to classify midden assemblages. Its utility for creating chronologically sensitive groupings is confirmed by multidimensional scaling of 32 units. The refined ceramic sequence provides a basis for investigating short-term sociopolitical dynamics during the Early Formative period.

This study simulates vulnerability to famine and food poverty among peasant households in the Basin of Mexico two decades after the Conquest. Using demographic and cadastral data recorded in the Códice de Santa María Asunción (Tepetlaoztoc), vulnerability is assessed by comparing household and patio-group (household compound) food production to consumption needs at the same scales, Modeling of food production of the principal subsistence crops (maize, beans, and maguey) uses the soil types noted for each field in the Asuncion document and a production model that accounts for soil-productivity differences. Both typical and poor years are modeled. Household and patio-group food needs are based on the codex data for each individual in the community. The study reveals that 60% of the population was at risk of famine in a poor year and that up to 16% would have suffered food poverty in a typical year. Nevertheless, even in a poor year, 40% of the population would have had adequate-or-better nutrition. Thus, this analysis supports contrasting views of early Contact-period nutrition. Because of the unequal distribution of food-production resources in Nahua society, some commoner households were usually adequately fed, while others normally suffered chronic undernutrition. Patio groups represent a possible response to this situation, as analysis by patio group indicated reduced vulnerability to food poverty. Land per capita ratios appear to be the best explanation of the differences in food poverty and famine risk among the households or patio groups.

Recently, a major debate has arisen over the interpretation of Monte Albán Tomb 7. This debate hinges, in part, on whether the skeletal assemblage comprised either primary or secondary burials. Previous studies of Mesoamerican mortuary practices generally have recognized only primary and secondary burials in tombs. Findings from a recently excavated tomb in Ejutla, Oaxaca, demonstrate that a third possibility exists: multiple-interment tomb assemblages. These assemblages result from a process we call “ongoing tomb use.” Based on comparisons with the Ejutla interments we propose that the Monte Albán Tomb 7 assemblage may have resulted from ongoing tomb use.

From the Early and Middle Formative periods, hollow ceramic-baby figurines in the Olmec style—representing a suite of shared symbols and iconography—appear at sites throughout Mesoamerica. Hollow babies are usually reported without provenience, which has prevented a context-based analysis. The recent discovery of a hollow-baby figurine in a bell-shaped pit in the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca provides the opportunity to examine the role and purported distribution of these objects across Mesoamenca. Based on consideration of the Etlatongo hollow-baby image, a semiotic analysis of contemporaneous solid figurines from Oaxaca, and the volume and nature of its bell-shaped-pit context, hollow babies are interpreted as ritual paraphernalia used in display and public ceremonies that reflect the emerging social ranking of this period. Moving beyond a socioeconomic interpretation, the interregional relationships expressed through hollow-baby figurines are suggested to evince participation in a regional cult.

During the summer of 1995, an intensive archaeological survey of the Río Talgua drainage in eastern Honduras was conducted after the discovery of the Talgua Cave in the Department of Olancho. One important goal of this survey was the identification of the indigenous population responsible for depositing the ninth-century b.c. human burials found upstream in Talgua Cave. In addition to this survey, four other caves were found and/or explored during this season, and limited excavations were also conducted at the mounded site of Talgua downstream and at the ceramic-production site of Chichicaste in the mountains to the west. Preliminary analysis of the architecture and ceramics from 39 newly identified archaeological sites in the Talgua Valley suggests that all appear to date to the Late Classic period (a.d. 600–900), leaving the location of the Middle Formative period population unresolved. A review of the survey, cave, and ceramic data, however, does reveal possible information about the multiethnic nature of the regional political system and local social structure that existed in this previously unstudied area of Central America.

Since 1984, the Ek Balam Project has been investigating the organization and developmental history of a large Maya polity in the northeastern part of the Yucatan Peninsula. The survey included both urban Ek Balam, the largest regional center during the Late Classic period (a.d. 600–900), covering a minimum of 12 km2, and its rural hinterland. One result of this project has been the construction of a preliminary ceramic history of the region, the subject of this report. Evidence supports a sequence of occupations extending from the Middle Preclassic through the Hispanic period (600 b.c.–a.d. 1600). The ceramic sequence, constructed from a type-variety analysis of more than a quarter of a million pieces of pottery from surface survey and excavations, consists of six preliminary ceramic complexes. This ceramic analysis extends our understanding of Maya cultural development in the northern Maya lowlands to a largely unknown area of the peninsula.

In this paper I present new, surface-collected ceramic data from the previously little-known Chikinchel region in northeast Yucatan. My goals are twofold: first, to expand the utility of surface-collected materials by suggesting a technological approach (paste analysis) to classify small or eroded sherds; and second, to place Chikinchel into the larger spatial and temporal framework of the northern Maya lowlands. The ceramic analyses presented here span the Late Formative through Spanish Colonial periods. Diachronic changes in the regional distributions of the different wares that compose the Chikinchel ceramic inventory are demonstrated and discussed in terms of larger processes occurring across the peninsula.

The period preceding the Terminal Classic florescence in the Puuc region of Yucatan, Mexico has not received adequate research attention. Recent comprehensive site survey and excavation at Chac II (Chac) are exploring Puuc origins and have begun to redress the lack of chronological understanding regarding the region by independently linking architectural styles to ceramic sequences via a program of absolute dating. Results to date suggest that Chac was a significant Early Classic center (a.d. 300–600) that also experienced a major Late Classic (a.d. 600–800) occupation. Multiple lines of chronological evidence, including buildings with a mix of early architectural styles and associated pre-Cehpech and Cehpech ceramics (a.d. 800–1000) within sealed architectural and stratigraphic contexts, suggest a period of architectural transition and the antecedents of Cehpech ceramics dating to the sixth century. These new chronological data and associated evidence for foreign contacts perhaps reaching to central Mexico argue for the assignment of a Middle Classic period (a.d. 500–700) to the region, with broad evolutionary implications for Puuc origins and pan-Mesoamerican contacts.