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Copyright of Estudios de Cultura Maya is the property of Instituto de Investigaciones Filologicas - UNAM and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Estudios de Cultura Maya is the property of Instituto de Investigaciones Filologicas - UNAM and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper focuses on the discoveries of the last decade in Maya archaeology, and assesses their impact on previous models and synthetic frameworks. Although the bibliography includes 700 items published during the last 10 years, it is not exhaustive; on the contrary, a frustratingly large number of discoveries had to be omitted. Two areas exploding with new research are (1) the elicitation of a greater variety of data from hieroglyphic texts, and (2) a series of chemical and biological breakthroughs in the analysis of human burials. The former make it easier to assess the role of elite actors or “agents” in processes of sociopolitical change. The latter hold out the hope of documenting warfare (through skeletal trauma), migration (by tracing tooth enamel isotopes to ground water), status or gender differences in diet (through bone chemistry), and biological connections of individuals to each other and to earlier populations (through DNA). By combining these new data, we are on our way to integrating humanism and science, and to treating Maya polities as case studies in primary or secondary state formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excavating an ancient Maya city requires a long-term archaeological project that entails adequate documentation procedures for the unearthed remains, frequently of monumental scale and with difficult preservation conditions. A digital laser scanner survey methodology was designed and implemented to document the exposed architecture and to follow-up the archaeological excavation of the Maya site of La Blanca (Peten, Guatemala). All scans collected during the different field seasons were stored and aligned in a common reference system. Thus, an accurate digital three-dimensional database was obtained, including all the architectural remains found, some of which had to be reburied to ensure their preservation. The resulting database is a helpful repository that facilitates to extract all the graphic outputs required for: planning the next excavation campaigns, monitoring the preservation of the buildings, studying the architecture and construction technology in detail, and disseminating the excavation results. This paper describes the methodology and procedures used to build-up this database.

Settlement studies of the prehispanic Lowland Maya have tended to rely upon dwelling remains that are visible at the ground surface, though floors and living surfaces that leave no surface indications are known to exist. Such "invisible" dwellings have been encountered beneath platforms and in "vacant terrain" lacking surface indications of architecture, and given more systematic attention, could represent a sizable and socially significant segment of the prehispanic populations in the region. This paper describes the application of electromagnetic induction, a geophysical technique, for locating nonplatform dwellings at Chau Hiix, Belize. A conductivity signature for nonplatform dwellings was identified that includes plaster, nonplatform floors, both in an area of vacant terrain and beneath a residential terrace, in association with trash pits and episodes of limestone bedrock mining, presumably for the acquisition of raw material for the floor. The technique also holds promise for locating ground-level floors, use-areas, and possibly footpaths. While this pilot study was limited in scope, it demonstrates the enormous potential of electromagnetic induction for locating these otherwise elusive features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through analyses of data recovered at Itzán, Guatemala, this paper examines the architectural morphology and the probable functions of “invisible” building remains in the Maya Lowlands. Invisible building remains are buried, leave no surface traces, and cannot be detected during surface survey, which is the principal settlement detection technique employed by Mayanists. Data at Itzán and other sites suggest that Maya invisible buildings are a more abundant settlement category than many archaeologists have supposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys provide distinct advantages for archaeological prospection in ancient, complex, urban Maya sites, particularly where dense foliage or modern debris may preclude other remote sensing or geophysical techniques. Unidirectional GPR surveys using a 500 MHz shielded antenna were performed at the Middle Preclassic Maya site of Pacbitun, Belize. The survey in 2012 identified numerous linear and circular anomalies between 1 m and 2 m deep. Based on these anomalies, one 1 m × 4 m unit and three smaller units were excavated in 2013. These test units revealed a curved plaster surface not previously found at Pacbitun. Post-excavation, GPR data were reprocessed to best match the true nature of excavated features. Additional GPR surveys oriented perpendicular to the original survey confirmed previously detected anomalies and identified new anomalies. The excavations provided information on the sediment layers in the survey area, which allowed better identification of weak radar reflections of the surfaces of a burnt, Middle Preclassic temple in the northern end of the survey area. Additional excavations of the area in 2014 and 2015 revealed it to be a large square structure, which was named El Quemado. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DeLanda's assemblage theory makes it possible to study assemblages like houses, households, organizations and lineages from a flat ontology where materialities and immaterialities are analyzed with the same basic tools. Houses are assemblages consisting of heterogeneous parts that form a functional and expressive whole that is different from its parts. Humans are parts of house assemblages and generate other assemblages extending beyond the physical territory of the buildings themselves. The buildings in the major household assemblage at the small, but densely settled, site of Nohcacab in Quintana Roo, Mexico, are used to show the workings of the multi-scalar assemblage approach. This household consists of smaller parts (artifacts, construction materials and different buildings) and it was part of greater assemblages (community, a nearby causeway system and trade networks). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, household studies have coalesced into a recognized subfield within archaeology. Despite this relatively short history, household archaeologists are now taking a leading role in epistemological shifts that are placing people and their practices and differences at the center of archaeological interpretations of the past, rather than subsuming these into the “noise” of passive and depersonalized depictions of ancient social systems. As Maya archaeologists have played a critical role in the development of household archaeology, examining recent trends in Maya household research provides a perspective on the directions of both Maya studies and household archaeology more generally. This article explores three interrelated trends: (1) understanding ordinary people; (2) understanding social diversity among households; (3) understanding households in articulation with the broder social universe. Through a discussion of these three trends, this review uses Classic Maya household archaeology as a case study to illustrate how household research has led to the development of theoretically rich and empirically substantive understandings of an ancient society, which repeople the past and foreground the active roles of and structural constraints on ancient people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging leaders may replicate and expand traditional rituals to integrate increasingly larger numbers of people, advance political agendas, and situate political change within known cultural constructs. Ritual events enable them not only to promote surplus production but, more significant, to appropriate it, and surplus funds an expanding political economy as well as ceremonies and other public events. Consequently, the relationship between resources, settlement, and surplus is critical. For the ancient Maya, the variable distribution of resources and people presented a challenge to those with aspirations to political power. Emerging rulers used domestic dedication, termination, and ancestor veneration rites for political integration. Chronological, stratigraphic, and contextual information on ritual deposits from diverse Maya sites and structures with long occupation histories before, during, and after the advent of Maya rulership indicates that their ritual histories are structurally and functionally similar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In upland settings in humid and semihumid temperate and tropical environments, bioturbation is a major factor in the burial of modest architectural remains, which are abundant components of the settlement systems of complex societies. Surface survey, favored by archaeologists of complex societies as a settlement detection method, seldom is appropriate for discovering architectural remains buried through bioturbation. Where the focus of analysis includes settlement represented by architectural remains, surface survey is appropriate only where all or a representative sample of all types of architectural remains are protrusive. “Protrusion” describes a relationship (affected by climate, environment, topography, and cultural variables) between the height of a ruined building and the depth of the biomantle, which is the zone of bioturbation. To enable archaeologists to assess the appropriateness of settlement detection procedures, including surface survey, I propose a scheme that classifies architectural remains in terms of their protrusion, building height, and visibility characteristics. The scheme can be employed to determine if and why architectural remains are protrusive in particular study areas. To demonstrate its analytical utility, I apply the scheme and the model of building burial through bioturbation that underlies it to the problem of Maya “invisible” settlement. I conclude that in the Maya lowlands of Mesoamerica, building remains buried through bioturbation are a more abundant settlement category than many archaeologists have supposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous Maya ceremonial centers afford the geographer a rich opportunity to investigate man-land relationships in Meso-America. This study concerns the problem of site and building orientation. Most dements of the physical environment appear to play a minor role in site layout, and astronomical and cultural factors account for only some orientations. None of these reasons explains why the Maya shifted building alignments from time to time and often simultaneously at widely separated locations. The alternation of structural positioning through time indicates a moving reference point. and the tantalizing possibility that the Maya had a method for determining magnetic north is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]