Some Caribbean archaeologists have assumed that the individuals buried beneath the central plazas of Saladoid sites in Puerto Rico lived in those villages during their lives. They interpret these central place burials as providing immediate access to the ancestors during ceremonies performed in this public space. The central plaza is viewed as the axis mundi, and through ancestor veneration the dead were called upon to intercede with the gods on behalf of the living. However, cross-cultural studies indicate that burial practices often are determined by descent, and those clan members whose postmarital residence was in communities other than their clan villages often were returned to their clan village for burial. It is argued here that central place burials do not reflect ancestor veneration, but rather social solidarity among widely scattered villages.

It has been known for several decades that certain regions of the Maya Lowlands were characterized by specialized production of chert tools in ancient times. The extent, intensity, organization, and net social effects of centralized lithic production in the Maya area as a whole, however, are not well understood. In order to address issues of broader relevance to social and economic processes, lithicists working in the Maya region need to develop analytical approaches suited to the study of complex economies. The research presented here attempts to establish simple baseline measures for use in comparing the production of siliceous stone tools, both formal and expedient, at different scales across the Maya area. Scholarship in this region has been chronically plagued by prolonged, unresolved debates—mostly a factor of the multitude of single-site-focused projects employing different methodologies and research emphases. The present study therefore proposes a new direction in Maya lithic studies with the goal of enhancing comparability of data on ancient economic structure through the use of standardized statistics that facilitate spatial analysis. Using the proportion of early-stage core reduction debris to the total of all debitagefrom a given context, for instance, enables the analyst to roughly assess the amount of tool manufacture taking place locally. By extension, inferences can be made about the degree of economic integration and interdependence characterizing any given geographic scale, including the architectural group, site, region, and so on. Preliminary analysis of patterns in early-stage reduction illustrates differential spatial distributions of chert tool production and consumption at several scales from across the southern Lowlands, allowing for the refinement of current models of ancient Maya lithic economy.

Analyses of pollen and other terrestrial microfossils in sediment profiles from neotropical lakes can complement and extend archaeological studies by documenting the timing of prehistoric human disturbances within watersheds. However, assessing the scale of prehistoric human impact from sedimentary microfossil assemblages alone is often difficult. We explore here the utility of combining stable carbon isotope (δ13C) analyses of lake sediments and isotopie mixing models to improve our ability to gauge the extent of prehistoric human disturbance recorded in sediment profiles. Our test case involves the analysis o f a sediment core from Laguna Bonillita on the central Caribbean slope of Costa Rica that spans approximately the last 2,700 calendar years. Variations in the δ13C values of the Laguna Bonillita sediments suggest that human population growth and environmental impacts in the watershed were at their maximum ~cal yr 300 B.C. This finding is in keeping with archaeological evidence of rapid regional population growth at this time but differs from initial interpretations of the sediment record that were based on pollen and charcoal analyses alone. We believe that the use of stable carbon isotope data from sediment profiles can improve estimates of the scale of prehistoric human impact and in doing so improve the contributions of paleoecological research to archaeology.

Cahal Tok (Place of Flint) is a limestone rise with some structural evidence, associated with the previously designated LDF Chert Site, close to the ceremonial center of El Pilar. Excavations uncovered evidence that during the Late Classic period, specialized flintknappers produced bifaces, primarily chert axes, at the Cahol Tok locus, first on a cleared limestone shelf then on a prepared cobble platform. Small flakes remained in situ whereas much of the larger debris was deposited to the east off the edge of the platform and into the LDF debitage dump. The identification of a specialized manufacturing locale near the ceremonial precinct of a major center is unusual in Maya archaeology. Central control of an important industry may be implied, although knapping could equally well be organized more independently. We expect that small industrial areas are actually present at most large sites, but may often be difficult to recognize.

Over a decade ago Kenneth Hirth (1998, 2000) developed a “distributional approach” for archaeologically inferring the existence of marketplace exchange based on analyses of domestic artifact collections. Domestic collections, he reasoned, will be relatively homogeneous in areas where most or all households rely on marketplace exchange to acquire domestic provisions. The present study evaluates Hirth’s distributional approach using a statistical measure of diversity (heterogeneity) to quantify variability among domestic collection units over a large area. The data for this study come from the Middle Postclassic lower Blanco region of Veracruz (A.D. 1200–A.D. 1350), an unknown context of marketplace exchange. A comparison of diversity scores calculated on surface sherd collections from the lower Blanco region with scores from Late Postclassic Teotihuacan (A.D. 1350–A.D. 1520)—a known context of marketplace exchange—suggests the existence of a marketplace exchange system in the lower Blanco region, likely centered at the town of El Sauce. In addition, changes in intercollection diversity (sherds) and obsidian concentrations with increasing distance from the center suggest El Sauce’s market service area encompassed a radius of approximately six to nine kilometers.

Caves were used as ritual venues by the ancient Maya from the Early Preclassic to the Postclassic period. These sites have been intensively investigated, but little research has been devoted to changes in cave use over time. Work at Chechem Ha Cave in western Belize investigates transformations in ritual practice occurring between the Early and Late Classic periods using an explanatory framework that incorporates high-definition archaeological research with a paleoclimate reconstruction derived from speleothems. This is one of the first projects to directly link these data to the archaeological record. We also introduce new methodology to evaluate changes in ritual practice using use-intensity proxies and artifact patterning. These data demonstrate that Late Classic transformations were coeval with climatic drying. The phenomenon was identified in this case study, and the pattern is prevalent throughout the eastern lowlands suggesting that an ancient Maya drought cult was initiated at this time. We provide the first evidence that there was a failed ritual response to environmental stress, implying that a loss of faith in Maya rulership contributed to the downfall of political systems. This is an important finding for collapse theories that include ideological causations.

Harkening back to the debates associated with “dualistic economies” in addressing emerging nation states, we examine aspects of the ancient economy of the lowland Maya. Resource-specialized communities were knit together in a network of interdependencies that allowed high degrees of self-sustaining separation from the large monumental centers about which we know most. The social and biophysical environs of the ancient Maya permitted multiple economic spheres that influenced their political organization and affected their lack of developed hegemonic controls. Evidence is presented from the present-day ecological set aside of the Programme for Belize in northwestern Belize.

Excavations at La Sufricaya, a minor ritual group in the outskirts of the Lowland Maya city of Holmul, have documented two mural paintings inside an elite building of Early Classic date (A.D. 300–A.D. 600). One of the paintings is mythological in nature (Mural 9). The second bears an inscription with references to calendrical and historical events. It commemorates a notorious arrival date at Tikal on 11 Eb 15 Mak (January 16, A.D. 378) on its first anniversary. The architecture and artifacts associated with the murals combine Maya and Teotihuacan decorative motifs, and offer several parallels with Tikal assemblages. The iconography, epigraphy, and archaeological associations of these murals are discussed in relation to the function of the palace complex. This important new evidence contributes to an understanding of which role relations with Teotihuacan may have played in regional politics in the Maya Lowlands during the Early Classic period from the point of view of a smaller site. The interpretations presented here focus on the concept of political intervention of Tikal in the affairs of secondary and tertiary sites.