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Nohoch Ek Revisited: The Minor Center as Manor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Jennifer T. Taschek  and
Joseph W. Ball
Jennifer T. Taschek
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92181
Joseph W. Ball
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92181
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Abstract

Over the last half-century, Maya archaeologists have variously identified “minor centers” as small-scale ceremonial or administrative centers, elite residential compounds, dower houses, manor houses, astronomical stations or markers, and boundary markers. Arguments for these identifications have ranged from simple assertions to elaborate analyses. What has emerged most clearly is that, as with any form of monolithic type, the “minor center” category—based in this case on relative size—represents something of a functionally mixed hodgepodge. Such architectural complexes in fact served and represented a multiplicity of as yet incompletely appreciated sociocultural functions and roles. We examine one such center, Nohoch Ek, and its likely role within the Late to Terminal Classic social landscape of the upper Belize Valley, based on investigations carried out by the authors in 1985, and by Michael Coe and William Coe in 1949. The study combines in-depth artifactual, depositional, and contextual analyses of an extensive body of data that was recovered using strategically placed purposive stripping and sampling trenches. We conclude that Classic period Nohoch Ek looked and functioned very much like a medieval European agricultural manor.

Durante el medio siglo más reciente, los arqueólogos mayistas han identificado los “centros menores” diversamente como centros ceremoniales o administrativos en pequeña escala, complejos habitacionales del estatus alto, casas de dote, casas señoriales, estaciones o marcadores astronómicos, y marcadores del límite. Los argumentos para las identificaciones han extendido de las aserciones simples a análisis elaborados. Como con cualquier forma del tipo monolítico, la categoría del “centro menor,” basado en el tamaño relativo, es funcionalmente mixta y tales agrupaciones de hecho sirvieron y representaron muchas funciones diferentes y papeles socioculturales que permanecen entendidos incompletamente. Examinamos un tal centro, Nohoch Ek, y su papel probable dentro del paisaje social Clásico Tardío–Terminal del Valle de Belice superior, basado en nuestras investigaciones en 1985, y en las de Michael Coe y William Coe en 1949. El estudio combina los análisis de un cuerpo extenso de los artefactos, los depósitos, y los datos contextuales recuperados por medio de excavaciones útiles lateralmente extensas y trincheras de probando estratégicamente situados. Llegamos a la conclusión de que Nohoch Ek miró y funcionó mucho en la misma manera como una casa de propriedad agrícola de Europea medieval.

Type
Articles
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 2003 , pp. 371 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 2003

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