{"title":"TACTICAL AND STRATEGIC LANDSCAPES: A STUDY OF MAYA FORTIFICATION AT TZUNUN, CHIAPAS, MEXICO","authors":"Christopher Hernandez","doi":"10.1017/S0956536121000079","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Although studies of warfare are now common in Maya archaeology, much remains to be learned about strategy, tactics, and various other practical factors in the process of making war. An emphasis on the concrete and practical is necessary to both acknowledge agency and understand how conflict relates to the human experience. Through an examination of documentary and archaeological data in a comparative framework, I elaborate on practices of Maya fortification construction and how the creation of a martial landscape ties into relations of power during the Late Postclassic/Early Spanish Colonial period (a.d. 1200–1600). During this period, in the region of Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico, Maya peoples fortified a peninsula according to principles of defense-in-depth. In other words, they created layers of fortification to slow and stall an attack. My analysis reveals how the creation of a martial landscape shaped local culture by incorporating elements of sacred geography and ritual landscape to perpetuate social inequality.","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":"34 1","pages":"198 - 215"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8000,"publicationDate":"2023-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Ancient Mesoamerica","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536121000079","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"ARCHAEOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Abstract Although studies of warfare are now common in Maya archaeology, much remains to be learned about strategy, tactics, and various other practical factors in the process of making war. An emphasis on the concrete and practical is necessary to both acknowledge agency and understand how conflict relates to the human experience. Through an examination of documentary and archaeological data in a comparative framework, I elaborate on practices of Maya fortification construction and how the creation of a martial landscape ties into relations of power during the Late Postclassic/Early Spanish Colonial period (a.d. 1200–1600). During this period, in the region of Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico, Maya peoples fortified a peninsula according to principles of defense-in-depth. In other words, they created layers of fortification to slow and stall an attack. My analysis reveals how the creation of a martial landscape shaped local culture by incorporating elements of sacred geography and ritual landscape to perpetuate social inequality.
期刊介绍:
Ancient Mesoamerica is the international forum for the method, theory, substance and interpretation of Mesoamerican archaeology, art history and ethnohistory. The journal publishes papers chiefly concerned with the Pre-Columbian archaeology of the Mesoamerican region, but also features articles from other disciplines including ethnohistory, historical archaeology and ethnoarchaeology. Topics covered include the origins of agriculture, the economic base of city states and empires, political organisation from the Formative through the Early Colonial periods, the development and function of early writing, and the use of iconography to reconstruct ancient religious beliefs and practices.