Ancient Mesoamerica最新文献

{"title":"Ancestral Maya domesticated waterscapes, ecological aquaculture, and integrated subsistence","authors":"J. Palka","doi":"10.1017/s0956536122000402","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0956536122000402","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Ancestral Maya engineered wetland fields and canals in floodplains for plant cultivation and water management. Canals and reservoirs, however, also provide aquatic resources to supplement agriculture. Maya created multi-trophic ecological aquaculture by modifying the waterscape to increase the amounts of foods and useful materials, such as fish, turtles, waterfowl, and reeds. While archaeological and ethnographic investigations across the Maya area explore aquatic constructions, technology, and foodstuffs, they have not focused on aquaculture. In the western Maya lowlands, including the site of Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico, ancestral Maya modified floodplains around lakes and rivers for farming fish and aquatic resources near their settlements and fields. These extensive modifications for ecological aquaculture enhanced the productivity and resiliency of natural ecosystems. The domesticated waterscapes near the ritually important Mirador Mountain at Mensabak also followed pan-Mesoamerican beliefs in origin mountains that generated water, plants, and fish for humans. Importantly, Maya integrated subsistence is illuminated by research on domesticated landscapes and ecological aquaculture that examines a range of resources rather than just plants. Certainly across Mesoamerica, ecological aquaculture allowed people to intensify production of “farms” of aquatic species, particularly fish.","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44958038","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Es nuestra tradición: the archaeological implications of an ethnography on a modern ballgame in Oaxaca, Mexico","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/s0956536123000019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0956536123000019","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Pre-hispanic ballgames have an extensive temporal depth and geographical breadth across Mesoamerica, with over 1,500 ball courts recorded on 1,200 archaeological sites in Mexico alone. It is likely that ballgames played critical but variable roles in how communities related to each other. Most interpretations emphasize ballgames as cosmological rituals and legitimation practices exclusive to elites, perhaps often overlooking the more mundane sociopolitical processes and reasons why they carried such critical meaning for people of all classes and statuses. Ethnographic research on modern ballgames played by Indigenous and mestizo communities today can helpfully provide some insights or maybe deeper understandings into ancient ballgame practices and their relation to Mesoamerican communities. While modern games are not isomorphic with the ancient games, the duration of these traditions underscores their continuing importance and their relativity to current research. In this article I present the results of an ethnographic study of the modern ballgame pelota mixteca de hule (Mixtec rubber ballgame) in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Considering the results from the ethnographic data, I then discuss an archaeological case study in the Nejapa Valley of southeastern Oaxaca where numerous ballcourts were recently documented over the past decade.","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48096316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"CHICHEN ITZA AND ITS ECONOMY AT THE END OF THE CLASSIC PERIOD: TRIBUTE, CENTRALIZED REDISTRIBUTION, AND MARITIME STATIONS","authors":"Rafael Cobos","doi":"10.1017/S0956536121000572","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536121000572","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Studies of the ancient economy associated with the Classic and Postclassic periods of Maya civilization show that, in order to explain it, the market economy model has been widely used, where economic transactions were carried out in marketplaces. In this type of economy, goods are exchanged based on an agreed value that takes into account supply and demand. However, other types of exchange, such as tribute and centralized redistribution, could have been used in those transactions instead of a market economy. This article analyzes the role that tribute and centralized redistribution may have played during the heyday of Chichen Itza between the tenth and eleventh centuries. This site seems to have used its powerful military supremacy to extract tribute from sites and regions it conquered militarily and politically as they experienced their collapse. In addition, the archaeological evidence suggests that Chichen Itza made political as well as economic alliances in different regions of the Maya Lowlands in order to obtain sumptuous goods. These commodities were used by members of the elite to reinforce the power structure and consolidate social relations among the different individuals who inhabited that community located in northern Yucatan.","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":"34 1","pages":"522 - 544"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43843423","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"THE CONSTRUCTION OF MASCULINITIES AT CHICHEN ITZA: A FUNCTIONAL INTERPRETATION OF STRUCTURE 2D6","authors":"Lilia Fernández Souza, Héctor Hernández Álvarez, M. Zimmermann","doi":"10.1017/S0956536120000401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536120000401","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The structure of power underlying the hegemonic control Chichen Itza held over the Northern Maya Lowlands has been debated for decades. In this article, we present the idea of a dominant discourse on masculinities, which played a fundamental role in both practice and on a symbolic level among the strategies designed to support this emblematic pre-Columbian capital. Our discussion of archaeological evidence will focus on spaces where men are represented, where they would meet and carry out rituals. We contend that gallery-patios such as Structure 2D6 served as instruction and socialization locales for groups of warriors. The architectural configuration of this building is very similar to a series of venues at Chichen Itza and other Mesoamerican cities. In these spaces, associated iconography depicts male individuals in processions and ritual practice, including sacrifice and self-sacrifice. We argue that the gallery of Structure 2D6 was a semi-public, performative space, whose theatricality combined the central alignment of a sacrificial stone and a throne or altar with the presence of several patolli boards carved into the building's plaster floor. Chemical analyses of plastered surfaces testify to intense activities taking place around all three of these features.","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":"34 1","pages":"491 - 508"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49351859","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"HEADS, SKULLS, AND SACRED SCAFFOLDS. NEW STUDIES ON RITUAL BODY PROCESSING AND DISPLAY IN CHICHEN ITZA AND BEYOND","authors":"V. Tiesler, Virginia E. Miller","doi":"10.1017/S0956536120000450","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536120000450","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Chichen Itza stands as a monumental landmark of late Pre-Columbian Maya and Mesoamerican religious complexes. Among the enigmatic aspects of Chichen Itza's ceremonial innovations count skull racks (known as tzompantli in Nahuatl), where the heads of sacrificed victims would be exhibited. Here we combine the scrutiny of death imagery and human skeletal remains, including skulls with marks of bilateral or basal impalement and mandibles with perimortem decapitation from “New” Chichen, the Osario complex, and from Chichen's astronomical Caracol complex. Our combined skeletal and iconographic data confirm the increased practice of corpse processing and head exhibition at Chichen Itza when compared to Classic-period Maya centers. Most of these body treatments were not foreign introductions, as generally believed, but followed local practices, long carried out at the Yucatecan urban centers of Nohpat, Kabah, Uxmal, and Dzibilchaltun. Although on a minor scale compared to Chichen, these demonstrate the display of human body segments, not only skulls, which renders the term tzompantli problematic. In the context of the totalitarian rhetoric of Chichen's central spaces, the massified violence and corpse display herald late religious cults at the cadences of battles won, astronomical cycles, and the perpetual movement of the Feathered Serpent.","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":"34 1","pages":"563 - 585"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45093776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"SPECIAL SECTION INTRODUCTION: ARCHAEOLOGY IN CHICHEN ITZA","authors":"Rafael Cobos","doi":"10.1017/S0956536122000268","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536122000268","url":null,"abstract":"Chichen Itza was considered for many years an isolated and solitary settlement that flourished during the Postclassic period (a.d. 1000–1200) after the collapse of Classic Maya communities. The chronological position, as well as the social and cultural events that occurred in Chichen Itza during its apogee, derived mainly from two sources: first, the unquestionable interpretation of facts recorded in historical documents where the Maya always pre-dated the appearance or emergence of that site; second, the presence of non-Maya groups (first Toltecs, later the Itzas) who arrived, conquered, and settled in Chichen Itza to develop it, as attested by the architecture and sculptural features of supposedly “Toltec” origin. The contribution of archaeology to the explanation of the social and cultural events that occurred at Chichen Itza during its apogee was practically non-existent. Moreover, in the case of Chichen Itza’s chronology, the interpretations always adjusted or accommodated the dates reported in the historical sources to those events and this correlation was taken as a solid explanatory discourse. However, with the advance of archaeological research, not only in Chichen Itza, but in numerous Terminal Classic period (a.d. 800–1100) sites in the Yucatan, this discourse began to show enormous gaps and limited explanations; in other words, the paradigm established for decades began to crumble and the interpretation of archaeological data gradually helped in the creation of another paradigm that replaced the first. The five articles that make up this special section further contribute to explaining Chichen Itza as a Maya site that had its apogee at the end of the Classic period. This special section focuses on four specific topics: gender, Chichen Itza and its relationship with the maritime littoral, human sacrifice, and economy. Each of the five articles provides new interpretations derived from rigorous analyses of archaeological data and helps to underpin the new explanatory proposal on the society and culture that occupied Chichen Itza during the Terminal Classic period. The section begins with an article titled “The Construction of Masculinities at Chichen Itza: A Functional Interpretation of Structure 2D6,” presented by Lilia Fernández Souza, Héctor Hernández Álvarez, and Mario Zimmermann, focusing on male collectivity in Chichen Itza, seen from Structure 2D6. This building is a gallery-patio structure in whose frontal gallery excavations unearthed archaeological, architectural, and chemical evidence that shows specific areas where male activities were carried out as part of the construction of masculinity in Chichen Itza. It should be noted that this study follows an archaeological perspective, and its results are added to sculpture and painting studies of the site that contribute to explaining the construction of a male ideology utilized to support the dominant structure of power when Chichen Itza flourished between the tenth and eleventh ","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":"34 1","pages":"489 - 490"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43472783","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"ANIMAL PROVISIONING AT CHICHEN ITZA AND ISLA CERRITOS: A ZOOARCHAEOLOGICAL REVIEW OF FAUNAL UTILIZATION","authors":"Nayeli G. Jiménez Cano","doi":"10.1017/S0956536121000407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536121000407","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Zooarchaeological data are presented to examine aspects of animal resources utilization at Chichen Itza and Isla Cerritos during the Terminal Classic. Through the review of zooarchaeological records, a differential pattern emerges based on contextual and environmental origins of the identified taxa, highlighting the ritual importance of coastal species at Chichen Itza. In addition, the transportation network of animals and animal parts from the peninsular interior to Isla Cerritos and coastal areas towards Chichen Itza is outlined. The reviewed zooarchaeological evidence of both settlements represents the first effort to rethink and heighten understanding of the relationship between the northern Maya capital and its coastal outpost during the Terminal Classic, profiling the diverse environments being exploited and differential utilization in the coast and the interior of the Northern Lowlands.","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":"34 1","pages":"509 - 521"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42471612","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"MOVIMIENTOS POBLACIONALES DEL CLÁSICO TERMINAL EN CHICHÉN ITZÁ, A PARTIR DE LA MORFOLOGÍA DENTAL DE UN GRUPO DE NIÑOS SACRIFICADOS","authors":"A. Gallardo, Martha Pimienta Merlín, Oana Del Castillo Chávez","doi":"10.1017/S0956536120000528","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536120000528","url":null,"abstract":"Resumen En excavaciones efectuadas en Chichén Itzá en 1967, se encontró una construcción subterránea tipo chultun conteniendo los restos óseos de más de 70 individuos humanos, la mayoría subadultos masculinos. El depósito mortuorio presenta características de ser post-sacrificial, de carácter primario; la datación por carbono-14 lo ubica hacia el 1000 d.C., en el momento de mayor expansión de Chichén Itzá como ciudad capital regional. La cuantificación de 1,066 dientes permanentes establece un número mínimo de individuos de 75 (incisivo central superior izquierdo). Con el propósito de discernir sobre la afinidad biológica de los individuos, primero se llevó a cabo un análisis univariante y multivariante de los diámetros mesiodistales y bucolinguales y se compararon con 16 sitios prehispánicos de época clásica; posteriormente se analizó la morfología dental en 14 rasgos y se compararon con 24 sitios mayas prehispánicos del clásico, siguiendo la metodología estandarizada de Arizona State University Dental Anthropological System (ASUDAS). Se aplicaron tres análisis multivariantes (medida media de divergencia, análisis de conglomerados, y escalamiento multidimensional). Con base en este estudio, podemos afirmar que los niños del chultun de Chichén Itzá no pertenecen a las poblaciones de las Tierras Bajas del norte o del sur, como tampoco a las de las Tierras Altas del sur. Quizá formaban parte de grupos de comerciantes de larga distancia que se asentaron en Chichén Itzá a partir del 800 d.C. para dominar las rutas de comercio tanto marítimas como terrestres de la Península.","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":"34 1","pages":"545 - 562"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46062062","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Terminal Classic Conch-Shell Gorgets from the Maya Region and Central Mexico","authors":"N. Carter, Katharine W. Lukach","doi":"10.1017/s0956536122000360","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0956536122000360","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article discusses a category of conch-shell gorgets, mainly semielliptical in shape, which were produced during the Terminal Classic period in central Mexico and/or the Maya lowlands. We describe the iconography and style of these ornaments, seek precedents in other media for their themes, and use stylistic and epigraphic data to connect them to long-distance economic and political interactions between the Maya region and central Mexico. Although the portraits on most of the gorgets diverge from earlier Classic Maya conventions, neither do they conform to central Mexican canons. Further discoveries of such pendants in archaeological context may clarify their origins and social uses.","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42202424","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Life and Death of Homes at Noh K'uh: The Cosmological Ceremonies of Late Preclassic Corporate Maya Households","authors":"S. Juarez","doi":"10.1017/s0956536122000311","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0956536122000311","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The Late Preclassic (400 b.c.–a.d. 200) site of Noh K'uh in Chiapas, Mexico, is home to extended residential groups that aggregated around a small ceremonial complex at the bottom of the Mensäbäk Basin. Evidence collected from domestic contexts indicates that the Late Preclassic households of this site were organized under corporate political systems that emphasized collective identity and cosmological renewal. This article reveals how the people of Noh K'uh integrated cosmological beliefs and practices within the construction of their dwelling spaces, particularly through using cache deposits and participating in other architectural renewal ceremonies. Residents of Noh K'uh may have engaged in these practices to create “semipublic” gathering spaces for administrative and ceremonial activities at the level of the household.","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48025061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}