El sitio de Tak'alik Ab'aj se encuentra en la bocacosta suroccidental de Guatemala. Durante las excavaciones del Entierro 1 de la Estructura 7A, fechado para finales del preclásico tardío (150 d.C.), se recuperó un rico ajuar funerario compuesto por decenas de piezas de jadeitita, hematita, pirita y cuatro mosaicos “reflectores” de este mismo material. Cada uno fue labrado con la misma tecnología de manufactura y soporte “flexible” de fragmentos de cerámica (ensamblados con resina) por primera vez documentado, y diseño propio para la función y significado que desempeñara. Dos de ellos fueron integrados en la pechera y faldellín del traje ceremonial; los otros dos como parte del ajuar adicional de un posible portaestandarte.

En este trabajo se incluye el estudio traceológico-tecnológico de las teselas de estos mosaicos del Entierro 1 a través de la caracterización de sus huellas de manufactura con arqueología experimental y microscopías óptica y electrónica de barrido. De esta manera se detectó una elaboración muy estandarizada en la que se aprovecharon instrumentos hechos con rocas volcánicas locales, como la dacita, cuyo sello tecnológico no ha sido reportado hasta el momento en otra colección lapidaria maya.

In this study, we present evidence for the use of slingstones and other projectile stones among the ancient Maya peoples of the Usumacinta River region. Rounded stones are frequently found across Maya archaeological sites and are given a range of interpretations, including objects for flintknapping, cooking, ritual, divination, and less often as weapons. Here we provide new evidence for the identification of rounded stones as weapons based on their morphology as well as their context of recovery. We employ data from the sites of Macabilero, Guatemala, and Budsilha, Mexico, which strongly suggest rounded stones at these sites were manufactured to be used as weapons. These findings have implications for how we understand warfare and hunting in ancient Mesoamerica and inform our interpretation of how the Maya prepared for such activities. As a class of weapon potentially accessible to most members of Maya society, the results presented here show the importance of more inclusive perspectives on Maya warfare and the necessity of contextualizing artifact analysis within the occupation history of the broader site and region.

In this article we analyze the content and form of 58 stone monuments at the archaeological site of Lacanjá Tzeltal, Chiapas, Mexico, which recent research confirms was a capital of the Classic Maya polity Sak Tz'i' (“White Dog”). Sak Tz'i' kings carried the title ajaw (“lord”) rather than the epithet k'uhul ajaw (“holy lord”) claimed by regional powers, implying that Sak Tz'i' was a lesser kingdom in terms of political authority. Lacanjá Tzeltal's corpus of sculptured stone, however, is explicitly divergent and indicates the community's marked cultural autonomy from other western Maya kingdoms. The sculptures demonstrate similarities with their neighbors in terms of form and iconographic and hieroglyphic content, underscoring Lacanjá Tzeltal artisans’ participation in the region's broader culture of monumental production. Nevertheless, sculptural experimentations demonstrate not only that lesser courts like Lacanjá Tzeltal were centers of innovation, but that the lords of Sak Tz'i' may have fostered such cultural distinction to underscore their independent political character. This study has broader implications for understanding interactions between major and secondary polities, artistic innovation, and the development of community identity in the Classic Maya world.

Across many decades of Maya archaeology, the study of war has typically been focused on its geopolitical, systemic, evolutionary, and structural implications. We argue these approaches stand to benefit from deeper interrogations of practice. Such a perspective shifts scholarly attention toward the ways in which Maya peoples prepared for and engaged in combat, and how they administered the outcomes of war. Deploying this approach requires the study of tactics, strategy, fortifications, materiel, landscape, embodiment, and a host of other related factors. With the issue of practice at the forefront of our analysis, we demonstrate how the study of war has been “blackboxed” in Maya archaeology, then undertake a comparative analysis to highlight how digging into the details of past martial practice enriches debates in Mesoamerican studies regarding the role of war in the rise and disintegration of states.

This study explores the identification and gender attribution of the “Great Goddess” of Teotihuacan through re-examining what purportedly constitutes feminine and masculine in these representations. Recent efforts to reattribute this deity's gender have not offered satisfactory re-interpretations, but instead reify a binary model of Western ideas of gender. Transcending this binary model, I propose that one of the key figures identified as female—the central figure from the Tepantitla mural at Teotihuacan—can better be said to show characteristics of a mixed gender, a tradition for which there is significant precedence in the Americas.

Botanical residues recovered from excavations in the Southeast Marketplace of Piedras Negras provide information about the healing and medical activities of the site's Classic period (a.d. 350–900) inhabitants, and point towards the intersection between commerce and medicine for the ancient Maya. The plants were likely exchanged at the market then used on-site for the purposes of healing. The botanical remains are complemented by both architectural and bioarchaeological evidence for healing at this locus, including a high concentration of sweatbaths and evidence for palliative tooth extraction. With the aid of ethnohistory, we identify health care practices potentially associated with the plant remains. However, we expand on basic understandings of “healing” with a critical look at how some medicinal plants may have been ritually invoked, even when never directly ingested or applied topically.

Slate disks have been reported from various excavations in the Maya Highlands. These artifacts have typically been described as supports or backings for iron-ore and pyrite mirrors. A number of these objects have been recovered in context at Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala. Whenever objects with reflective surfaces are identified in the field, they tend to be interpreted as mirrors, but they may have been worn as insignia on clothing. Recent finds at Kaminaljuyu, such as special deposits associated with Ballcourt B, suggest the use of reflective objects as part of the ballgame player's paraphernalia. The ballgame was an important ritual practice at Kaminaljuyu, as exemplified by the 13 ballcourts reported at the site. Archaeological evidence for this new interpretation will be presented, as well as a review of other examples excavated throughout the highlands, as part of an exploration of the exchange networks connected to regional trade in these exotic goods.

El gobierno de K'ihnich Bahlam Chapaht corresponde a uno de los más longevos de todos los gobernantes conocidos de Tonina. Con excepción de su nacimiento y entronización, conocidos por referencias retrospectivas muy reiteradas, es poco lo que se conoce de su vida. Sin embargo, gracias al recientemente restaurado Monumento 181 y al altar identificado como Monumento 182, hemos logrado reconstruir pormenores adicionales de su gobierno. En el presente ensayo, presentamos nuevos datos sobre ritualidad y jerarquía político-religiosa en Tonina durante el reinado de K'ihnich Bahlam Chapaht resultado del análisis de estos dos monumentos.

Estudios geofísicos, técnicas de sensores remotos y realización de mapas topográficos con GPS diferencial y vehículos aéreos no tripulados (VANT) han proporcionado una mejor comprensión de la organización espacial de los conjuntos departamentales y barrios en Teotihuacán. Nuestras investigaciones demuestran que en contraste con el mapa producido por el Teotihuacan Mapping Project (TMP) (Millon et al. 1973), el distrito de Tlanjinga es más rectangular y está más formalmente organizado, mientras que los conjuntos individuales tienen formas más irregulares, como lo había mostrado la excavación de Tlajinga 33 (Widmer y Storey 1993). Esto difiere de los nítidos cuadrados y rectángulos interpretados por las reconstrucciones arquitectónicas del TMP. El estudio de las imágenes satelitales mostró manchas blanquecinas en el terreno que parecen corresponder con áreas elevadas del mismo y con la desintegración de los aplanados de cal, destruidos por el tiempo y el trabajo agrícola. También verificamos la continuación del trazo de la Calzada de los Muertos que cruza este distrito mediante la modificación del relieve ocasionada por la excavación realizada en la toba volcánica subyacente (tepetate).

Ceramic figurines are ubiquitous throughout the archaeological record of Mesoamerica. These small, handheld objects continue to fascinate archaeologists, and their role in the daily lives of the people who created and used them remains a point of debate in some academic circles. The figurines have been interpreted variously as children's toys, fertility fetish tools, and ritual objects. At the site of Cahal Pech, located in the Belize Valley of west-central Belize, a large assemblage of figurines has been recovered from construction fill dating to the Cunil (1200–900 b.c.) and Kanluk ceramic phases (900–350 b.c.) of the Preclassic period. In this article, we analyzed the temporal and spatial distribution of these objects in the settlement and conclude that these objects were used in a variety of ritual events. Although they mainly served as venues for invoking ancestors in domestic rituals, their discovery in public spaces suggests diverse social uses. Most importantly, their limited presence in residential and public spaces outside the Plaza B section of the site core during the late facet of the Kanluk phase may indicate that certain rituals were not performed by the entire community.

Throughout the world, past and present, social organizations develop to cope with restricted water sources. Relying on traditional archaeology, labor estimates, and ethnographic data, the Palenque Pool Project set out to better understand a series of interconnected artificial water features located in the western sector of this Classic Maya site. Here, we detail our 2014–2015 fieldwork. First, there is consideration that the Picota Group was a civic-ceremonial center first established in the Early Classic period (a.d. 250–500), one km to the west of the “downtown” nucleus of the site. A review of labor estimates for the construction of architectural features of the Picota Group follows. We then explore the ethnographic component, comparing similar pool configurations investigated in the highland Tzotzil community of Chamula in 2015. The article concludes with a theoretical discussion of how and why social organizations evolve to manage water resources in the region, with reference to ethnographic information from highland Tzotzil communities.

We present a behavioral-contextual method for studying abandonment-related assemblages in order to ascribe them to a settlement abandonment scenario. Our approach examines the vertical and horizontal architectural contexts of assemblages, along with the nature of reconstructible vessels and other artifacts. This method accounts for gradual, rapid, mundane, and ceremonial abandonment scenarios, and for abandonment with anticipated return. Two advantages of this model are its replicability and its proposition of a shared taxonomy leading away from the concept of problematic deposits. The method is contextualized with two distinct case studies from the southern Maya lowlands: the palace of La Corona, Guatemala and an agricultural household group from greater Minanha, Belize. These dissimilar but contemporary (ca. A.D. 900) contexts revealed complex abandonment-related assemblages, including pre-abandonment middens, de facto and secondary material, and on-floor, exposed offerings. Both case studies are argued to reflect gradual, organized abandonment scenarios, although with significant temporal and behavioral distinctions.

Headdresses, as opulent markers of rank and affiliation, offer a unique opportunity to examine sociopolitical roles and offices at Teotihuacan. In particular, in light of the few surviving glyphic texts from the site, the representations of headdresses, either in isolation, as part ritual investitures, or actively worn by individuals, are in fact one of the few ways to achieve a deeper understanding of the nature, structure, and institutional aspects of social stations and in the ancient metropolis. In this paper, we will first discuss the elemental properties of headdresses in Teotihuacan iconography as well as the rites of accession upon which these symbolic markers were acquired. Thereafter, we suggest that several kinds of headdresses are also associated with specific named houses at Teotihuacan, which indicate their close affiliation with certain powerful institutions. Finally, we focus on some of the specific types of headdresses, and especially those qualified by the so-called Year Sign (Figure 1). Based on comparisons with Classic and Epiclassic calendrical records, wherein dates are also crowned by the same headdress, as well as with the diadem of the Late Postclassic Mexica rulers, the xiuhhuitzolli, we put forth a new interpretation of its meaning at Teotihuacan.

Scholars of West Mexico generally rely on the ceramic figurine tradition found in shaft tombs for interpreting the prehistory of the Late Preclassic period. Three new projects on shaft-tomb ceramics seek to advance our understanding of the Late Formative culture and societies of this region. First, ceramic figures are examined for evidence of the ball game in West Mexico; second, for cultural information about domestic and community organization; and third, for ways to differentiate authentic figures from modern reproductions.

The households of Formative period central Mexico represent critical loci for understanding major social transformations during a millennium (900 b.c.– a.d. 100) that witnessed the expansion and contraction of several macro-regional stylistic and economic networks, formalization of enduring political and religious institutions, and initial urbanization and state formation. Households and their constituent members used style to articulate important elements of their identity through practices of group consumption and personal adornment. In this study we consider style within the context of ceramic serving vessels and portable adornments primarily from sites in the state of Tlaxcala. We evaluate the manner in which dimensions of stylistic expression in these material goods contributed to shifting conceptualizations of household and individual identity and their articulation with community and supra-community social networks, noting the generally collective or affinitive manipulation of styles with means of socially differentiating age, status, and other dimensions of identity.

Functional determinations of stone tools gleaned through high-magnification usewear analysis enable archaeologists to reconstruct ancient household practices and identify diversity across regional domestic economies. A systematic obsidian usewear study with 300 specimens from the site of Altica, Mexico presented here reveals that tools from the Early–Middle Formative (1250–800 cal. b.c.) occupation were used for woodworking and subsistence-related activities. The high frequency of woodworking usewear patterns can be attributed to the construction and maintenance of the newly established settlement's households and agricultural plots. Combined with previous analyses of the site's paleoethnobotanical, osteological, and isotopic datasets, the usewear data further indicate a subsistence strategy that balanced foraging and non-intensive maize agriculture. Thanks to their proximity to the Otumba source and other sites exploiting it, Altica residents were able to employ a unifunctional tool-use approach with expedient percussion tools, which contrasts the multifunctional tool-use approaches documented at other Middle Formative sites.

En este artículo realizamos un análisis tecnológico de una concha esgrafiada tolteca, recientemente excavada en las periferias de la antigua ciudad de Tula, Hidalgo, México. Asimismo, efectuamos un análisis iconográfico de los motivos esgrafiados en la pieza. Proponemos la técnica de manufactura del objeto, su probable lugar de producción, así como la función ritual que el objeto pudo tener. Así, postulamos que la concha representa a un integrante de los linajes hegemónicos de Tula y que la inhumación del objeto pudo ser similar a los dones depositados en La Casa de las Águilas, en México-Tenochtitlan.

Nixtun-Ch'ich', on the western edge of Lake Peten Itza in Peten, northern Guatemala, features an axis urbis and an urban grid dating to the Middle Preclassic period (800–500 b.c.). New research reveals that Middle Preclassic constructions—five circular or oval artificial pools and planned surface drainage—facilitated or impeded the movement of water. Large limestone rubble lines at least two of the pools (aguadas) in the city's core; two pools lie on the axis urbis, demonstrating that they were central ceremonial constructions. The gridded streets facilitated drainage: they consistently slope from west to east and from the center to north and south. In some areas seeing intense water flow, the streets divide into waterways and pedestrian-ways and/or were given special paving. Many scholars argue that water management contributed to the power of despotic kings, but no evidence of such rulers exists among the Middle Preclassic Maya. Nonetheless, we believe that such systems emerged in the Middle Preclassic. Nixtun-Ch'ich' appears to have been cooperative in its organization and its water management system was a public good.

In seeking continuities and disjuncture from the precedents of past authorities, the Mesoamerican emergent ruling class during the Formative period were active agents in directing changes to monumental space, suggesting that memory played a vital role in developing an early shared character of Maya lifeways (1000 b.c. to a.d. 250). The trend is most visible in the civic ceremonial complexes known as E Groups, which tend to show significant patterns of continuity (remembering) and disjuncture (forgetting). This article uses the northern lowland site of Yaxuná in Yucatan, Mexico, to demonstrate the use of early selective strategies to direct collective memory. While there are E Groups in the northern Maya lowlands, few Formative period examples are known, making Yaxuná a critical case study for comparative assessment with the southern lowlands. One implication of the Yaxuná data is that the broader pattern of Middle Formative E Groups resulted from sustained social, religious, political, and economic interaction between diverse peer groups across eastern Mesoamerica. With the emergence of institutionalized rulership in the Maya lowlands during the Late Formative, local authorities played a significant role in directing transformations of E Groups, selectively influencing their meanings and increasingly independent trajectories through continuity and disjuncture.