Flat and curved sticks with longitudinal facial grooves were dredged from the Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza in the early 1900s. They are similar to specimens recovered from the North American Southwest, where a suggested function was for defense against atlatl darts. By accepting this interpretation, Mesoamerican archaeologists identified such artifacts as fending sticks. Hassig (1992:112–114, 126–127, 2001:810–811) disputes this role, arguing that the sticks were specialized short swords for close fighting. This sword interpretation is not supported by my analysis of the Chichen Itza artifacts or the mural evidence at that site. Defense against atlatl darts is possible but unlikely to have occurred in warfare and, in any case, Maya/Toltec warriors carried shields to protect themselves against darts and other weapons. Fending darts in ritual fights such as an atlatl duel is a plausible scenario, perhaps to prove warrior mettle or as a gladiatorial blood sport. Another possible use is for subduing captives after military victory: a throwing stick to disable humans for later sacrifice.

In the past 20 years, what were once considered specialized auxiliary subdisciplines or analytical approaches such as bioarchaeology, paleozoology, subterranean archaeology, and material culture studies have become central to all research due to refinements of their analytic tools. Meanwhile, building on earlier progress in epigraphy, work on the Classic period truly has become historical archaeology. These advances provide a much greater understanding of ancient Maya ecology, economy, and politics and insights into the details, not just trends, in culture history. Realization of this potential, however, is imperiled by problems in research design and interpretation. Project structures rarely allows for complete and independent application of these enhanced fields, while the traditional elements of ceramic classification and chronology have not kept pace. The erratic sample of both Maya lowland and highland regions needs to addressed, rather than glossed over by extrapolations or assumptions about interaction and expansionism. Institutional structures and financial limitations have led to many superficial studies masked by quasi-theoretical terminologies. Constructive solutions, most exemplified in some current projects, include the obligation to try to apply all available techniques and approaches. To make that feasible, larger projects should be fragmented into multi-institutional collaborations. Greater emphasis must be given to classifications and excavations that generate ceramic microchronologies. Above all, we must investigate the extensive unstudied or understudied regions. Finally, most challenging is the need to collectively confront academic structures that encourage rapid, incomplete studies and discourage more substantial publications and long term multi-institutional research.

In the past decade, a number of prominent scholars have attempted to use astronomical data to place the images on page 27 of the Codex Borgia in “real-time.” This method has yielded some interesting results, but all of these authors have assumed that the Codex Borgia was produced in accordance with the Aztec calendar. Given the probable origin of the Codex Borgia in the area bordering the Mixtec and eastern Nahua cultural areas, this assumption needs to be tested. This article compares weather-related images that have associated dates on Borgia 27–28 with tree-ring data and estimated maize yields from the Puebla area. Our research for this paper seems to confirm the use of the Aztec calendar in the Codex Borgia. By analyzing depictions of weather phenomenon relating to maize production, we also offer a fresh analysis of this well-known document, specifically arguing that a major drought is shown in a 1 Rabbit year, whereas the year 1 Flint is linked with a period of dryness following heavy rains, a condition sometimes linked with locust swarms like those on Borgia 27.

The shaft tomb mortuary tradition is an archaeological construct that encompasses a diverse array of burial practices, many of which now seem to reflect local variations in specific treatments of the dead. Distinctive characteristics of shaft tombs in the Tequila valleys of central Jalisco include the high degree of labor invested in tomb construction, the wealth of offerings found within the tombs, and the occasional association of the tombs with the circular public architecture known as the Teuchitlan tradition. These characteristics have led some researchers to see the Tequila valleys as the “core” of the shaft tomb tradition, in which mortuary practices were most dramatically employed to demonstrate social distinctions. Weigand's survey beginning at the end of the 1960s was designed to understand the settlement system associated with the burial tradition. Various constraints led to the use of surface materials and materials found in looters' pits to associate ceramics with tombs and public architecture. This article discusses ongoing research on the ceramic chronology of the eastern Tequila valleys and specifically those phases that span the use of shaft tombs as a high-ranking form of burial. We can discern three phases across the period of the Late Formative through the Middle Classic.

The Mapa de Otumba, a sixteenth-century document (1550–1575) currently archived in the Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia of the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico, represents a small portion of the pre-Conquest altepetl of Otompan and its Early Colonial-period administrative successors, the parroquia and corregimiento of Otumba. The exact circumstances under which the map was executed, its original purpose, and any associated textual documents are unknown. The paper on which the map is executed (amate) and the style in which it was drawn clearly show pre-Conquest paper and the hand of a tlacuilo (scribe) influenced by post-Conquest style, script, and changes in sociopolitical and religious organization. Analysis of the elements of the document reveal its temporal and spatial setting; it also throws light on the changes in indigenous sociopolitical and religious organization during the first half-century of the Early Colonial period.

The Canek manuscript is written in a distinctive linguistic style, probably a local variant of Spanish influenced by Yucatec Maya and archaic forms of Spanish. It also reflects a curiously ambivalent perspective on the Itza king Canek, at once aligning him with the pagan Indians and suggesting an affinity with Saint Francis. Like many other colonial texts, the four extant folia of this manuscript show a blending of verbal genres. This paper presents a discourse analysis of the manuscript, demonstrating that it is organized according to a systematic rhetorical structure based on syntactic foregrounding, poetic parallelism and thematic development. Placed in the context of other colonial documents, this one displays the cultural and linguistic ambivalence of its author.

Archaeologists have estimated the human energy costs of various undertakings. Confusion has arisen about the notion of energy “profits”–what must be included in their calculation and what we can learn from such calculations. When it comes to assessing the contribution to sociopolitical hierarchy building of energy profits derived from long-distance transport of food staples, it is the energy expended (both in transport and acquisition of the food staples) that matters. The source of the food that produces the human energy so expended is immaterial. What may be learned from such calculations is whether attempts to understand certain behaviors in terms of economic “rationality” succeed or not.

An ongoing debate about Early Formative cultural elaboration in Mesoamerica is based largely on claims about where innovations originated and when different regions influenced each other. One view is that Gulf lowland populations called “Olmec” by archaeologists made a number of key innovations and that their influence on contemporary societies stimulated the rise of Mesoamerican civilization. Another view is that multiple regions participated equally and all made innovations that became the legacy of later Mesoamerican societies. Additional empirical work will help resolve some of the issues raised by this debate, as Cheetham and Blomster (2010) have recently suggested in this journal. Explicit theory can also help move the discussion forward.

Research presented here demonstrates that an unusual almanac in the Madrid Codex (pages 12–18) integrates observations of the Venus cycle with eclipse events in the context of the agricultural year. Imagery in the 260-day almanac represents eclipse glyphs associated with Tzolkin dates that coordinate with eclipses visible in Yucatan during the fifteenth century, indicating the almanac dates to the Late Postclassic. The almanac also depicts seasonal events in the context of a repeating pattern of paired solar eclipses associated with observations of Venus as the evening star. Quetzalcoatl-Kukulcan's counterpart in the Madrid almanac is the Chicchan serpent, who plays the role of Venus in a sequence showing a fertile aspect of the planet linked with the 260-day agricultural cycle and the Pleiades. Clearly, Venus positions and eclipse events were closely watched in relation to the planting cycle, reflecting a form of “agro-astronomy” that we are only now beginning to understand.

En la Mesa Redonda de Palenque de 2004 Erik Velásquez propuso que los gobernantes mayas que portaban el glifo emblema de Kaanuˀl pudieron haber residido durante el Clásico Temprano en Dzibanché, pues no existen referencias que los vinculen con Calakmul antes de 631 d.C. Aquí revisamos los datos sobre su presencia en Dzibanché y otros asentamientos de la región. Argumentos de distinta naturaleza que apoyan este escenario se publicaron desde 2005 hasta 2016, incluyendo los hallazgos de Xunantunich (Helmke y Awe 2016a, 2016b), que permiten conjeturar que una facción disidente de la dinastía se separó de Dzibanché y fundó en 635 d.C. una sede alternativa en Calakmul. Ello produjo el panorama que proponemos en el Clásico Tardío, donde había mandatarios simultáneos de la dinastía Kaanuˀl en el sur de Campeche y en el sur de Quintana Roo, toda vez que en Dzibanché seguían residiendo gobernantes Kaanuˀl al menos hasta el siglo VII.

The meaning of ancient Maya social organization continues to engender heated debate. Hierarchy and heterarchy are suggested as organizational principles that reflect the variability characteristic of the Maya households past and present. The presence or absence of lineage in the core area or hinterland reflects the social dimension of Maya social organization and small and larger households are tied to the larger political structure. Detailed archaeological data have documented extreme economic variability in Maya household patterns and relationships associated with these. Scholars argue that structures contain rich symbolic statements and reflect Maya ideological structure. Discussion of Maya household patterns moves beyond a monolithic understanding of social organization in the past and the present, including extreme variation in kinship and marriage patterns, associated economic structure, power, and symbolic representations that bind the society and tie individuals to higher structural levels.

Intrasite variation in the production and consumption of obsidian prismatic blades is investigated at the Protoclassic to early Late Classic period site of Palo Errado in Veracruz, Mexico. There, the recovery of macrodebitage, as well as eraillure flakes, platform overhang flakes, and debitage with 90 degree angles between dorsal scars indicates that local blade production occurred at the site from imported marcocores and large polyhedral cores. In addition, detailed ceramic and obsidian data from excavated contexts demonstrate that the elite were involved in blade production and consumption, while the inhabitants of Mound 9, a non-elite, residential workshop locus, were specializing in prismatic blade production for exchange. At some point in the Early Classic period, the elite of the site undergo a significant change that intensifies their use of status markers, such as serving ware and personal adornment that corresponds to a decrease in elite blade production and an increase in blade consumption. However, no change in how blades are used by the elite is evident in this transition. While the vast majority of the obsidian artifacts recovered were made from Zaragoza-Oyameles obsidian, significant intrasite variation in minor sources, as well as the types of blades recovered and degree of edge wear suggests that the elite and nonelite participated independently in a variety of obsidian provisioning networks. In the case of the Mound 9 residents, the ceramic and obsidian assemblage suggests that their economic independence corresponded to a physical and ideological separation from the rest of the site. In general the production and consumption of obsidian does not suggest its use in a local political economy. Rather, the inhabitants of Palo Errado may have been exchanging and obtaining obsidian commodities within local and regional marketplaces.

The Sotuta pottery complex has been used in the archaeology of the northern Maya lowlands to identify the Terminal Classic period and cultural association with Chichen Itza. The Sotuta complex, however, is made up of many pottery types, the majority of which are inappropriate markers of elite sociopolitical history. It is argued here that Sotuta-complex slate wares developed out of previous local slate wares regardless of the elite sociopolitical changes taking place with the arrival of the Itza. The wares produced and distributed by commoners were independent of elites and have been artificially chained to questions of elite political expansion for which they are inappropriate correlates.

There is compelling evidence to believe that some gold ornaments in the South Mexican International Style found outside the Basin of Mexico, or without provenience, were made by goldsmiths in the urban centers of the Aztec empire, rather than by the Mixtec artisans to whom they are commonly attributed. The weight of gold dust and bullion recorded as tribute to the Aztec rulers in the Codex Mendoza and other sources was sufficient to produce 22,000–27,000 small and medium-sized ornaments annually, implying a large number of goldworkers in these urban centers. Ethnohistorical documents indicate that many gold ornaments were given to provincial leaders by Aztec rulers who used gifts of luxury items as an important part of their diplomatic strategies, and political patronage system; many more were exported by means of long-distance trade.

Research in 1970 vaulted Becán to prominence on the landscape of great Maya centers. Mapping, excavation, and ceramic stratigraphy revealed that its enigmatic earthwork, first recorded archaeologically in 1934, was a fortification built at the end of the Preclassic period. Large-scale warfare thus unexpectedly turned out to have very deep roots in the Maya lowlands. The site's wider implications remained obscure, however, in the absence of dates and other inscriptions. The ever-increasing dependence on historical and iconographic information in our narratives, along with the invisibility of its Preclassic buildings and plazas, unfortunately marginalized Becán. Some colleagues even claimed that we have misinterpreted both the nature of the earthworks (not fortifications) and their dating (not Preclassic). We rehabilitate Becán by dispelling these claims and by showing that standard archaeological evidence, contextualized in what we know today, has much to say about Becán's role in lowland culture history. We identify intervals of crisis when the earthwork remained useful long after it was originally built, especially during the great hegemonic struggles of the Snake and Tikal dynasties, and introduce new ceramic and lithic data about Becán's settlement history and political entanglements. Our most important message is that inscriptions and iconography, for all their dramatic chronological detail and historical agency, must always be complemented by standard fieldwork.

Among the numerous archaeological remains that recent LiDAR flights revealed in Guatemala and Mexico, agrarian features are the most abundant. Archaeologists today are compelled to revise their paradigms in terms of methodology and assessment of environmental appropriation for agriculture. The Malpaís de Zacapu in west Mexico is one example. Besides the discovery of a substantial Epiclassic occupation near the well-documented Postclassic urban centers of the area, LiDAR imagery brought to light a deeply modified agrarian landscape and thereby dramatically changed our understanding of human settlement in this lava flows complex.

Focusing on the northern part of the Malpaís, this study uses archaeogeographical and soil science methods to assess ancient farming systems and their evolution. We updated the archaeological and soil maps of the area, combining traditional field survey techniques and LiDAR-derived data interpretation. This allowed us to identify residential zones and a wide range of associated agrarian features adapted to the variety and agronomic challenges of volcanic soils. We further implemented a production-consumption model to reconstruct agricultural strategies from the Epiclassic to the Middle Postclassic period, from self-reliance to the necessity of supra-local agricultural inputs, possibly foreshadowing the Tarascan state tribute system.

This paper translates and analyzes references to eclipses in two seventeenth-century Zapotec calendrical booklets.1 These booklets are part of a corpus of 106 separate calendrical texts and four collections of ritual songs that were turned over to ecclesiastical authorities in 1704 and 1705 as part of an ambitious campaign against traditional indigenous ritual practices conducted in the province of Villa Alta in northern Oaxaca. Both of these booklets contain a complete day-by-day representation of the Zapotec 260-day divinatory calendar, with annotations in Zapotec alongside many of these entries. Two such annotations in Booklet 81 explicitly record the occurrences of solar and lunar eclipses visible in the Sierra Zapoteca in 1691 and 1693. Annotations in Booklet 63 do not mention eclipses but allude to them by recording the names and Gregorian dates of Christian feasts celebrated on the dates of eclipses in 1686 and 1690; such allusions are otherwise found mainly with the Zapotec dates of the beginnings or ends of significant Zapotec calendrical cycles—the 260-day calendar itself or its 65-day subdivisions, and the start of the Zapotec 365-day year—and so reflect a systematic pattern of engagement by at least one Zapotec calendar specialist with indigenous ritual knowledge and practices. Our analysis suggests that colonial Zapotec calendar specialists monitored and perhaps also anticipated the occurrence of eclipses in terms of the patterns of eclipse recurrence in particular parts of the divinatory calendar.

Traditional analyses of ceramics from Maya Lowland archaeological sites have focused on descriptive typologies to define site and regional chronologies. However, T. Patrick Culbert's groundbreaking work on the ceramics of Tikal (1993) utilized vessel shapes, as well, involving an analytical system of two levels: shape classes and shapes. His systematized modal analysis and concentration on vessel-shape classes, in conjunction with a focus on the importance of deposit types and site-formation processes, revolutionized what ceramics can tell us about prehistoric Maya behavior. The same approach was applied to the research on the Cuello ceramics presented here to gain a better understanding of the behavior associated with ceramic-vessel usage during the Preclassic period at this northern Belize site.