The invitation to do this autobiographical article reached me on my seventieth birthday, catching me in an unusually reflective mood, so I decided to take a stab at it. If nothing else, I could honor my mentors, especially James Anderson and René Millon. Without them I might still be doing archaeology but it would be a very different sort of archaeology, probably not as good and certainly not as much fun. But I don't find this kind of writing easy. Social scientists are not used to having “I” as the main subject of a sentence, an analogy perhaps to the difficulty we have in maintaining a balance between our professional and personal lives. However, I seem to have overcome that academic modesty, as this paragraph demonstrates. So here we go.

This article reviews new evidence suggesting that Tikal and its allies controlled trade along the Pasión River during the latter half of the Early Classic period (ca. a.d. 460–550) and the possible impacts this had on geopolitical interaction. Recent data in the Candelaria Caves and other Pasión River sites showed the strong influence of Tikal during this time period that could indicate that they were active agents in interregional trade between the Maya highlands and lowlands. A quantitative reevaluation of the Pennsylvania lithic collection does demonstrate an important change in Tikal's importation of both obsidian and jade during the Early Classic period. Together, the stylistic changes in the locally manufactured ceramics and the drastic increase of lithic raw materials at Tikal strongly suggest that Tikal was directly or indirectly controlling the Chixoy-Pasión trade route at this time. After the defeat of Tikal by Caracol in a.d. 562, it apparently lost this influence, ceasing to be a strong agent in jade and obsidian production and exchange, instead becoming a wealthy consumer.

This paper examines the social context of music and musical instruments in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica through the detailed analysis of a late Terminal Formative period (a.d. 100–250) burial from the site of Yugüe in the lower Río Verde Valley of Oaxaca. The burial contained a sub-adult male interred with an incised bone flute and a plaster-backed iron-ore mirror. The Yugüe flute is the earliest reported bone flute from Mesoamerica and is incised and carved to create the bas relief image of a skeletal male figure. Based on the instrument's archaeological context and elaborate incising, we argue that the flute was categorized in pre-Columbian ontology as an animate object that actively participated in ceremonial action at Yugüe. While the nature of such ceremony remains unclear, the incising on the flute indicates that the instrument was capable of making manifest ancestral and divine forces affiliated with rain, wind, and agricultural fertility.

Despite the recognition by many scholars of the high esthetic value of Jaina-style figurines, they present a number of analytic problems. Their functions remain obscure, and their role in Late Classic period Maya society has not been adequately examined. Throughout southeastern Mesoamerica, with few exceptions, all figurines and fragments are found in domestic contexts, mostly trash heaps; on Jaina, most examples come from graves. This article addresses the question of Jaina exceptionalism. It places its unique features in the broader context of Terminal Classic political and economic developments that were sweeping across the northern Maya Lowlands. Here I argue that the use of figurines in domestic rituals determined their appropriateness for placement in a particular grave, rather than the age, sex, or occupation of the deceased.

The pages of the Mixtec screenfolds are painted with hundreds of place signs. Only a handful have been linked to specific locations on the ground. In this essay, I propose identifications for seven place signs which appear on pages 4 to 1 of the Codex Vienna and page 3 of the Codex Nuttall. I draw on five types of sources: testimonies from the 1544–1547 Yanhuitlan idolatry investigation, the pictorial records of the Mixtec screenfolds themselves, the findings from a FAMSI-funded study of colonial and independence-era land records, previous archaeological surveys, and on-the-ground reconnaissance. By considering the sequential relations of place signs painted in the Mixtec screenfolds, the spatial connections of geographic features visible today (features whose names and recent history are recorded in archival land records), and the sacred connections revealed by the actions of nobles and religious specialists in the Yanhuitlan idolatry investigation, strong proposals for the identification of particular place signs can be made. In turn, these identifications have broader implications for understanding colonial transformations of space. Over the course of the sixteenth century, sprawling pre-Hispanic polities were atomized. The land documents their leaders then created mapped out visions of political space that were far more circumscribed than those we see in pre-Hispanic books, and indeed in alphabetic documents—such as the Yanhuitlan idolatry investigation—that date to the first half of the sixteenth century. This suggests that different types of research methods are needed for studying landscape representations created before and after the middle of the sixteenth century.

Ethnohistoric documents have been used to define the eastern limits of the Aztec empire in the Mesoamerican southern Gulf lowlands with contradictory results. Until the research presented here, complementary archaeological evidence for Aztec imperial interactions has largely evaded detection in this region. In this paper, I review the documentary data for Aztec expansion and interactions near its eastern frontier and present the most robust archaeological evidence discovered to date that supports this imperial presence in the southern Gulf lowlands. A new model for imperial-local interaction is also introduced.

The Nahua-speaking area of Postclassic central Mexico was composed of many city-states, which consisted of a nucleated and urbanized central area where the major political and economic centers were located, and a predominantly rural area where most of the people lived. This outlying area and its small communities had to be governed, and this paper identifies, from ethnohistorical sources, the most likely tasks of local government and the local officials responsible for carrying them out. Special attention is given to the role of the local nobility, where present, and of their equivalent, when not; to overseers of labor, and to leaders of the all-important labor squads which built and maintained the urban centers. The custodians of wealth and those most likely to have been military or ritual leaders are identified.

Faunal analysis of subsistence remains from four sites in the Etzatlan Basin in western central Mexico presents important contrasts between pre-Hispanic and colonial dietary patterns. Specific changes in animal remains are well correlated with the transition from pre-Hispanic to colonial occupations tracked along a statistically derived timeline in which ceramic evidence for the onset of colonization is found. Allometry is used to calculate faunal biomass, and abundance and diversity indices are used to define these dietary patterns relative to the timeline. There is a decrease in use of large mammals over time and an increased use of smaller mammals, birds, and reptiles/amphibians. In particular, a marked increase in exploitation of the most important native large mammal (for example, deer) is found during early colonial occupation. However, this bounty decreased appreciably during later periods, consistent with widening of dietary breadth by inclusion of less preferred resources.

New evidence is presented in support of the hypothesis that Proto-Uto-Aztecan (PUA) was spoken by a community of cultivators in the northwest quadrant of Mesoamerica. New cognates are presented in support of reconstructions of meanings of PUA words within the maize-cultivation domain. It is argued that some of this vocabulary was borrowed from an Otomanguean language, perhaps Proto-Oto-Chinantecan. In addition, it is argued that PUA included a vocabulary in the domain of pottery. New reconstructions of a pottery lexicon are proposed, and arguments that this vocabulary was borrowed from an Otomanguean language are presented. If PUA speakers were familiar with pottery, then PUA was spoken as late as 4400–4100 b.p. and did not begin to break up into its daughter languages until after knowledge of pottery reached its speakers.

The Yalahau Regional Settlement Pattern Survey (YRSPS) addresses the complex negotiations that constituted ancient Maya society through an investigation of the distribution of settlement across the Yalahau region of northern Quintana Roo, Mexico. This paper begins with a brief culture-historical background of the Yalahau region where occupation ranges from the Middle Preclassic period (700–200 b.c.) to the Postclassic period (a.d. 1100–1521). The region had its peak occupation during the Terminal Preclassic period (75 b.c./a.d. 100–a.d. 400), and this paper explores how monumental architecture, through its size and the rituals conducted in and around it, materialized an enduring sense of community identity during this time period. In so doing, this paper examines the tensions within and between communities as sociopolitical strategies are negotiated and contested in the continually messy process of constituting society.

This paper examines the materiality—or the mutually constitutive relationships between people and things—of Aztec rattle figurines in order to shed light on household ritual life in Postclassic central Mexico. By examining iconographic, archaeological, and ethnohistoric evidence, I argue that these figurines were actively used in household healing rituals concerning successful biological and social reproduction, comprised of the work, relationships, and attitudes that perpetuate human life. I then consider the physical experience of that ritual use by exploring the visual, tactile, auditory, and physiological aspects of these figurines. I contend that their visibility in workshops, markets, and the home presented an image of the female body that reinforced women's important roles in the production and reproduction of the household and society. Finally, the material qualities of these figurines reveal ancient discourses on the human body and experimentation with bodily representation in terms of scale, form, and material.

Aguadas, either natural or human-made ponds, were significant sources of water for the ancient Maya. Aguadas are common features in the Maya Lowlands and make valuable locations for collecting archaeological and paleoenvironmental data. This article discusses research conducted at four aguadas around two adjacent Maya sites, San Bartolo and Xultun in Peten, Guatemala. Both San Bartolo and Xultun were established during the Preclassic period. However, the fates of the two sites differed, as Xultun continued to prosper while the city of San Bartolo was abandoned near the close of the Late Preclassic period. We argue that aguadas provide important clues for understanding the fate of these two ancient communities and many others in the Maya Lowlands.

This paper applies structuration theory and semiotics to interpret the results of a recently completed total coverage pedestrian survey to the east of Yaxuna, Yucatan. Data from this survey suggest that a social group centered at the site of Tzacauil vied for political clout in the Late Preclassic period through the construction of a triadic acropolis 3 km from Yaxuna. This group also initiated but did not complete a new experimental construction: a long-distance causeway between the two sites. A central facet of structuration is the instability of social practice. Rules can be altered when transposed to new contexts, while durable resources, such as causeways and acropolis groups, do not ensure the solidity of the coalitions they are meant to represent. Despite an outlay of labor never again seen to the east of Yaxuna, Tzacauil had a rather short occupation. Though they never completed the causeway, the people of Tzacauil did succeed in transforming the conventional understanding of causeways. These events support a semiotic approach since they show that materiality is contingent: it has a potential that people may or may not work to realize.

In this paper we illustrate the distinctive settlement patterns of the city of Chunchucmil during its largest occupation in the middle of the Classic period (a.d. 400–650). The unusually dense urban settlement showcased a network of boundary walls and chichbes surrounding residential groups and narrow streets winding between the tightly bounded houselots. Using a sample of 392 completely and unambiguously bounded houselots, we review the basic characteristics, the structural composition, and variability of late Early Classic and early Late Classic residential groups. Then, we explore how these city dwellers may have experienced their urban environment. Our focus is on understanding how the material aspects of the socially constructed space affected people's practices and how this materiality helped create and define specific household identities as well as extra-household social bonds.

Classic hieroglyphic texts do not describe Maya political organization, nor do colonial documents, forcing archaeologists to look elsewhere for clues. I propose that continuities in calendrically-based geopolitical rhetoric are recognizable in imagery and literary devices that can be traced from Preclassic/Formative times into the Colonial period. Imagery revolves around God K, k'awiil, and manikin scepters. The Classic manikin scepter materializes God K/K'awiil as a symbol of legitimate rulership, particularly at accession; the Postclassic analogue in the Dresden and Paris Codices is a God K effigy head, God K also symbolizing k'atuns. Related literary devices are kennings, specifically the took'-pakal or “flint-and-shield,” which appear in Classic texts and in the Chilam B'alam books in the context of defeat in warfare, the latter particularly referring to k'atun wars. Interrelated concepts, including obsidian, mirrors, serpents, and one-legged deities in the Popol Vuh and in Mexico (Tezcatlipoca), amplify these proposed continuities.

As a complement to life histories authored by many researchers of Maya bones, this study narrates death histories. The latter entails detection of perimortem and postmortem changes to decedents' bodies, followed by translation of these changes' encoded meanings. Biographical analysis of body parts and the buildings in which they are situated facilitates such an endeavor. Past investigations of partibility have focused on protracted processing of noble and royal bodies as a means to reconstitute decedents' identities. Commoners' burials, however, have received far less attention. Consequently, it is difficult to determine if partible practices differ according to or transcend social class. To address this lacuna, a multiscalar frame is applied to a burial sample comprised of decedents from varied social settings in the Three Rivers region, northwestern Belize. Identification of widely shared practices related to the becoming and venerating of ancestors offers a springboard for examining particulars within patterns. Scaling down, commoner burials unearthed at the minor center RB-11 are summarized and special attention is paid to the death history of Individual 71. This decedent's intentionally fragmented body reflects general thinking about ancestors as partible and dividual persons. Yet, certain attributes of Individual 71's burial are unique to the sample as a whole, which demonstrates how social class, circumstance, and individual life history are also instrumental in the reformation of ancestorhood.

While changing views of the sociopolitical history of the northern Maya lowlands now recognize that Chichen Itza's emergence as a major polity on an unprecedented scale occurred during the Terminal Classic period, rather than the Early Postclassic period, the ramifications of significant chronological overlap between Chichen Itza's rise and the demise of neighboring polities have been largely unexplored. The ancient Maya center of Xuenkal, located in the Cupul region about 45 km northeast of Chichen Itza, is one of the few known interior sites to contain substantial (and discrete) Cehpech and Sotuta occupations. The Proyecto Arqueológico Xuenkal (PAX) was initiated in 2004 to elucidate Chichen Itza's role in the history of the Cupul region and what role local Xuenkal elites may have played in negotiating regional political dynamics. As with many surrounding centers, it appears that Xuenkal's occupational history reached its zenith with the Late Classic–Terminal Classic Cehpech ceramic sphere. However, unlike neighboring sites associated with Cehpech, such as Ek' Balam or Yaxuna, Xuenkal also contained a substantial Sotuta settlement concentrated within the site core during the Terminal Classic period. These populations adapted into an evolving regional economy by dramatically increasing household production as compared to Late Classic groups. While Sotuta households were tightly integrated into Chichen Itza's regional economy, evidence for their direct state control is not readily apparent. We suggest that the relationship between Chichen Itza and regional communities was more dynamic than current models contend, and that Chichen Itza's political machinations across the peninsula must be considered in local contexts that varied across households, communities, and regions.

A single right fifth metatarsal found in Tomb 1 at Peligroso, Belize exhibited a small deformity in the form of a small (7 mm) accessory digit emanating from the plantar surface at mid-shaft. This Type A postaxial polydactyly is the first archaeological example of polydactyly reported for Mesoamerica. Polydactyly is one of the more commonly reported morphological anomalies and thus its appearance in Maya populations would have been prevalent enough to demand explanation. A review of related terminology in pertinent Amerindian languages is presented as a means of exploring the manners in which digits and the human body are conceptualized. Maya iconographic representations of polydactyly at Palenque have parallels to other Mesoamerican renderings of supernumerary digits used to identify divinities and deified ancestors. However, the Peligroso mortuary context comprised disarticulated and commingled bones, suggesting that the individual did not have a distinctive social role related to the presence of an extra digit.

The geochemical analysis of soil samples collected in association with archaeological remains has proven to be an effective tool in the identification of past human behaviors. These methodologies are here applied to the study of notable features from the site of Xtobo, Yucatan, Mexico. Xtobo is a Preclassic Maya regional center in northwest Yucatan exhibiting a complex settlement pattern, including a well-defined plaza, multiple raised causeways, and a ballcourt. In addition, the site includes a large defined open area, which was initially thought to be a potential marketplace. The results of the geochemical soil analyses identified several areas of food production and consumption throughout the site, along with potential craft production zones. The results in association with the potential marketplace were intriguing, but inconclusive.