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El artículo discute sobre el hallazgo de un cuenco estilo Chocholá con escritura jeroglífica en el trabajo arqueológico del Tren Maya en las Tierras Bajas del norte de la Península de Yucatán.

En el marco de las obras de salvamento arqueológico que el INAH lleva a cabo en torno al proyecto Tren Maya, se ha identificado importante evidencia arqueológica tanto en superficie como subacuática. Destaca el hallazgo de una canoa monóxila de madera al interior de una cueva sumergida, así como restos materiales para la realización de ceremonias en diversas cavidades en el sitio arqueológico de San Andrés, Yucatán. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the conditional factors impacting the socioeconomic viability of ecotourism in Maya organizations living in the protected natural areas (PNA) in the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. This analysis was conducted under a way-of-living approach and based on the information gathered from participant observation, interviews and workshops. Conclusion is drawn that the social organization and schooling are essential to the development of ecotourism, even though these factors are not enough when the organizations lack the required managerial skills. Likewise, it is concluded that public policies may strengthen the skills required for managing and organizing ecotourism businesses, by removing the paternalistic practices, fostering the local participation in the PNA management and regulating the land tenancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The origins of the settlement in southwest Yucatan that subsequently became the British colony and then nation of Belize, along with the etymology of the toponym Belize, are poorly understood and clouded by colonialist mythology. Using cartographic, archival, and other textual sources, including some in Yucatec Mayan, this article offers a revisionist argument regarding initial British settlement in the region and proposes a new solution to the mystery of the name Belize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cenotes are sinkholes through which groundwater may be accessed from the Yucatan Peninsula Aquifer. Historically and culturally, cenotes are also important cultural and spiritual natural sites for the Maya, but they have been contaminated and degraded. We ask the following: What are the present-day meanings, understanding, and values of cenotes for the Maya? Is it possible to adopt a cultural approach for conservation of cenotes in Yucatan? Participant observation, interviews with stakeholders, and underwater exploration in cenotes were used to obtain data. Results indicate that cenotes often retain some spiritual meaning for people but not as important cultural, spiritual, or sacred sites. Little consensus was found regarding the significance of cenotes and how best to protect them. Informants noted changes in water quality, and identified the threats to cenotes including tourism, poor solid waste management, contamination, and deficiency of interest in preservation. Lack of accurate knowledge was a problem: informants did not seem to understand that cenotes are interconnected through the groundwater system. The Yucatan case illustrates how loss of cultural values can be linked to environmental quality and resource degradation. Conversely, it can be argued that cultural revitalization in indigenous communities has the potential to bring back community-based conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Las actividades de rescate arqueológico han permitido obtener nuevos datos sobre el puerto maya prehispánico de El Cuyo, sobre su cronología, así como información sobre el papel que desempeñó en el intercambio comercial y la explotación de las salinas de la costa norte yucateca. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the historical potential of the leather codex from the Canek group of forged historical documents dating from the 1950s to the 1970s that deal with 16th-century conquest of the Maya culture in the northern part of the Yucatan Peninsula and the 17th-century conquest of the Maya interior. It discusses aspects considered in authenticating a historical document including physical characteristics, pedigree, handwriting, linguistic properties, contents, and sources.

This article examines the conversations between Maya-speaking villagers in the Yucatan peninsula and Mexican and American anthropologists that have visited them since 1970 from the point of view of their different perceptions of the present and expectations for the future. Its aim is to analyze how the Western notions of history, which have been dramatically transformed with the recent crisis of the Modernist régime d'historicité, have interacted with the villagers' own dynamic conceptions of historical change. As such it presents a historical reading and interpretation of anthropological texts. Using the concepts of 'cosmopolitics' and 'diplomacy', as developed by science studies, it constructs a theoretical framework to understand how the anthropologists interpreted the situation and prospects of the Maya-speaking peasants and how they in turn interpreted their interaction with their visitors, and with the Mexican state and other global forces, according to their particular historical experiences of the succession of cycles of servitude and freedom. Through these negotiations both parties constructed different 'common nows', mutually understandable presents that allowed them to apprehend their shared situation. This analysis leads to the definition of a historical relativity that shows how meaningful exchanges between different historicities can take place without one, including the Western notion of history, ever engulfing or fully explaining the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the so-called First Chronicle of the Maya Books of Chilam Balam, a segment of shared content found in three of the native copybooks from northern Yucatán, including the Tizimin, the Chumayel, and the Maní, also known as the Códice Pérez. I reevaluate the chronology and historical content of the First Chronicle found in these books by examining the following: (1) the dates applied to the katun cycles (increments of roughly twenty-year periods) in light of recent archaeological finds from Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, Champotón, and Mayapán; (2) Maya conventions of time as expressed in the katun chronicles; (3) the shared subject matter found in all three books; and (4) the internal structure and transcription conventions of the First Chronicle. This study suggests that the early chronicles may offer a larger measure of historical accuracy and reliability than is currently accepted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of RACAR: Canadian Art Review / Revue d'art Canadienne is the property of Universities Art Association of Canada / Association d'Art des Universites du Canada 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.)

El artículo discurre sobre las rutas comerciales en la civilización maya prehispánica. La autora describe el intercambio comercial entre las varias regiones mayas, especialmente en la península de Yucatán, México. También se consideran los métodos de transportar mercancía y se provee una mapa que demuestra las rutas comerciales.

This paper outlines the establishment of Catholic missions among the Maya in colonial Yucatan, Mexico. A central element in the broader project of reducción (re-ordering, subjugation, missionization) was conducted in the Maya language, which was also the language of governance and the Indian towns. As a result, the colonial period marks the emergence of a new variety of Maya language, born of translation, appropriated by Maya speakers, and ultimately (and ironically) used as an instrument of resistance to colonial oppression. I call this language variety Maya reducido and trace its formation in the translation practices and pedagogy of the Franciscans, who shaped the early missions and codified the new, pervasively neologistic variety in grammars, dictionaries, and catechisms. Maya reducido spread into the Indian towns and ultimately into every genre of Maya discourse, including the Books of Chilam Balam. This would have profound consequences for the historical formation of the language and the people who speak it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The disintegration of the Classic Maya civilization in the Yucatán Peninsula and Central America was a complex process that occurred over an approximately 200-year interval and involved a catastrophic depopulation of the region. Although it is well established that the civilization collapse coincided with widespread episodes of drought, their nature and severity remain enigmatic. We present a quantitative analysis that offers a coherent interpretation of four of the most detailed paleoclimate records of the event. We conclude that the droughts occurring during the disintegration of the Maya civilization represented up to a 40% reduction in annual precipitation, probably due to a reduction in summer season tropical storm frequency and intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El artículo enfoca en los gobernantes mayas del período Clásico. El autor describe la autoridad político-religiosas de los reyes mayas (conocidos como k'ubul ajaw o reyes divinos) y comenta sobre los rituales de entronización, el rol político de los rituales y la relación entre el poder real y los centros urbanos mayas.

In the Maya lowlands ancient water management was multi-componential, diverse across space, and shifted over time. In the seasonally dry Puuc region of the northwestern Yucatan Peninsula, large reservoirs dominated water management during the Late Classic to Early Postclassic periods (a.d. 600–1250). Research reported here suggests that reservoirs were central components of Puuc urban settlements and that natural depressions—from which water reservoirs could be made in the Puuc terrain—were key settlement attractors in the region. In particular, new evidence of the pre-Hispanic construction of a berm of monumental proportions along the perimeter of a water reservoir at Xuch—a Late Classic to Early Postclassic Puuc Maya agro-urban settlement in Campeche, Mexico—stresses the political, economic, and symbolic importance of water and water reservoirs in pre-Hispanic Maya communities, previously demonstrated by colleagues working elsewhere in the Maya lowlands. This article discusses the “weight” of water reservoirs in Classic period Puuc Maya landscapes, adds to the literature on water management in other regions of the Maya lowlands, and explores aspects of economy, power, environment, and cosmology in water management systems of the dry regions of the northern Yucatan Peninsula. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

El artículo considera la investigación arqueológica del cenote de Las Calaveras en la Península de Yucatán, México. Se reporta que se descubrieron los restos de más de 100 personas en el cenote que posiblemente representaron una fosa común de la civilización maya. Según el autor, algunos de los cadáveres fueron parte de un ritual funerario. Se describen las huellas de violencia intencional, la configuración de los esqueletos y el propósito de esta práctica mortuoria.

The article focuses on early 19th century European traveler Frédéric de Waldeck and his theories concerning the origin of the Mayan population and ruins of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. The author comments on Waldeck's travels and archeological research in Mexico and discusses his explanation regarding Maya origins and the lost tribes of Israel in the context of 19th century European Orientalist thought. She also cites Waldeck's account of his visit to the Maya ruins at Uxmal, in Yucatan, Mexico.

Abstract: Non-specific stress markers such as linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) have been associated in the literature with a large number of possible conditions disrupting the individual''s homeostasis, though metabolic strain originating synergistically by disease and malnutrition has been held to be the main cause behind enamel disruption. The analysis of LEH in the Maya Classic period site of Xcambó, located along the northern coast of the Yucatán peninsula, reveals high exposure to stressful conditions during infancy regardless of age and sex. Yet, the inhabitants of the site were of a medium to high social and economic status, with access to balanced and protein-rich nutritional resources, which should have functioned as a cultural buffer to the impact of stress. In the light of this apparent contradiction, this paper discusses the impact of environmental conditions on the record of metabolic stress. Our conclusions pose a cautionary caveat for inferring nutrition and status in ancient pre-antibiotic populations solely from the occurrence of linear enamel hypoplasia. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article focuses on the evolution of the bullfighting tradition in Mexico's countryside, particularly in the Maya-language region of the Yucatan Peninsula. It states that the tradition was altered to suit the views of the local inhabitants. The author claims that ancient Maya ideology and non-Western worldview permeate the custom, reflecting a remarkable cultural tenacity in the face of modern globalizing forces. Related topics are further discussed including the Spanish institution with regards to bullfighting and the institution in rural Yucatan.

Copyright of Anthropologica is the property of CASCA 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.)

Cenotes are natural geological formations, commonly known as sinkholes, which are often linked to subterranean galleries with groundwater. These natural wells constitute complex and dynamic hydraulic systems that have a long history of interaction with the surrounding civilizations. These ‘time capsules’ contain information pertaining to the symbolic and religious aspects linked to the Mayan culture, as well as to geological processes in the Peninsula of Yucatán. Archaeologists, geologists and biologists are working together to study these unique sites using specialized speleological diving techniques. However, the cenotes have also become a tourist attraction and a spot favoured by sports divers. Consequently, treasure hunting has become a constant threat. A sustainable management programme should permit both public enjoyment of these unique cultural heritage sites and ensure their preservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reasons revolving around the presence of two rivers, the Homtún and Champotón located in the Yucatan Peninsula's northwestern area, are explored in terms of power relations and their cities, Acanmul y Edzna, symbolic nature for two regional capital Mayan cities situated along their drainage courses. Detailed analyses of urban layout, archaeological contexts, sculpted monuments and other iconographic representations, as well as local environmental characteristics considered as inalienable tropes in which these principal actors were found, suggest symbolic and cosmological rather than economic or political undercurrents for locating these places within a regional framework. A symbolic interpretation of tangible and intangible cultural elements allows us to propose hypotheses regarding the role of these capital cities as places of "creation and good government" situated in a sacred landscape on the context, architectural compound, site, and regional levels. In addition, these cities and other satellite sites within their political jurisdictions probably were part of religious and ceremonial activities carried out along an aquatic circuit that revolved around the annual Maya ritual calendar. Franciscan open and "visita" chapels erected during the late XVI and early XVII Centuries along this dual fluvial route and in other topographically elevated areas found in this particular ecological niche with savannah grasslands, wetlands, and swampy lowlands united by two rivers, appear to sustain the hypothesis regarding a long term presence of religious processions and pilgrimages in this immediate region, whose heritage still remains in one place along the route today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how the tourism industry in the greater Yucatan Peninsula has used mass media to promote cultural stereotypes in the area's visual culture. The author discusses how film and video depict colonial views of the Mayas that disregard the effects of modernity and mimesis on Mayan society and notes the dispossession of the Mayas due to the tourism industry. He notes the reaction of the Mayas to the motion picture "Apocalypto" and the development of motion pictures focusing on the Yucatan region such as "Yucatan" and "Journey to Tulum."

El artículo enfoca en el uso y significado actual de los cenotes en la península de Yucatán, México. Cita la importancia de los cenotes en tiempos prehispánicos y coloniales como fuentes de agua y como sitios cultuales, menciona la veneración de los cenotes por parte de los campesinos mayas y comenta sobre el valor de los mismos para el turismo de la región.

El artículo enfoca en el sitio arqueológico de Dzibilchaltún--que rodea el cenote Xlacah--en la parte norte de Yucatán, México. Cita los trabajos arqueológicos en el sitio, relata su historia de ocupación prehispánica y colonial y comenta sobre su relación con el cenote desde la ocupación maya hasta los tiempos actuales.

El artículo enfoca en las investigaciones arqueológicas en el Cenote Sagrado, ubicado en el sitio arqueológico de Chichén Itzá, en Yucatán, Mexico. Considera las investigaciones en los períodos 1882-1909 y 1961-1968, indica los recursos técnicos utilizados para obtener las piezas del fondo del cenote y comenta sobre los objetos recuperados y la confirmación de las prácticas rituales y sacrificiales relacionadas con el cenote.

El artículo enfoca en la relación entre los asentamientos humanos y los pozos naturales (cenotes) en la zona norte de la península de Yucatán, México. Indica la distribución de los cenotes en la región, y describe su relación con los vestigios de habitación humana prehispánica en lugares como Dzibilchaltún, Chichén Itzá e Izamal. También considera la densidad poblacional de la región en el Período Clásico Maya y la distribución poblacional moderna.

El artículo enfoca en la investigación arqueológica de cenotes y cuevas inundadas en la península de Yucatán, México. Cita varias creencias mayas sobre la muerte el inframundo y los cuerpos de agua subterráneos y explora el uso de los cenotes como sitios funerarios. Describe algunos de los hallazgos arqueológicos como vasijas rituales, depósitos mortuorios y esqueletos humanos.

El artículo describe las excavaciones arqueológicas en la península de Yucatán, México que presentan nueva información acerca de la civilización maya. Según los autores, los proyectos arqueológicos han cambiado el conocimiento de las zonas geográficas ocupadas por los mayas. También comentan sobre el estilo arquitectónico en los sitios arqueológicos de Chenes, Río Bec y Puuc, el cual muestra un nivel de autonomía entre las varias regiones mayas.

The article investigates the changing ethics and aesthetic discourses associated with the concept of chicle gum from the beliefs of Mayan territories in the Yucatàn peninsula. Evidently, the gum has been considered by the Mayan and Aztec territories as a symbol of sinfulness. The author also contends that the expropriation of Mayan territories in the Yucatàn peninsula and the commercialization of the gum can be seen as part of the long process of cultural appropriation.

This work analyses the rationality serving as a guide for the relationships both between Maya society at lowlands (Yucatan Peninsula) and nature, and among men. This analytic perspective derives from an ecological and cultural approach. This approach begins with the study of the means used by men to assure the spatial and temporary reproduction of society, as well as effects of their actions on nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deals with essays about the ethnicity of the Mayan population in the Yucatan Peninsula. Contention of author Matthew Restall on the ethnic identity of pre-colonial and colonial Mayas; Analysis of the term Maya by author Wolfgang Gabbert; Approach used by author Paul K. Eiss in studying Mayas.

The article analyzes the phenomenon of tourism within the current globalizing and postmodern contexts. It is based on the cultural relationship between Chan Kom, a Maya community in the Yucatán Peninsula, and Cancún, the international tourist emporium. The tourist culture of Cancún embeds rules of production and consumption radically different from those encapsulated in the milpa or cornfield ideology that Maya experience in their communities. The study presents a dialogue between Chan Kom's social fragmentation due to out-migration to Cancún and the Mayanization of the socioeconomic and cultural landscape of the international Cancún. The goal is to discover the kaleidoscopic representations of Cancún as a tourist market product through the prism of the Maya ideological and socioeconomic presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. Chunchucmil, on the Yucatán Peninsula, was densely populated in the Maya Late Classic period (ca. A.D. 550—830), even though it depends principally on groundwater. In the 1990s, hydrologic investigations were conducted to determine whether groundwater could have met domestic and agricultural needs. The region's groundwater is near the surface and is influenced by sea-level fluctuations; however, geochemical analysis revealed that groundwater quality is not affected by mixing with seawater. The potential exists for high and spatially extensive nitrate contamination in this karstic area, yet water-quality analyses revealed only moderate levels of nitrate in the groundwater. Agricultural limitations are imposed by chloride, total dissolved solids, and salinity, as indicated by electrical conductivity; domestic water use is limited by the presence of nitrate, sulfate, and chloride. Throughflow in the ring of cenotes (sinkholes) around the Chicxulub impact crater may explain the movement and spatial distribution of water-quality constituents in Chunchucmil's groundwater. Keywords: geoarchaeology, groundwater quality, Maya, water use, Yucatán Peninsula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manipulation of wetlands for agricultural purposes by the ancient Maya of southern Mexico and Central America has been a subject of much research and debate since the 1970s. Evidence for wetland cultivation systems, in the form of drained or channelized fields, and raised planting platforms, has been restricted primarily to the southern Maya Lowlands. New research in the Yalahau region of Quintana Roo, Mexico, has recorded evidence for wetland manipulation in the far northern lowlands, in the form of rock alignments that apparently functioned to control water movement and soil accumulation in seasonally inundated areas. Nearby ancient settlements date primarily to the Late Preclassic period (ca. 100 B.C. to A.C. 350), and this age is tentatively attributed to wetland management in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the role of the Maya elites in nineteenth-century Yucatan. Continuation of the role as broker and tax collector into the early national period; Destabilization of the rural tax structure; Commercialization of land usage; Undermining of loyalty to the elites.

Examines the fragmentation and commodification of Maya cultural identity in relation to changing patterns of media consumption in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and State of Quintan Roo. Political economy of radio and television; Discourse of modernization; Media indicators for four Mayan communities; Advertising; `Rancheras' and `telenovelas' as key cultural practices.

Se presenta una introducción a una sección de este número de la revista que presenta información sobre los gobernantes del período Clásico maya. Se comenta sobre el uso de textos glíficos en piedra y cerámica para conocer datos de relaciones de parentezco y fechas de nacimiento, entronización y muerte de los gobernantes mayas.

Se introduce una serie de artículos en los que se considera el uso histórico y el significado religioso de los pozos naturales denominados "cenotes," que se encuentran en la zona maya de la península de Yucatán, México. Se menciona su uso como fuente de agua, se comenta sobre los diversos objetos artísticos y que se han encontrado allí y se menciona su incidencia en el desarrollo de la cultura maya prehispánica de la región.

Se presentan cartas al editor, así como respuestas a cada carta, sobre varios artículos en números anteriores, incluyendo "Los mayas en la península de Yucatán. Viejas ideas, nuevas ideas" de Enrique Nalda y Adriana Velázquez y "La visión cristiana del sacrificio humano" en número 63 de Marialba Pastor. También hay una carta preguntando sobre el significado de la palabra mexica.