Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T22:35:02.790Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dzibilchaltún, Yucatán, Mexico: Structures 384, 385, and 386: A Preliminary Interpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

W. J. Folan
W. J. Folan*
Affiliation:
National Historic Sites Service, Ottawa, Ontario
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The excavation of Structures 384, 385, and 386, and their associated platform in Dzibilchaltún, Yucatán, revealed an occupational sequence from late Phase I or early Phase II of the Early period up to and including the early Colonial period. The ceramic material analyzed pertains primarily to the Copo complex and, when combined with the architectural data and with 16th-century descriptions of Maya culture, made it possible to infer or suggest the use and function of each room within each building associated with the group and its lineage associations from its conception to the present. This analysis indicates that, although the primary function of the group was ceremonial during the early stages of occupation, all but one of the structures were later used more for domestic than ceremonial ends, until the vaults collapsed during the late Pure Florescent subperiod. During the later Decadent period, however, one of the earliest buildings was tunneled into and reused for ceremonial functions, possibly even after the 16th-century Spanish open chapel was erected less than 200 m. away in the central plaza of Dzibilchaltún.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , October 1969 , pp. 434 - 461
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1969

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

Andrews, E. Wyllys 1961 Preliminary Report on the 1959–60 Field Season, National Geographic Society–Tulane University, Dzibilchaltún Program. Middle American Research Institute, Miscellaneous Series, No. 11. New Orleans.Google Scholar
Andrews, E. Wyllys 1962 Excavaciones en Dzibilchaltún, Yucatan. 1956-62. Estudios Cultura Maya, Vol. 2. Mexico.Google Scholar
Andrews, E. Wyllys 1965a Progress Report on the 1960–1964 Field Seasons, National Geographic Society—Tulane University, Dzibilchaltun Program. Middle American Research Institute, Publication 31. New Orleans.Google Scholar
Andrews, E. Wyllys 1965b Archaeology and Prehistory in the Northern Maya Lowlands: An Introduction. In Handbook of Middle American Indians, edited by Gordon R. Willey, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, pp. 288–330. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Brainerd, George W. 1958 The Archaeological Ceramics of Yucatan. Anthropological Records, Vol. 19. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Folan, William J. 1966 The Open Chapel of Dzibilchaltún, Yucatán, Mexico. MS, on file at the Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Landa, Diego de 1941 Landa’s Relacíon de las Cosas de Yucatán. A translation edited with notes by Alfred M. Tozzer. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 18. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Smith, A. Ledyard 1950 Uaxactún, Guatemala: Excavations of 1931–37. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 588. Washington.Google Scholar
Smith, A. Ledyard 1962 Mayapán, Yucatán, Mexico. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 619. Washington.Google Scholar
Smith, Robert and Gifford, James C. 1965 Pottery of the Maya Lowlands. In Handbook of Middle American Indians, edited by Gordon R. Willey, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, pp. 498–534. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Taylor, W. W. 1948 A Study of Archaeology. American Anthropologist, Memoir 69. Menasha.Google Scholar
Thompson, J. Eric 1939 Excavations at San José, British Honduras. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 506. Washington.Google Scholar
Tozzer, Alfred M. (translator and editor) 1941 Landa’s Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatán, Appendix B. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 18. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Vogt, Evon Z. 1964 Desarrollo Cultural de los Mayas. Editado por Evon Z. Vogt y Alberto Ruz L. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Seminario de Cultura Maya, Mexico.Google Scholar
Willey, Gordon R., Patrick Culbert, T., and Adams, Richard E. W. (editors) 1967 Maya Lowland Ceramics, A Report from the 1965 Guatemala City Conference. American Antiquity, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 289–315. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar