Many social scientists have proposed a relationship between the structure of a boundary and that of the system it delimits. Substantial anthropological and historical research has found the same tendency in analyses of traditional political structure. A model based on these findings was applied to the Teuchitlan tradition of Classic-period West Mexico, a region where the degree of political complexity and unification has been a subject of debate. A focused study of the eastern boundary of the Teuchitlan Valley was undertaken to examine the nature of its political structure. Fieldwork located a number of defensive features forming a well-structured boundary system in the La Venta corridor that connects the Teuchitlan and Atemajac Valleys. Other fortifications ringing the Teuchitlan Valley strongly suggest that a defensive network had been established to monitor access into the core of the Teuchitlan area. A unitary, territorial form of administration (following the work of Southall and Luttwak) is proposed as a model for political dynamics in the core region, but a review of the evidence for the more-distant Teuchitlan architecture suggests that, at most, only a hegemonic form of control more akin to that of the segmentary state was exercised outside of the core valley. A connection with long-distance resource acquisition is possible, but highly speculative at present.

In an attempt to interpret Classic Maya elite and commoner residential patterns beyond usual assumptions about filiation, family cycle, and household economic adaptation, we explore the specific ways people were “living together,” in the sense of the coresidence concept, in Maya societies conceived of as ranked societies, or “house societies,” as created by Claude Lévi-Strauss. Beyond kinship and economic organization, residential patterns can be understood as part of long-term strategies designed by inhabitants to integrate their social unit into the politico-religious city. The residential system of the Río Bec zone, where a major research project was carried out from 2002 to 2010, offers a series of well-defined architectural solutions, some of them common to most central lowlands cities, while others are innovative as forerunners of the northern lowlands large multiroom palaces. This paper analyzes Late and Terminal Classic period Río Bec domestic architecture in order to outline the material correlates of coresidence, growth, ranking, and alliance within and between Classic Maya social groupings.

Chronology is a crucial issue given the specific settlement patterns of the Río Bec region located on the northern fringe of the Maya central lowlands. Fine-resolution chronology of the local residential occupation in its many spatial and temporal forms is one of the main proxies available to reconstruct social organization and dynamics, in the absence of a nucleated center with the typical Maya political monuments usually investigated. Variability can be traced in residential morphologies and evolution that must be dated. The scope of the paper aims to describe the construction of the Río Bec chronology in its multiple dimensions, based on a diversity of methods from ceramic Type-Variety classification up to seriation of building sequences defining the evolution of the famous Río Bec architectural style. Epigraphic evidence exists, albeit limited and ambiguous. The general sequence of occupation for the targeted micro-region stretches from the Middle Preclassic to the end of the Terminal Classic period.

In this paper, we present the results of our recent research on the ancient causeways at the site of Chichen Itza, Yucatan. We first discuss some of the field methods we employed to map and facilitate the discovery of previously unrecorded causeways at the site. We also consider the spatial patterning and chronology of the Late and Terminal Classic periods causeway system at Chichen Itza and make inferences about the functional significance of linked terminal groups and the site-core. The Chichen Itza causeway systems reveals two important moments of Chichen Itza internal structure. During the Late Classic period, Chichen Itza was a socially homogeneous community organized by a loose and decentralized government. During the Terminal Classic period, the causeway system mirrors a centrally governed hierarchically organized community.

This paper proposes a reinterpretation of the Tepantitla murals long known as the Tlalocan. Taking into account the numerous representations of different kinds of ballgames on these walls, along with the instances of the Maya glyph for pu, pu or pu[h], or “Place of the Reeds” (i.e. Tollan), this paper argues that this mural represents Teotihuacan as prototypical civilized city associated with the beginning of time and the calendar. Further evidence is provided by the images of “Scattering Priests” in the adjacent room, all of whom wear crocodilian headdresses associated with Cipactli, the first day of the central Mexican calendar. In both rooms, images of Tlaloc with hallucinogenic water-lily buds in his mouth reflect associations with the sun, the calendar, and the underworld. The murals of Tepantitla can be interpreted as a coherent program representing the central role of the ballgame in establishing Teotihuacan as Tollan, the place where time began.

In her studies of Maya hieroglyphs at the site of Piedras Negras, Guatemala, Tatiana Proskouriakoff (1960) observed that Maya rulers often celebrated the anniversary of their accession. She recognized that a number of repeated dates were not associated with accession, but could offer no explanation for them. Recent study of the inscriptions associated with these dates has revealed a wealth of ritual information: the rulers of Piedras Negras commemorated the anniversaries of births, deaths, and mortuary activities with a number of ceremonies. This report addresses those ceremonies at Piedras Negras and examines the hieroglyphic and archaeological evidence for similar events at other Classic Maya sites.

The Great Pyramid of Cholula is both the largest and oldest continuously occupied building in Mesoamerica. Initial occupation of the ceremonial precinct began in the Late Formative period, and the first building stage of the pyramid dates to the Terminal Formative. The Great Pyramid was built in four major construction stages and at least nine minor modifications. Early stages shared stylistic similarities with Teotihuacan, but toward the end of its construction history external contacts shifted to the Gulf Coast, particularly El Tajin, and probably relate to occupation by ethnic Olmeca-Xicallanca. The fourth and final stage was contemporary with extensive construction on the south side at the Patio of the Altars, and dates to the Early Postclassic period. This period ended, however, with the partial abandonment of the pyramid when ethnic Tolteca-Chichimeca constructed a ceremonial center around their “new” Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl. The Great Pyramid continued as an important shrine dedicated to mountain worship and a rain deity until the Spanish Conquest. It remains one of the most important religious sites in Mexico, where the shrine of the Virgin of the Remedies attracts pilgrims to the church atop the pyramid mound during the annual festival. This paper summarizes the archaeological and ethnohistorical information available to reinterpret the construction history and ideological content of the pyramid throughout its long existence.

Recent excavations at Laguna Zope, on the southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec, provide interesting insights into the nature of a regional center in the hinterlands of Monte Albán. The excavation focused on an elite-status area of the site dating to the Terminal Formative period, a time when the Monte Albán polity in the highland Valley of Oaxaca was thought to have embarked on an imperialist campaign to turn former exchange partners into tribute-paying subjects. In contrast to the evidence from some other regions of Oaxaca, there was little to suggest that Laguna Zope was ever subjugated. On the contrary, exchange between Pacific coastal Laguna Zope and Monte Albán seems to have flourished during the Terminal Formative despite the political unrest that apparently interfered with commerce elsewhere in Oaxaca. In maintaining its political independence and resilience as a center for long-distance exchange during this troubled period, Laguna Zope may have capitalized on its relative distance from the Valley of Oaxaca and on a geographic location that afforded it strategic access to other markets.

Investigations into the evolution of early religious institutions should emphasize how the ritual manipulation of symbolically charged objects generated shared understandings regarding divine entities among religious communities of practice. This study demonstrates that the origins of two distinctively central Mexican deities—the Old God of Fire and the Storm God—can best be understood through contextual analysis of effigy vessels depicting them during later Formative periods (ca. 600 b.c.–a.d. 100). By presenting new examples of such effigy vessels and assembling contemporary counterparts from other central Mexican sites, we can better appreciate the Formative religious integration of the region and its legacy for the religious systems of later societies. Specifically, the primacy of the Old God of Fire and the Storm God to Aztec dedicatory offerings, and the private/domestic associations of the former and public/monumental associations of the latter at Teotihuacan were elaborations on patterns apparent in Formative ritual practices.

To understand better the significance of the Olmec style and its implications for Early Formative interregional interaction within Mesoamerica, one particular type of artifact—the hollow figurine—is examined. A definition of the Olmec style is provided based on Gulf Coast monumental art. One of several contemporaneous hollow-figurine types—“hollow babies” (Group 1)—is consistent with a Gulf Coast–based definition of the Olmec style. Fragments of Group 1 hollow figurines from across Mesoamerica are examined, revealing concentrations at a Gulf Coast center and, to a lesser extent, sites in southern Mexico. Rather than the primarily funerary function previously suggested for these objects, contextual data suggest multivalent meanings and functions. Group 2 figurines are related but different; variation appears in both the distribution of Group 2 fragments across Mesoamerica and their use. Available evidence suggests limited access to hollow figurines of both groups compared with contemporaneous solid figurines. A previous assertion that “hollow babies” were primarily produced and consumed in Central Mexico is rejected, and the significance of the differences among these hollow-figurine types is considered.

This article discusses the results of my diachronic analysis of lithic artifacts collected around Ceibal, Guatemala, in order to elucidate one aspect of long-term changing patterns in the pre-Columbian Maya economic systems and warfare. The importation of large polyhedral obsidian cores and local production of prismatic blades began as the result of sociopolitical development in Ceibal during the early Middle Preclassic Real-Xe phase. El Chayal obsidian was heavily used during the early Middle Preclassic period, while San Martín Jilotepeque was the principal source in the late Middle Preclassic, Late Preclassic, and Terminal Preclassic periods, and El Chayal once more became the major source in Ceibal during the Classic period. There is increasing evidence of the production and use of chert and obsidian points in the central part of Ceibal during the Late and Terminal Classic periods, indicating elites' direct involvement in warfare. Although the spear or dart points were predominant weapons in Classic Maya warfare, the increase in both chert small unifacial points and obsidian prismatic blade points in Ceibal points to bow-and-arrow technology by the Terminal Classic period.

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.

This paper summarizes more than a decade of excavations in the monumental core precinct of the Maya center of Blue Creek in northwestern Belize. Extensive and intensive excavations at Blue Creek have been undertaken since 1992. Consequently, a large database has been accumulated, particularly regarding the Early Classic period. Although occupation at Blue Creek dates to the Early Preclassic period (900 b.c.), complex society and, probably, the installation of Blue Creek's first king occurred at about a.d. 100, in the Late Preclassic period. For the next several hundred years, Blue Creek grew in population and complexity, finally being abandoned at some time in the ninth century a.d.

Despite a widespread notion that feasting played a major role in the workings of Classic Maya polities, the very concept of feasting in the context of its textual and visual representations remains poorly defined and understood. The present paper reviews the ancient narratives in order to present a more nuanced interpretation of the consumption and display of exquisite food and drinks at the courts of Maya lords and nobles. It also considers some tangible evidence of the sociopolitical networks created through feasting by looking at the spatial distributions of signed serving vessels which changed hands as gifts.

The study of deity images in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artworks and pictographic texts has been dominated by a concern to classify them for identification of the individual gods. The usual approach has been taxonomic classification, emphasizing the attributes consistently shared by various images to distinguish them as members of a single class (i.e., a single deity). However, identifying criteria are shared by more than one deity class, and the desired consistency in a set of traits for class membership has never been realized, such that scholars still disagree as to the proper identification of these images. This study takes a different approach, by examining the relationships among gods manifested in both imagery and text. It focuses on the Maya God L, who shares some identifying features with God M and also shares certain contexts with the God Bolon Yokte. These associations reflect their spatiotemporal alignments, with God L representing the stability of the primordial cosmic center, whereas Gods M and Bolon Yokte are “travelers” who move within the periphery. From these relationships we begin to explain not only the fluidity of deity imagery, but also how deities served as metaphoric representations of dynamic social and cosmic processes.

In this article I consider recent research on urbanism in ancient Mesoamerica, especially over the past twenty years. I focus on the theoretical perspectives that archaeologists use to address cities, urbanism, and urbanization. I argue that despite some significant advances in how we understand urbanism, most research continues to be embedded within cultural evolutionist, functionalist, and elitist theoretical frameworks. I highlight approaches drawn from poststructural theory that hold promise for developing a more dynamic, complex, and culturally compelling view of Mesoamerican urbanism. Using examples from pre-Hispanic Oaxaca, I discuss how a focus on practice, social negotiation, and materiality draws attention to the actions of people within their social, cultural, and material settings rather than on abstract high-level forces such as cultural evolutionary structures or the functioning of urban centers within broader societies.

Conceptualizations of pre-Hispanic staple transport remain underdeveloped. Conventional wisdom has long maintained that while “prestige goods” could demand long-distance transport, staple transport was short distance. A quantitative model reveals the fallacy of that argument and establishes the possibility of long-distance, overland staple transport in Mesoamerica by using maize tribute transport between Zempoala and Tenochtitlan as an example. This conclusion has implications for understanding Mesoamerican interregional exchange, ecology, and society.

Modeling Olmec participation in Early Horizon interaction networks requires better understanding of the relations of Gulf Olmec communities with one another as well as with contemporaries elsewhere in Mesoamerica. We compare pottery, figurines, and obsidian assemblages from a recently isolated Early Formative component at Tres Zapotes with contemporary assemblages from San Lorenzo and Macayal, both in the Coatzacoalcos basin. Our analysis indicates that village inhabitants at Tres Zapotes interacted with populations in eastern Olman but also forged their own economic and social ties with central Veracruz and the Mexican highlands. This evidence suggests a heterogeneous politico-economic landscape in which multiple polities of varying complexity participated in overlapping networks of interaction, alliance, and competition within and beyond Olman.

Between the years of 30 b.c. to a.d. 80, during the Late Formative period, the site of Izapa was flooded by lahars associated with an explosive eruption of the San Antonio volcano (part of the Tacaná Volcanic Complex). Computer simulations suggest that hot pyroclastic flows did not impact Izapa directly, but did impact the region considerably, filling and clogging the Cahuacan and Mixcun rivers with hot debris. The material was quickly saturated by heavy rains and, as the water from the rivers overtopped the obstruction, remobilized in the form of a hot mixture of mud and water known as a lahar (or flood of volcanic origin), which flowed down through the piedmont zone along the Cahuacan, Mixcun-Suchiate, and Izapa rivers. At Izapa, the flood took the form of a 6-m catastrophic wave of mud and water that likely destroyed crops and caused many causalities, surrounding the architectural mounds at Izapa with a muddy landscape. The floods also dramatically affected the rivers downstream, undoubtedly wreaking serious damage to the transport and trade of goods along the coast.

The Late Classic Maya abandonment of the Copan Valley, Honduras, began in the ninth century a.d. and lasted approximately 250–300 years. The relationship between local ecological setting and residential group abandonment is examined by applying event-history analysis to the known occupation spans of 140 residential mound groups, dated by obsidian hydration. Late Classic households in ecologically vulnerable sections of the Copan Valley—as measured by slope, soil type, and natural vegetation—had significantly higher risk of abandonment than households in more ecologically stable settings. Abandonment risk rises sharply in all regions at the end of the seventh century a.d. Both computerized agricultural simulations and settlement demographic reconstructions indicate that increased levels of agricultural intensification necessary to meet the subsistence needs of Copan's growing population would have led to large-scale erosion in upland areas and a significant reduction of soil fertility in all regions of the valley at that time. Mound-group abandonment patterns tend to support the hypothesis that environmental degradation played a dominant role in the collapse of the Copan polity.