Decipherments and interpretations presented by Peter Mathews and Bertold Riese a decade ago led to the identification of numbered-successor titles that list individual rulers according to their numerical position in a historical succession of kings. Work on the inscriptions of Copan has shown that the “counts of successors” there began with a single founding ancestor, who has been identified archaeologically. Since the rulers of other kingdoms calculated their descent from different founding ancestors, the evidence suggests that Maya kingdoms were ruled by lineages or dynasties of males who calculated their descent for a single anchoring ancestor, who was very probably a historical individual. Evidence from Naranjo also suggests that alternative descent lines were calculated from supernatural anchoring ancestors. The metaphorical term for these lineages was “spout-tree-house.” All of the people in the lineage descending from these founders were called “sprouts,” while the ruling patriarch was the ahau of the descent line.

Interpreting the social meaning of polity center architecture opens a window onto the organization and history of the society responsible for its construction. Our research is designed to examine the form, function, and organization of Copan's Acropolis architecture. Through a unique program of tunneling, surface excavation, and architectural recording, more than 400 years of monumental architecture (c. A.D. 400–800) are being documented and analyzed to comprehend the evolution of the Acropolis and its role in the Copan polity. The dramatic erosion cut through the eastern Acropolis edge allows ready access to all major construction levels and presents a rare opportunity for extensive exposure of superimposed architectural plans. Our tunneling excavation methods provide a more complete, less destructive, and more efficient means of such documentation. Exposed architecture is being recorded by a computer-assisted mapping program, its first application to the sequential development of Classic Maya architecture, and its first use in tunnel excavations. As a result, our research is documenting the architectural transformation of the Acropolis during the time of Copan's increasing sociopolitical complexity and is doing so at a level of detail impossible to achieve by most projects using traditional archaeological techniques. The correspondence between architectural data and data sets from epigraphy, iconography, and settlement survey is being evaluated in light of current discussion on the political and economic trajectory of Copan in particular, and in general, the architectural expression of political power and integration in complex societies.

The estimated 600 individuals in the Copan skeletal sample make it one of the largest and most important collections from Precolumbian Mesoamerica. The sample is analyzed using a bioarchaeological approach. An overview of the goals of the osteological study and its progress are presented. As an illustration of the results obtainable from osteological analysis, mortality patterns and the incidence of enamel defects in the deciduous dentition of the children of an elite compound, 9N-8, are discussed. Even at an early stage of analysis, children commonly have evidence of health stress that is relevant to understanding the collapse of the Classic Maya society at Copan.

The study of Copan's extensive hieroglyphic texts has grown hand in hand with long-term architectural excavations. Recent progress in Maya decipherment, much of it derived from work at Copan, now allows for new and potentially rewarding opportunities to integrate epigraphy and “dirt” archaeology. Toward this end, this paper provides an overview of the current knowledge of Copan's elite history, summarizing current knowledge of the ruler sequence and attributions of monuments and architecture to individual reigns. Thematic and stylistic changes are evident in the inscriptions between the Early and Late Classic periods, including a proliferation of subordinate elite texts in the decades leading up to political collapse. Also, new information is provided on the changing relations between Copan and Quirigua throughout the Classic period.

Several projects carried out at Copan since 1975 provide extensive settlement data that form the basis for a simulation of Copan population history between A.D. 400–1250. Most important is a set of 2,048 obsidian hydration dates, associated with 15% of all known sites, that allows unprecedented chronological control of occupational episodes at domestic sites of all social ranks. This article summarizes the results of our simulation, and some of its implications for agricultural intensification, sociopolitical structure, and labor demand for elite construction projects.