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Time tested: re-thinking chronology and sculptural traditions in Preclassic southern Mesoamerica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2016

Takeshi Inomata  and
Lucia Henderson
Takeshi Inomata
Affiliation:
School of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85701-0030, USA (Email: inomata@email.arizona.edu)
Lucia Henderson
Affiliation:
Department of Pre-Columbian Art, Denver Museum of Art, Denver, CO 80204, USA (Email: henders@post.harvard.edu)
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Abstract

Recent reassessment of the sequence at the highland Maya centre of Kaminaljuyu has led to a substantial chronological revision for Preclassic southern Mesoamerica. The new chronology suggests that various centres on the Gulf Coast, in Chiapas and in the Southern Maya Region experienced political disruption or reorganisation at the end of the Middle Preclassic period around 350 BC. It also shifts the initial rise and height of Kaminaljuyu forward 300 years. These shifts dramatically alter our understanding of sculptural developments in the Southern Maya Region, and emphasise the role of inter-regional interaction in the development of Maya civilisation.

Keywords

MesoamericaPreclassic periodMayachronologyiconographysculptureinteraction
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 90 , Issue 350 , April 2016 , pp. 456 - 471
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2016 

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