From their beginnings some 4,000 years ago to their decadence around 400 b.c., the Olmec people achieved a high level of sociopolitical complexity and dominated their native geographic territory, the southern Gulf Coast of Mexico. The first Olmec capital of San Lorenzo, Veracruz, was the only site in Mesoamerica that produced imposing monumental stone sculpture and architecture between 1800 and 1000 b.c. These characteristics reflect the capabilities of its centralized political system headed by hereditary rulers with divine legitimation. Key issues regarding the development of San Lorenzo Olmec culture center on subsistence and environment. The present study focuses on a portion of the landscape located immediately north of the first Olmec capital of San Lorenzo, Veracruz, that has been proposed as a key resource area during the development of the first civilization in Mesoamerica. We calculate the surface, volume, and water depth of this area based on archaeological data and a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) derived from an airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) survey. The expected minimum and maximum area, local minimum altitude, and the DTM of 5-m spatial resolution provide a basis for inferences regarding the characteristics of the wetland ecosystem during Olmec times. The goal is to quantify and qualify the potential of this resource zone relying on LiDAR topography. Our models validate the observations in the field and, when combined with algorithms, they confirm the archaeological conclusions. We affirm that the northern plain in Olmec times was deeper than it is today and would have been a source of abundant aquatic resources for the primary subsistence of the early Olmec society.

We present three new analyses of existing data from past fieldwork at Teotihuacan. First, we confirm and refine the wealth-based housing typology of Millon's Teotihuacan Mapping Project (TMP). Second, we analyze the spatial configurations of excavated compounds, using network methods to identify the size and layout of individual dwellings within walled compounds. Third, we use those results to generate the first population estimate for the city based on measurements from the TMP map. We extrapolate the average sizes of dwellings from excavated compounds to the entire sample of mapped residences as depicted on the TMP map of the city. We generate a range of population estimates, of which we suggest that 100,000 persons is the most reasonable estimate for the Xolalpan-Metepec population of Teotihuacan. These analyses show that legacy data from fieldwork long past can be used to answer research questions that are relevant and important today.

Los sonidos producidos por los seres humanos, así como los de su medio, son percibidos y codificados por las personas dependiendo de sus experiencias como parte de un grupo cultural; por esta razón, es esencial incorporarlos como un medio de comunicación entre los grupos sociales. En este trabajo presentamos el estudio arqueoacústico de dos flautas triples mayas. La primera proviene de las excavaciones en el sitio arqueológico de Jaina, y la segunda de un entierro en Copan, Honduras (Nakamura 2004). Ambas emiten una gran variedad sonora, la cual puede dar indicios de esta comunicación, tipo de manufactura y preferencias sonoras para el caso de los mayas prehispánicos. Este estudio es totalmente nuevo para el área maya y tiene una gran relevancia para incluir los sonidos como parte sustancial de la comunicación maya.

El gobierno de K'ihnich Bahlam Chapaht corresponde a uno de los más longevos de todos los gobernantes conocidos de Tonina. Con excepción de su nacimiento y entronización, conocidos por referencias retrospectivas muy reiteradas, es poco lo que se conoce de su vida. Sin embargo, gracias al recientemente restaurado Monumento 181 y al altar identificado como Monumento 182, hemos logrado reconstruir pormenores adicionales de su gobierno. En el presente ensayo, presentamos nuevos datos sobre ritualidad y jerarquía político-religiosa en Tonina durante el reinado de K'ihnich Bahlam Chapaht resultado del análisis de estos dos monumentos.

This work addresses varying interpretations of the production, circulation, and consumption of jades in the Maya area from the Preclassic through the Postclassic periods (600 b.c.–a.d. 1697). Traditionally, exchange of jades has been seen as a dyadic relationship between elites (gifting and tribute). Some have argued for gradations of value in the circulation of jades, which probably circulated in both elite and commoner spheres. More recent research argues that jade blanks were commoditized because they could be standardized. In this article, we evaluate this last claim, concluding there is no evidence for standardization and commodification of jade blanks, and a dearth of jade blanks in archaeological deposits. We critique the expectation that commodities in some nonindustrial economies should be standardized, and make suggestions about what kinds of jade objects, if any, have greatest potential to become commodities in the Maya area.

Excavations at the Late Classic Maya site of Cancuen (Petén Department, Guatemala) uncovered a small-scale hydraulic system including stone-lined canals and reservoirs within the architectural core of the site. The abundance of other nearby potable water sources along with the elaborate form of the system demonstrate that it served an ideological rather than practical function. Artifacts deposited in the reservoirs support this interpretation. Moreover, the reservoir located in front of the site's royal palace contained the remains of at least 30 individuals who may represent members of the royal court massacred during the site's collapse. This paper reports the animal remains found within the site's reservoirs to further explore the nature and extent of ritual and disposal activities within these aquatic contexts. Inter- and intrasite comparisons are used to contextualize the results within broader discussions of how we identify ritual activity in the zooarchaeological record, and the role of water in ancient Maya ideological and political systems.

This study examines 2,000 years of marine trade to the ancient Maya site of Ceibal, Guatemala. Located almost 150 kilometers from the nearest coast in Belize, Ceibal was a large community spanning the Middle Preclassic through early Postclassic periods (1000 b.c.–a.d. 1200). It therefore provides an excellent opportunity to assess the marine resources imported through the southern Maya lowlands over many centuries, offering insight into trade networks, uses of shell ornaments, religious beliefs and rituals, and other activities involving marine species. The study compares marine invertebrate data from Ceibal to a neighboring subordinate community, Caobal, as well as data previously reported from sites in the southern Mesoamerican lowlands, in order to understand regional sociocultural and trade connections over time. The majority of Ceibal's marine taxa are Atlantic species and reflect shell trends observed elsewhere in Guatemala and Belize, suggesting strong ties to trade networks eastward to the coast that lasted many centuries.

Inequality and changing responses to food scarcity may create a stigmatization complex around certain foods. Here, we conduct a literature search to develop a working definition of “famine foods” in the Maya lowlands, centering qualities such as hardiness, productivity, nutrition, preparation, and stigmatization complexes. An analysis of the nutritional characteristics that might make up such a food yields the idea that famine foods are likely members of a time- and place-specific arsenal of plant resources. We compare the results of the literature search to botanical data from a rejollada survey from Xuenkal and a solar (house garden) survey conducted in Yaxunah. Examining the data through the lens of a history of manipulation of food access, shifting relations of power, and modern responses to food insecurity illuminates cultural plasticity and resilience in diet and agricultural strategies in the Maya lowlands. We conceptualize solares and rejolladas as food-related resilience strategies.

In recent years, researchers in pre-Hispanic Central America have used new approaches that greatly amplify and enhance evidence of plants and their uses. This paper presents a case study from Puerto Escondido, located in the lower Ulúa River valley of Caribbean coastal Honduras. We demonstrate the effectiveness of using multiple methods in concert to interpret ethnobotanical practice in the past. By examining chipped-stone tools, ceramics, sediments from artifact contexts, and macrobotanical remains, we advance complementary inquiries. Here, we address botanical practices “in the home,” such as foodways, medicinal practices, fiber crafting, and ritual activities, and those “close to home,” such as agricultural and horticultural practices, forest management, and other engagements with local and distant ecologies. This presents an opportunity to begin to develop an understanding of ethnoecology at Puerto Escondido, here defined as the dynamic relationship between affordances provided in a botanical landscape and the impacts of human activities on that botanical landscape.