Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T13:32:09.511Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

FACELESS HIERARCHY AT NIXTUN-CH'ICH’, PETEN, GUATEMALA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2019

Timothy W. Pugh Open the ORCID record for Timothy W. Pugh [Opens in a new window] ,
Evelyn M. Chan Nieto  and
Gabriela W. Zygadło
Timothy W. Pugh*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Queens College, Flushing, New York11367
Evelyn M. Chan Nieto
Affiliation:
Proyecto Itza
Gabriela W. Zygadło
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Queens College, Flushing, New York11367
*
E-mail correspondence to: Timothy.Pugh@qc.cuny.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Societies vary in how they approach the challenges of increased population, inequality, and occupational specialization. The city of Nixtun-Ch'ich’ and its satellite, T'up, in Peten, Guatemala exhibit orthogonal urban grids—a trait absent from all other known Maya cities. Such grids require extensive planning and the ability to mobilize the population. The present data suggests that Nixtun-Ch'ich’ was substantially larger than any of the surrounding settlements and was, therefore, a primate center during the Middle Preclassic period. The extensive urban planning of the site, as well as that of T'up suggests centralized planning. Yet, we have not encountered evidence of a central ruler propagated as a unifying symbol of the polity. The gridded public streets and lack of a rulership cult suggest that Nixtun-Ch'ich’ had a more collaborative social system.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , Fall 2020 , pp. 248 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aimers, James J., and Rice, Prudence M. 2006 Astronomy, Ritual, and the Interpretation of Maya “E-group” Architectural Assemblages. Ancient Mesoamerica 17:79–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bettencourt, Luís M.A. 2013 The Origins of Scaling in Cities. Science 340:1438–1441.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blanton, Richard E. 1976 Anthropological Studies of Cities. Annual Review of Anthropology 5:249–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanton, Richard E. 1998 Beyond Centralization: Steps Toward a Theory of Egalitarian Behavior in Archaic States. In Archaic States, edited by Feinman, Gary M. and Marcus, Joyce, pp. 135–172. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Blanton, Richard E., and Fargher, Lane F. 2011 The Collective Logic of Pre-Modern Cities. World Archaeology 43:505–522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blom, Frans 1924 Report on the Preliminary Work at Uaxactun, Guatemala. Carnegie Institution of Washington Yearbook 23:217–219.Google Scholar
Booth, Norman 2012 Foundations of Landscape Architecture: Integrating Form and Space Using the Language of Site Design. Wiley, Hoboken.Google Scholar
Brown, M. Kathryn, Jennifer Cochran, Leah McCurdy, and Mixter, David 2011 Preceramic to Postclassic: A Brief Synthesis of the Occupational History of Group E, Xunantunich. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 8:209–219.Google Scholar
Castellanos, Jeanette E., and Foias, Antonia E. 2017 The Earliest Maya Farmers of Peten: New Evidence from Buenavista-Nuevo San José, Central Peten Lakes Region, Guatemala. Journal of Anthropology. doi: 10.1155/2017/8109137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chase, Arlen F. 1983 A Contextual Consideration of the Tayasal-Paxcaman Zone, El Peten, Guatemala. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Clark, John E. 2016 Western Kingdoms of the Middle Preclassic. In The Origins of Maya States, edited by Traxler, Loa and Sharer, Robert J., pp. 123–224. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Clark, John E., and Colman, Arlene 2014 Olmec Things and Identity: A Reassessment of Offerings and Burials at La Venta, Tabasco. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 23:14–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cyphers, Anne 1999 From Stone to Symbols: Olmec Art in Social Context at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán. In Social Patterns in Pre-Classic Mesoamerica, edited by Grove, David C. and Joyce, Rosemary A., pp. 155–181. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Dietler, Michael 2001 Theorizing the Feast: Rituals of Consumption, Commensal Politics, and Power in African Contexts. In Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics, and Power, edited by Dietler, Michael and Hayden, Brian, pp. 65–114. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, and London.Google Scholar
Dietler, Michael, and Herbich, Ingrid 2001 Feasts and Labor Mobilization: Dissecting a Fundamental Economic Practice. In Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics, and Power, edited by Dietler, Michael and Hayden, Brian, pp. 240–264. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, and London.Google Scholar
Doyle, James A. 2012 Regroup on “E-Groups”: Monumentality and Early Centers in the Middle Preclassic Maya Lowlands. Latin American Antiquity 23:355–379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drennan, Robert D. 1988 Household Location and Compact Versus Dispersed Settlement in Prehispanic Mesoamerica. In Household and Community in the Mesoamerican Past, edited by Wilk, Richard R., pp. 273–293. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Estrada-Belli, Francisco 2011 The First Maya Civilization: Ritual and Power Before the Classic Period. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Estrada-Belli, Francisco 2016 Regional and Interregional Interactions and the Preclassic Maya. In The Origins of Maya States, edited by Traxler, Loa P. and Sharer, Robert J., p. 225–270. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Feinman, Gary M., and Carballo, David M. 2018 Collaborative and Competitive Strategies in the Variability and Resiliency of Large-Scale Societies in Mesoamerica. Economic Anthropology 5:7–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feinman, Gary M., and Nicholas, Linda M. 2012 Compact Versus Dispersed Settlement in Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica: The Role of Neighborhood Organization and Collective Action. In The Neighborhood as a Social and Spatial Unit in Mesoamerican Cities, edited by Charlotte Arnauld, M., Manzanilla, Linda R., and Smith, Michael E., pp. 132–155. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Flannery, Kent V. 1998 The Ground Plans of Archaic States. In Archaic States, edited by Feinman, Gary and Marcus, Joyce, pp. 15–57. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel 1991 Governmentality. In The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, edited by Burchell, Graham, Gordon, Colin, and Miller, Peter, pp. 87–104. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Freidel, David A., and Schele, Linda 1988 Kingship in the Late Preclassic Maya Lowlands: The Instruments and Places of Ritual Power. American Anthropologist 90:547–567.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freidel, David A., Chase, Arlen F., Dowd, Anne S., and Murdock, Jerry (editors) 2017 Maya E Groups: Calendars, Astronomy, and Urbanism in the Early Lowlands. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gámez, Laura L. 2007 Salvamento arqueológico en el área central de Petén: Nuevos resultados sobre la conformación y evolución del asentamiento prehispánico en la Isla de Flores. In XX Simposio de investigaciones arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2006, edited by Laporte, Juan P., Arroyo, Barbara, and Mejía, Hector, pp. 258–273. Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, Guatemala City.Google Scholar
Graham, Elizabeth 1999 Stone Cities, Green Cities. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 9:185–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, Richard D. 1998 Continuity and Disjunction: The Pre-Classic Antecedents of Classic Maya Architecture. In Function and Meaning in Classic Maya Architecture, edited by Houston, Stephen, pp. 49–122. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Hansen, Richard D. 2016 Cultural and Environmental Components of the First Maya States: A Perspective from the Central and Southern Maya Lowlands. In The Origins of Maya States, edited by Traxler, Loa P. and Sharer, Robert J., pp. 329–416. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Inomata, Takeshi, Triadan, Daniela, Liendo Stuardo, Rodrigo, Castillo, Keiko Teranishi, Méndez Bauer, María Belén, and Vázquez López, Verónica Amellali 2018 Los sitios preclásicos en la región del usumacinta medio. Paper presented at the IX Mesa Redonda de Palenque, Palenque .Google Scholar
Inomata, Takeshi, MacLellan, Jessica, Triadan, Daniela, Munson, Jessica, Burham, Melissa, Aoyama, Kazuo, Nasu, Hiroo, Pinzóne, Flory, and Yonenobu, Hitoshi 2015 Development of Sedentary Communities in the Maya Lowlands: Coexisting Mobile Groups and Public Ceremonies at Ceibal, Guatemala. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112:4268–4273.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Isendahl, Christian, and Smith, Michael E. 2013 Sustainable Agrarian Urbanism: The Low-Density Cities of the Mayas and Aztecs. Cities 31:132–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jennings, Justin, and Earle, Timothy 2016 Urbanization, State Formations, and Cooperation: A Reappraisal. Current Anthropology 57:474–493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, Jonathan, and Umaña, Federico Paredes 2018 Water, Cacao, and the Early Maya of Chocolá. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Kostof, Spiro 1991 The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings through History. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Kowalewski, Stephen A. 1990 The Evolution of Complexity in the Valley of Oaxaca. Annual Review of Anthropology 19:39–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kruk, Sergei 2008 Semiotics of Visual Iconicity in Leninist ‘Monumental’ Propaganda. Visual Communication 7:27–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levene, Mark 2000 The Limits of Tolerance: Nation-State Building and What It Means for Minority Groups. Patterns of Prejudice 34:19–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Love, Michael 2016 Early States in the Southern Maya Region. In The Origins of Maya States, edited by Traxler, Loa and Sharer, Robert J., pp. 271–327. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Low, Setha M., and Altman, Irwin 1992 Place Attachment: A Conceptual Inquiry. In Place Attachment, edited by Altman, Irwin and Low, Setha M., pp. 1–12. Plenum Press, New York.Google Scholar
Marcus, Joyce 1973 Territorial Organization of the Lowland Classic Maya. Science 180:911–916.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marcus, Joyce, and Feinman, Gary M. 1998 Introduction. In Archaic States, edited by Feinman, Gary and Marcus, Joyce, pp. 3–13. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Martin, Simon 2016 Ideology and the Early Maya Polity. In The Origins of Maya States, edited by Traxler, Loa and Sharer, Robert J., pp. 507–544. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Martin, Simon, and Grube, Nikolai 2008 Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens: Deciphering the Dynasties of the Ancient Maya. Thames and Hudson, New York.Google Scholar
Martínez, Gerson O., and Laporte, Juan P. 2008 Programa de sondeo en la zona asociada a la aldea La Cobanerita y Laguna Sacpuy, en los municipios de San Benito y San Andrés, Petén. In Reporte 22, atlas arqueológico de Guatemala, edited by Laporte, Juan P., pp. 186–243. Dirección General del Patrimonio Cultural y Natural, Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes, Guatemala City.Google Scholar
Martínez, Gerson O., and Laporte, Juan P. 2010 Laguna Sacpuy en el centro de Petén y su asentamiento arqueológico. In XXIII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2009, edited by Arroyo, Barbara, Linares, Adriana and Paiz, Lorena, pp. 441–457. Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, Guatemala City.Google Scholar
Moriarty, Matthew D. 2012 History, Politics, and Ceramics: The Ceramic Sequence of Trinidad de Nosotros, El Petén, Guatemala. In Motul de San José: Politics, History, and Economy in a Classic Maya Polity, edited by Foias, Antonia E. and Emery, Kitty E., pp. 194–228. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pugh, Timothy W. 2018 From the Streets: Public and Private Space in an Early Maya City. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. doi: 10.1007/s10816-018-9404-0.Google Scholar
Pugh, Timothy W., and Rice, Prudence M. 2009 Zacpetén and the Kowoj: Field Methods and Chronologies. In The Kowoj: Identity, Migration, and Politics in Late Postclassic Petén, Guatemala, edited by Rice, Prudence M. and Rice, Don S., pp. 85–122. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Pugh, Timothy W., and Rice, Prudence M. 2017 Early Urban Planning, Spatial Strategies, and the Maya Gridded City of Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Petén, Guatemala. Current Anthropology 58:576–603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pugh, Timothy W., Sánchez, José Rómulo, and Shiratori, Yuko 2012 Contact and Missionization at Tayasal, Petén, Guatemala. Journal of Field Archaeology 37:3–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pugh, Timothy W., Miller, Katherine, Freiwald, Carolyn, and Rice, Prudence 2016a Technologies of Domination at Mission San Bernabé, Petén, Guatemala. Ancient Mesoamerica 27:49–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pugh, Timothy W., Rice, Prudence, Nieto, Evelyn Chan, and Rice, Don 2016b A Chak'an Itza Center at Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala. Journal of Field Archaeology 41:1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reese-Taylor, Kathryn 2017 Founding Landscapes in the Central Karstic Uplands. In Maya E Groups: Calendars, Astronomy, and Urbanism in the Early Lowlands, edited by Freidel, David A., Chase, Arlen F., Dowd, Anne S., and Murdock, Jerry, pp. 480–513. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, Prudence, and Pugh, Timothy W. 2017 Water, Centering, and the Beginning of Time at Middle Preclassic Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 48:1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, Prudence M. 2009 Mound ZZ1, Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Guatemala: Rescue Operations at a Long-Lived Structure in the Maya Lowlands. Journal of Field Archaeology 34:403–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, Prudence M. 2015 Middle Preclassic Interregional Interaction and the Maya Lowlands. Journal of Archaeological Research 23:1–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, Prudence M. 2018 Maya Crocodilians: Intersections of Myth and the Natural World at Early Nixtun-Ch'ich’, Petén, Guatemala. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 25:705–738.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, Prudence M., Pugh, Timothy W., and Nieto, Evelyn Chan 2019 Construction of a Maya Sacred Landscape: The Sector Y “E-Group”, Nixtun-Ch'ich' (Petén, Guatemala). Journal of Field Archaeology 44. doi:10.1080/00934690.2019.1656322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ricketson, Oliver G., and Ricketson, Edith B. 1937 Uaxactun, Guatemala, Group E, 1926–1931. Part 1: The Excavations; Part II: The Artifacts. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication No. 477. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Rodning, Christopher B. 2013 Community Aggregation through Public Architecture. In From Prehistoric Villages to Cities, edited by Birch, Jennifers, pp. 179–200. Routledge, New York.Google Scholar
Rose-Redwood, Reuben S. 2006 Governmentality, the Grid, and the Beginnings of a Critical Spatial History of the Geo-coded World. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.Google Scholar
Rose-Redwood, Reuben S. 2008 Genealogies of the Grid: Revisiting Stanislawski's Search for the Origin of the Grid-Pattern Town. The Geographical Review 98:42–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenswig, Robert M. 2019 The Izapa Kingdom's Capital: Formative Period Settlement Patterns, Population, and Dating Low-Relief Stelae. Latin American Antiquity 30:91–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scarborough, Vernon L. 2003 The Flow of Power: Ancient Water Systems and Landscapes. School of American Research, Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Schläpfer, Markus, Bettencourt, Luís M. A., Grauwin, Sebastian, Raschke, Mathias, Claxton, Rob, Smoreda, Zbigniew, West, Geoffrey B., and Ratti, Carlo 2014 The Scaling of Human Interactions with City Size. Journal of the Royal Society Interface 11. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2013.0789.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scott, James C. 1998 Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Shaw, Justine M. 2001 Maya Sacbeob: Form and Function. Ancient Mesoamerica 12:261–272.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Michael E. 2007 Form and Meaning in the Earliest Cities: A New Approach to Ancient Urban Planning. Journal of Planning History 6:3–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spensley, Ellen 2007 Investigaciones en la Sabana: Chächäklu'um, 2005: Operación 1. In Proyecto Arqueológico Motul de San Jose, informe #7: Temporada de campo 2005–2006, edited by Moriarty, Matthew D., Spensley, Ellen, Castellanos, Jeanette E., and Foias, Antonia E., pp. 219–225. Instituto de Antropología e Historia, Guatemala City.Google Scholar
Tainter, Joseph A. 1988 The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Tokovinine, Alexandre, and Zender, Marc 2012 Lords of Windy Water: The Royal Court of Motul de San Jose in Classic Maya Inscriptions. In Motul de San José: Politics, History, and Economy in a Classic Maya Polity, edited by Foias, Antonia E. and Emery, Kitty F., pp. 30–66. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuan, Yi-Fu 1990 Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Walker, Debra S. 1998 Smashed Pots and Shattered Dreams: The Material Evidence for an Early Classic Maya Site Termination at Cerros, Belize. In The Sowing and the Dawning: Termination, Dedication, and Transformation in the Archaeological and Ethnographic Record of Mesoamerica, edited by Mock, Shirley B., pp. 65–79. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Walker, Jarrett 2011 Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit can Enrich our Communities and Our Lives. Island Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Wolfe, Michael 2009 Urban Design Traditions and Innovations in France, 1200–1600. Histoire and Mesure 24:109–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Henry T., and Johnson, Gregory A. 1975 Population, Exchange, and Early State Formation in Southwestern Iran. American Anthropologist 77:267–289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yoffee, Norman 2005 Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar