{"title":"STREETS AND OPEN SPACES: COMPARING MOBILITY AND URBAN FORM AT ANGAMUCO AND CHUNCHUCMIL, MEXICO","authors":"Scott R. Hutson, Rodrigo Solinis-Casparius","doi":"10.1017/S095653612100047X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S095653612100047X","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Angamuco and Chunchucmil are two of the few Mesoamerican cities with relatively complete street maps. These maps provide a rare opportunity to study how the bulk of the population moved through cities, how people worked together to organize a network of paths and open spaces, what kind of interactions these features afforded, and how they contributed to the formation of social identities. Having found that space syntax methods confirmed intuitive understandings without generating new findings, we apply a segment (paths) and node (intersections) analysis to both sites. With these analyses we recorded and characterized segment variables such as width, length, form, and curvature, and node variables such as size, form, and number of linked segments. Many of the nodes at both sites are open spaces, allowing us to register details about the configuration of shared public spaces that are less formal than monumental plazas. The analyses revealed neighborhood differentiation, local-level coordination of labor, and intentional efforts to create markets or spaces of assembly that may have complemented collective governance proposed for both sites. While Angamuco and Chunchucmil differ in terms of the general pattern of their pedestrian networks, they share similarities in terms of density of paths and types of intersections.","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":"34 1","pages":"338 - 359"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44612709","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":"BALLCOURT REPRESENTATIONS IN QUIECHAPA, OAXACA, MEXICO: RITUAL OFFERING, FERTILITY, AND LIFE","authors":"A. Badillo","doi":"10.1017/S0956536121000523","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536121000523","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract During an archaeological survey in the municipality of San Pedro Mártir Quiechapa, Oaxaca, Mexico, archaeologists from the Proyecto Arqueológico de Quiechapa (PAQuie) encountered and documented a number of carved stone elements. Of particular interest are the 30 representations of ballcourts carved into natural rock outcrops at two sites in the region. This is the highest density in which this type of ballcourt representation occurs throughout Mesoamerica. After their initial discovery, members of PAQuie documented the carved stone ballcourts using structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry, a quick and affordable technique to collect 3D spatial, quantitative, and visual data of stone carvings. In this article, I report on the carved stone ballcourt representations documented in the Quiechapa region and offer some preliminary interpretations. I first provide some description of the broader archaeological context in which the carvings were found. Then I describe the methods used to record the stone carvings, followed by a presentation of the data. Finally, in dialogue with extant literature, I explore some possibilities as to why these carved stone ballcourt representations were created, how they may have been used, and what they may symbolize.","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":"34 1","pages":"298 - 315"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42710280","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":"OPINIONS ON THE LOWLAND MAYA LATE ARCHAIC PERIOD WITH SOME EVIDENCE FROM NORTHERN BELIZE – CORRIGENDUM","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/s0956536121000675","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0956536121000675","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":"33 1","pages":"210 - 210"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47233048","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":"STONE TOOL FUNCTIONS, HOUSEHOLD ACTIVITIES, AND FORMATIVE LITHIC ECONOMIES IN NORTHERN TLAXCALA, MEXICO","authors":"David P. Walton","doi":"10.1017/S0956536121000481","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536121000481","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract High-magnification use-wear analyses create datasets that enable microeconomic studies of lithic consumption and household activities that complement macroeconomic studies of lithic production and exchange to collectively improve our reconstructions of ancient economies. In recent decades, compositional and technological analyses have revealed how certain obsidian sources and lithic technologies were exploited, produced, and exchanged in Mexico's central highlands region during the Formative period (1500 b.c.–a.d. 100). This article presents use-wear analyses of 275 lithic artifacts from four sites in northern Tlaxcala—Amomoloc (900–650 b.c.), Tetel (750–500 b.c.), Las Mesitas (600–500 b.c.), and La Laguna (600–400 b.c. and 100 b.c.–a.d. 150)—to compare household activities with lithic technologies and evaluate their roles in regional economies. Blades were used for subsistence and domestic crafting; maguey fiber extraction for textile production increased over time, especially in non-elite households. The preparation and consumption of meat acquired by hunting and other methods increased slightly over time, and bipolar tools were used as kitchen utensils. Bloodletting was practiced with two variations of late-series pressure blades, but these and other tools were neither exchanged as nor used to craft prestige goods, often viewed as driving forces of Formative economies in Mesoamerica.","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":"34 1","pages":"316 - 337"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42846351","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}
Luis Pantoja Díaz, Iliana Ancona Aragon, Maria Gomez Coba, Claudia Gongora Aguilar
{"title":"RURAL SOCIAL COMPLEXITY IN THE ICHCAANZIHO REGION, YUCATAN, MEXICO","authors":"Luis Pantoja Díaz, Iliana Ancona Aragon, Maria Gomez Coba, Claudia Gongora Aguilar","doi":"10.1017/S0956536121000687","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536121000687","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract During the last decade, archaeological investigations carried out by the Mérida Region Archaeological Project through the National Institute of Anthropology and History have focused on the peripheral sites of the current municipality of Mérida. In this article, we will focus on the northeast section covering a polygon that has an area of 7.19 km2, where rural minor sites such as Oxmuul, Cuzam, and Polok Keej are located. This area was explored in various seasons as a result of archaeological salvage and rescue projects, carrying out archaeological prospecting with the aim of creating cartography, systematic excavations, and descriptive analysis of archaeological materials. One of the objectives was to understand and interpret the social organization of the ancient peripheral communities in relationship higher ranking sites such as T'ho and Dzibilchaltun. The results obtained are presented diachronically in order to explain the role that these sites played within the political economy of the region, which turns them into complex rural sites towards the end of the Classic period.","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":"33 1","pages":"186 - 209"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57424162","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}
L. Gorenflo, Deborah L. Nichols, J. Speth, Mari Carmen Serra Puche, Ramiro Matos M.
{"title":"JEFFREY R. PARSONS (OCTOBER 9, 1939–MARCH 19, 2021): A REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE…AND BEYOND","authors":"L. Gorenflo, Deborah L. Nichols, J. Speth, Mari Carmen Serra Puche, Ramiro Matos M.","doi":"10.1017/s0956536122000050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0956536122000050","url":null,"abstract":"L.J. Gorenflo , Deborah L. Nichols, John D. Speth, Mari Carmen Serra Puche, and Ramiro Matos M. Department of Landscape Architecture, 121 Stuckeman Family Building, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, United States Department of Anthropology, 403 Silsby Hall, 3 Tuck Mall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755, United States Department of Anthropology, 1085 South University Avenue, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Avenida Universidad 3004, Colonia Copilco Universidad, Coyoacán, 04510 Ciudad de México, Mexico Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 4 Street SW, Washington, DC 20560, United States","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":"33 1","pages":"1 - 22"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57424203","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":"WALKING RURAL IN TZACAUIL, YUCATAN, MEXICO","authors":"Chelsea Fisher","doi":"10.1017/S0956536120000395","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536120000395","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract How were so-called rural Maya settlements experienced by the people who lived in them? In this article, I focus on the archaeology of walking in the small site of Tzacauil, Yucatan (outlying the much larger site of Yaxuna), to explore how experiences of rurality were historically and socially contingent. Walking produces and reproduces embodied understandings of place—and, as such, can yield a more dynamic conceptualization of rurality. In Formative Tzacauil (ca. 300 b.c.–a.d. 250), grounded walking, incorporated with and sensitive to terrain, coexisted alongside groundless walking on artificial surfaces (i.e., sacbes and built walkways) imposed onto terrain. I argue that an understanding of everyday walking in Formative Tzacauil was not unlike that of urbanizing Yaxuna. I propose that only in Classic Tzacauil (ca. a.d. 550–1100) did walking become categorically different from Yaxuna, and I discuss how that shift opens new avenues for inquiry into rurality as an embodied experience of place that was always subject to change.","PeriodicalId":46480,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Mesoamerica","volume":"33 1","pages":"148 - 161"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57422057","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}