Many scholars have thought the Classic period Maya did not cultivate the root crop manioc, while others have suggested it may have been an occasional cultigen in kitchen gardens. For many decades there was no reliable evidence that the ancient Maya cultivated manioc, but in the 1990s manioc pollen from the late Archaic was found in Belize, and somewhat older pollen was found in Tabasco. At about the same time of those discoveries, research within the Ceren village, El Salvador, encountered occasional scattered manioc plants that had grown in mounded ridges in kitchen gardens. These finds adjacent to households indicated manioc was not a staple crop, and vastly inferior to maize and beans in food volume produced. However, 2007 research in an agricultural area 200 m south of the Ceren village encountered intensive formal manioc planting beds. If manioc was widely cultivated in ancient times, its impressive productivity, ease of cultivation even in poor soils, and drought resistance suggest it might have been a staple crop helping to support dense Maya populations in the southeast periphery and elsewhere.

The study of writing has in many cases devoted attention to the detection of forms of writing. It has also tended to distinguish these from forms of non-writing by relying on the western notion that true writing must represent language. This study departs from former work and applies an integrational theory of writing to the notational system of Teotihuacan in central Mexico, observing the distinction between glottographic (language-based) and semasiographic (idea-based) writing. The article suggests that scribes at Teotihuacan employed the graphic space of speech scrolls to differentiate consciously between glottographic and semasiographic writing. The analysis behind the study reveals an important difference, too, between the infixes and affixes of speech scrolls, whereby infixes always represented semasiographic writing; in contrast, affixes could consist of both glottographic and semasiographic writing. An integrational theory of writing that focuses on graphic space as a distinguishing feature of different writing systems can show how scribes of ancient Teotihuacan established and followed subtle distinctions within their notational system, in a manner unknown in western writing.

The unexpected discovery of an elaborate stone coffer with lowland-style carved images and early Maya inscriptions in a cave in the northern Guatemalan highlands has great implications for our understanding of highland-lowland interaction. However, this discovery proved to be only the “tip of the iceberg” in terms of the importance of subterranean evidence in this region. Investigations in caves in central Guatemala over the past decade have been a central part of the regional investigations, often directing subsequent reconnaissance, settlement surveys, and site excavations. Indeed, the early history of the region and the trade route passing through it has largely been reconstructed from evidence in cave shrines along the mountain valley routes from Kaminaljuyu and the Valley of Guatemala to lowland Maya sites. This article reviews this evidence, which also demonstrates how cave assemblages can be used not merely to study ancient ritual, but to examine broad problems in culture history and critical elements in the study of elite power, ceramic production, settlement patterns, interregional trade, and ancient economy.

Today a standard has emerged in the English speaking world for writing the language of the Aztecs. According to this standard the phoneme /w/ is written <hu> in the position before a vowel, nahuatl, ahuacatl, ‘avocado.’ An alternative is to write /w/ with <u> (or <v>), a tradition which in the sixteenth century and onwards was common alongside of <hu>. I demonstrate that <hu> misrepresents the pronunciation of the language then and now, and in uncovering its origin, I suggest that Pedro de Gante was the prime promoter of <hu>.

This paper examines the composite lithic artifacts of the ancient Maya commonly termed “mirrors.” Typically flat, shiny objects with polished iron-ore polygons fitted in a mosaic pattern onto a slate backing, we assess these plaques for the technological, spatiotemporal, and functional contexts of their manufacture. Data from over 500 archaeological specimens, from dozens of Maya sites in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras, were examined as part of this study. We also consider the iconography, epigraphy, and possible symbolism of these curious artifacts. Based on this analysis, we conclude that ancient Maya mosaic mirrors were employed in rituals, often by elite individuals, as both symbols of authority but also, importantly, as possible mystical devices for divinatory “scrying.” They were highly valued, often beautifully made, reflective ceremonial objects whose possible use for prognostication in shamanic rites likely has great antiquity in Mesoamerica.

This article focuses on Structures 12 and 22 from Yaxchilan (Chiapas, Mexico), where the ancient Maya reset stone lintels from the sixth century a.d. in eighth-century buildings. The resetting highlights attention to the preservation of the lintels as relics from the past. Valued for their antiquity and the histories they had accrued, particularly from contact with ancestors, they served as loci for communication with the past, with memory inhering in their materiality. This essay also explores the lintels’ physical contexts and how the Maya may have engaged with them. For example, the arrangement of the Structure 12 lintels would have guided circumambulation. Such movement was associated with sacred processions, and evidence suggests the building was reserved for ancestor veneration. Although only restricted groups could have entered the small structure to perform rites, these may have been integrated into extended ceremonial circuits in public spaces.

This article connects with studies of the life histories of things, in which analysis is directed toward objects’ use, reuse, and modification. Examining how people interacted with sculptures over time offers insight into the people and the objects and provides glimpses into Late Classic Maya perception of sculptures and their material qualities.

In the past decade, a number of prominent scholars have attempted to use astronomical data to place the images on page 27 of the Codex Borgia in “real-time.” This method has yielded some interesting results, but all of these authors have assumed that the Codex Borgia was produced in accordance with the Aztec calendar. Given the probable origin of the Codex Borgia in the area bordering the Mixtec and eastern Nahua cultural areas, this assumption needs to be tested. This article compares weather-related images that have associated dates on Borgia 27–28 with tree-ring data and estimated maize yields from the Puebla area. Our research for this paper seems to confirm the use of the Aztec calendar in the Codex Borgia. By analyzing depictions of weather phenomenon relating to maize production, we also offer a fresh analysis of this well-known document, specifically arguing that a major drought is shown in a 1 Rabbit year, whereas the year 1 Flint is linked with a period of dryness following heavy rains, a condition sometimes linked with locust swarms like those on Borgia 27.

Did Mesoamerican temples really symbolize sacred mountains? If so, what accounts for their varying forms across space and time? Through a socio-historical and iconographic approach, it is now becoming possible to explain the social and historical factors for why design in ancient Maya temples varied. Using these methods, this paper reconstructs and reinterprets one famous “sacred mountain” in the Maya region: Temple 22, at Copan, Honduras, dedicated by king Waxaklajuun Ub'aah K'awiil in a.d. 715. Since 1998, the author has led a project to conserve, document, analyze, and hypothetically reconstruct thousands of sculptures from the building's collapsed façades. In design and symbolism, the building probably represented not just a mountain, but the Maya universe. In its more specific historical context, Temple 22 was designed as royal rhetoric to affirm order at a disorderly moment, and used both traditional and innovative forms to assert Copan's leading role on the boundary of the Maya world.

This article explores how the 260-day divinatory calendar changed over the course of Mesoamerican history. I begin with a description of the day-count in an ethnographic context, twentieth-century highland Guatemala. I then examine the day-count as recorded in sixteenth-century historical documents from central Mexico. Ceramic motifs on Early-Middle Postclassic period pottery from Xaltocan, Mexico, guide an examination of the day-count in the eleventh through sixteenth centuries. This study concludes that despite its reputation as an exclusively elite institution, the tonalpohualli has served commoner purposes for at least a millennium. Commoners were more knowledgeable and more active agents regarding cosmology than most Mesoamericanists have previously believed. This study concludes that comparative historical analysis, that is, the systematic search for differences, as well as similarities, in the ethnographic, ethnohistorical, and archaeological records, enhances the contributions of ethnography and ethnohistory to Mesoamerican archaeology.

This paper examines how maize and blood were central elements in ancient Zapotec religious practices and how they were conceptually linked. I analyze the iconography of different types of Classic period Zapotec ceramic effigy vessels. Using a comparative approach, I identify elements that frequently appear on the urns, such as maize plants in different stages of growth, or representations of the milpa. Framing these observations with early colonial historical accounts and ethnographic studies, I suggest that the main theme involved in these ancient representations was fertility, maintained by a sacred pact forged between humans and their deities that required sacrifice through bloodletting. The drawing and offering of blood insured a cycle of sustained and abundant growth for their most important crop: maize. Though many advances have been made in recent years regarding Zapotec iconography, I will offer some new interpretations regarding specific forms represented on the urns.

Traditionally, research on the Preclassic Maya has focused on settlements found in the Southern Maya Lowlands. Apart from work at a few well-known archaeological sites in the Northern Lowlands, such as Komchen, Dzibilchaltun, and Yaxuna, the Preclassic Northern Maya had received relatively little attention from scholars. In recent years, however, many previously unreported archaeological sites with Preclassic materials have come to light. In northwest Yucatan, Mexico, a survey carried out by Proyecto Costa Maya encountered 140 sites with Preclassic components, including the site of Xtobo. Xtobo stood out from its neighboring Preclassic sites due to its extent and the size and complexity of its architecture. In addition, initial surveys of the site suggested that it was never reoccupied after the Preclassic period, thereby making it a valuable site for studying the Preclassic period in the Northern Maya Lowlands. After three seasons of fieldwork, the Proyecto Arqueologico de Xtobo was able to build substantially on the initial findings of the Proyecto Costa Maya, mapping 67 ha of settlement, including 387 structures, and carrying out a stratified sample of test pit excavations throughout the site. The project documented a dense and well-organized settlement, which included complex architectural features, such as pyramids, triadic groups, elite residences, and a ballcourt. The settlement at Xtobo shows many signs of a complex sociopolitical organization and interaction with other areas of the Maya region and Mesoamerica. The results of the Proyecto Arqueologico de Xtobo indicate that the Northern Maya Lowlands were an important and integral part of Preclassic Mesoamerica and should be considered in larger cultural reconstructions of the time period.

Excavations at the site of Río Viejo in coastal Oaxaca, Mexico, yielded evidence of intensive cotton thread production during the Early Postclassic (a.d. 975–1220). Spindle whorls were recovered in relatively large quantities in and around houses at Río Viejo, indicating that thread production was interspersed with other household activities and residents likely produced enough thread for local use and for export. Measurements of coastal spindle whorls show that the Río Viejo thread was unique compared to other coastal and highland sites in Oaxaca and Mesoamerica beyond. I argue that this uniqueness may in part stem from the particular variety of cotton that they were spinning, but also might reflect an interregional demand for their thread. The whorl data are presented in multiple ways to compare to other sites where intensive thread production has been proposed. Here, I discuss the problems inherent in whorl calculations and make a call for more standardized recording, ideally with volumetric density measures. In the final section of the paper, I use mortuary data and other lines of evidence to re-evaluate the ethnohistorically-documented relationship between women and textile production. In coastal Oaxaca, the evidence suggests that thread production was not linked to specific gender identities in a way that is marked archaeologically. Instead, adult members of households in coastal Oaxaca materially emphasized a shared group identity over any specific gender-based identities. The production of thread was a broadly shared household-level practice that involved multiple producers, which both created and reinforced social bonds between residents and provided Early Postclassic residents with secure and comfortable access to highland goods, paving the way for the more developed thread production industry in the Late Postclassic period.

Swidden agriculture in Mesoamerica is commonly associated with the hot and humid lowlands and with small isolated communities. Charcoal-rich sediments discovered in Tlaxcala, however, suggest that it was practiced in the cold highlands in the Formative and Classic periods. The headwaters of the Xilomantla drainage incised a nine-meter deep channel shortly before 200 b.c., in response to increased runoff from slopes degraded by agriculture. It was filled back within a few hundred years with sands and muds containing recurrent laminae of charred plant matter that reflect the annual burning of secondary scrub in fallowed fields. A gully in the La Ladera drainage received high inputs of charcoal from the surroundings of a nearby settlement between ca. a.d. 400 and 900. The farming practices inferred from these deposits have no exact ethnographic analog. They inflicted lasting environmental damage, but were upheld for several centuries despite changes in settlement patterns.

We present a reinterpretation of the unique group of painted glyphs of the Plaza de los Glifos, in the La Ventilla residential area (ca. a.d. 300–450) situated in the ancient central Mexican metropolis of Teotihuacan. Based on a careful review of previous interpretations of the glyphic La Ventilla floor, the writing system, and the possible language(s) of Teotihuacan, we suggest that the majority of the 42 glyphs are not references to toponyms or titles, but are related to disease-causing entities and curing rituals. Crucial to this proposal is the identification of two glyphic representations of a ‘deer-snake,’ a supernatural creature closely tied to diseases and ailments known throughout most of Mesoamerica and beyond, before and after the conquest. We further argue that contemporary and colonial concepts and practices concerning illness and curing offer ways of understanding several other glyphs from La Ventilla and may serve to account for the unusual placement of the signs.

An ongoing debate about Early Formative cultural elaboration in Mesoamerica is based largely on claims about where innovations originated and when different regions influenced each other. One view is that Gulf lowland populations called “Olmec” by archaeologists made a number of key innovations and that their influence on contemporary societies stimulated the rise of Mesoamerican civilization. Another view is that multiple regions participated equally and all made innovations that became the legacy of later Mesoamerican societies. Additional empirical work will help resolve some of the issues raised by this debate, as Cheetham and Blomster (2010) have recently suggested in this journal. Explicit theory can also help move the discussion forward.

Throughout the deep history of Mesoamerica, the dart-thrower (a.k.a. atlatl) played a vital utilitarian and symbolic role. Although it was a highly effective tool exploited for practical purposes such as hunting and warfare, ample evidence exists which reveals its association with themes of authority, power, and prestige. The survival of ornamented dart-throwers, as well as the context in which the implement appears in Mesoamerican material culture and forms of graphic communication, reveal its role in the production and assertion of high social status. This argument will be supported by archaeological and ethnographic evidence which demonstrates that the dart-thrower served as a pan-Mesoamerican symbol of power beginning no later than the Middle to Late Formative period and continuing through the Conquest.

In this paper, we present a diachronic analysis of obsidian procurement patterns during the Postclassic period in the Lower Río Verde region of Oaxaca. The study is based on x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and visual analysis of obsidian artifacts from excavated household contexts at Early Postclassic (a.d. 800–1100) Río Viejo and Late Postclassic (a.d. 1100–1522) Tututepec (Yucu Dzaa). We report the presence of at least six sources of obsidian imported to the lower Río Verde region in the Early Postclassic, whereas during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries of the Late Postclassic, the local assemblage was dominated by obsidian from Pico de Orizaba and Pachuca. Changes in obsidian procurement patterns in the lower Río Verde region through time are interpreted in light of sociopolitical change at the local, regional, and macroregional scales. The study represents the most detailed analysis of Postclassic period obsidian exchange yet reported from Oaxaca.

Archaeologists working in the northern Maya lowlands have faced persistent problems in establishing chronological precision and accuracy. In particular, it has proven difficult to create multi-phase chronologies for the Late and Terminal Classic periods. Investigators at Xkipche, a small Puuc site southwest of Uxmal, have employed both seriation and the typological approach to ceramic chronology. The results of the ceramic seriation suggest great persistence from the second century until a.d. 1100, a continuity that is not supported by the Type-Variety approach to chronology. This report begins by reviewing the ceramic data, and then turns to another archaeological material, obsidian. Procurement patterns and production technology are discussed for the 182 obsidian artifacts collected during the first five seasons of the Projekt Xkipche. These data are compared with similar information gleaned from other sites in the northern Maya lowlands. Results of this obsidian analysis conflict with the absolute chronology proposed for the Xkipche ceramic sequence. Finally, a compromise ceramic chronology is proposed, one that is consistent with both obsidian and architectural data. This proposed chronology divides the seemingly monolithic Cehpech ceramic complex into three phases: Early Cehpech (a.d. 550–700); Late Cehpech (a.d. 700–900/950); and, Terminal Cehpech/Sotuta (a.d. 900/950–950/1000).