Faunal analysis of subsistence remains from four sites in the Etzatlan Basin in western central Mexico presents important contrasts between pre-Hispanic and colonial dietary patterns. Specific changes in animal remains are well correlated with the transition from pre-Hispanic to colonial occupations tracked along a statistically derived timeline in which ceramic evidence for the onset of colonization is found. Allometry is used to calculate faunal biomass, and abundance and diversity indices are used to define these dietary patterns relative to the timeline. There is a decrease in use of large mammals over time and an increased use of smaller mammals, birds, and reptiles/amphibians. In particular, a marked increase in exploitation of the most important native large mammal (for example, deer) is found during early colonial occupation. However, this bounty decreased appreciably during later periods, consistent with widening of dietary breadth by inclusion of less preferred resources.

Among the original holdings of the recently opened World Digital Library was a Spanish manuscript on the Maya that supposedly dates to 1548 (initially available at http://www.wdl.org/en/item/2961). It was given the title El modo de cómo hacían la pintura los indígenas (“How the Indians Made Their Paintings”) and contained an explanation of Maya culture accompanied by drawings of Maya glyphs and deities. Detailed analysis shows that the Pintura manuscript is a fake that belongs to the Canek group of forged manuscripts. It is written in the same hand as the Canek forgeries and shares the same stylistic characteristics with this group. Its drawings copy illustrations from the third English or the second Spanish edition of Sylvanus Morley's The Ancient Maya, and from the Madrid Codex. The World Digital Library aims to make significant primary materials from all UNESCO member countries available on the Internet. Forgeries like the Pintura manuscript undermine the trustworthiness and eminence of this project. While the Pintura manuscript was removed from the World Digital Library in August 2009, researchers may find useful the holistic approach that allowed identifying it as a forgery. A historical document is here examined from six angles. What are its physical makeup, its penmanship, and its linguistic properties? Authentic documents should have a traceable history of documentation (here termed a “pedigree”) and their content should be consistent with well-established sources and with culture- and time-specific conventions.

Survey teams at the El Pilar Archaeological Reserve for Maya Flora and Fauna have mapped 70 percent of its 20 km2 area and revealed the extent of settlement around the city center. Large-scale civic architecture, and the distribution of smaller ceremonial groups and minor centers, reflect the wealth and power of Maya rulers presiding over the largest Classic period city in the upper Belize River area. Previous analyses suggest disparities in wealth at El Pilar were more nuanced than the elite/commoner dichotomy commonly invoked for Classic Maya society. This article works to understand wealth inequality at ancient El Pilar by computing Gini coefficients from areal and volumetric calculations of primary residential units—the class of settlement remains most likely to represent ancient households. Presentation of Gini coefficients and their potential interpretations follows a discussion of settlement classification and residential group labor investment. We conclude by contextualizing these results within prior settlement pattern analyses to explore how disparities in wealth may have been distributed across the physical and social landscape.

Although it was common in Mesoamerica to adopt foreign deities from other pantheons, less is known about the processes of “translating” foreign deities as a function of the divinities' attributes. This article analyzes the degree of intelligibility among pre-Hispanic K'iche’, P'urepecha, and Nahua peoples based on the study of patron gods Tohil and Curicaueri and their possible equivalents in the Central Highland pantheon. We can see that the search for divine homologues on the part of Mesoamerican peoples implies, beyond cultural homogeneity, an ongoing exchange of information, and recognition of the religion of the “other” based on equal standing, which tends to be a characteristic of polytheistic peoples in general.

En excavaciones efectuadas en Chichén Itzá en 1967, se encontró una construcción subterránea tipo chultun conteniendo los restos óseos de más de 70 individuos humanos, la mayoría subadultos masculinos. El depósito mortuorio presenta características de ser post-sacrificial, de carácter primario; la datación por carbono-14 lo ubica hacia el 1000 d.C., en el momento de mayor expansión de Chichén Itzá como ciudad capital regional. La cuantificación de 1,066 dientes permanentes establece un número mínimo de individuos de 75 (incisivo central superior izquierdo). Con el propósito de discernir sobre la afinidad biológica de los individuos, primero se llevó a cabo un análisis univariante y multivariante de los diámetros mesiodistales y bucolinguales y se compararon con 16 sitios prehispánicos de época clásica; posteriormente se analizó la morfología dental en 14 rasgos y se compararon con 24 sitios mayas prehispánicos del clásico, siguiendo la metodología estandarizada de Arizona State University Dental Anthropological System (ASUDAS). Se aplicaron tres análisis multivariantes (medida media de divergencia, análisis de conglomerados, y escalamiento multidimensional). Con base en este estudio, podemos afirmar que los niños del chultun de Chichén Itzá no pertenecen a las poblaciones de las Tierras Bajas del norte o del sur, como tampoco a las de las Tierras Altas del sur. Quizá formaban parte de grupos de comerciantes de larga distancia que se asentaron en Chichén Itzá a partir del 800 d.C. para dominar las rutas de comercio tanto marítimas como terrestres de la Península.

Archaeological excavations at Yaxnohcah have revealed a long sequence of sedentary occupation, from 1000 b.c. to a.d. 1400, with dynamic periods of growth occurring during the Middle (1000–400 b.c.) and Late Preclassic (400 b.c.–a.d. 200). Two of these complexes, Grazia and Helena, serve as case studies that reveal the transformative processes of this period, illustrating site evolution on a larger scale. The Grazia platform probably began as a residential area in the Middle Preclassic and acquired an increasingly public character throughout subsequent modifications, culminating in the construction of a triadic temple platform and a ballcourt. A long sequence of fire rituals and altars show the importance of the Grazia complex as a center for collective ritual. Helena also features Middle Preclassic domestic constructions, but was transformed into a ballcourt platform during the transition to the Late Preclassic. Both cases show that Yaxnohcah was founded as a widespread, loosely integrated settlement in the Middle Preclassic and evolved into a formally and centralized network of communities with their respective nodal centers in the Late Preclassic period. Placemaking and the rise of monumentality played an important role in this transformation and reflect the particular forms of community integration.

“Mesoamerican Cultural Astronomy and the Calendar” is a Special Section including articles that explore portions of Mesoamerica where astronomy and calendars were studied by Indigenous peoples. Scholars who are well known for innovative work in astronomy, such as Aveni, as well as Pineda de Carías, Rivera, and Argueta, consider topics that fall under the rubric of cultural astronomy. Epigraphers or experts in hieroglyphic writing, like Justeson and Vail, deal in explicit ways with issues related to calendar development. An art historian, Milbrath, weighs in on the meaning of astronomical and calendar themes using important documents incorporating both images and texts. An archaeologist, Dowd, and an architect, Carrasco, discuss architectural complexes with orientations significant in horizon-based astronomy. This rich cross-disciplinary collection of articles debuts new discoveries that interweave astronomy, time measurement, and ritual behavior commemorating cycles of death and rebirth among Maya peoples who lived between a.d. 225–1519 in what is now Honduras, Belize, Mexico, and Guatemala.

This article deals with the cultural activities linked to subsistence in aquatic environments (fishing, hunting, gathering, and manufacture) in Michoacán from ca. a.d. 1540 to the present. First, I present an ethnohistorical account of aquatic landscapes and resources based on the major written sources from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Second, I discuss the extant ethnographic information about subsistence activities in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin (Michoacán) during the twentieth century. Finally, I discuss the archaeological implications of all the information presented here, through an ethnoarchaeological analysis of the subsistence strategies and the material culture associated with the aquatic lifeway in the study area. The main goal of this study is to provide bridging arguments for the reconstruction and interpretation (through analogy) of the archaeological assemblages associated with production and consumption activities in aquatic landscapes within the Tarascan region and elsewhere in Mesoamerica.

The Kaan (“Snake”) kings, a powerful political entity in the Classic Maya Lowlands, were housed in the Early Classic period at Dzibanche, and they moved their capital to Calakmul by the year a.d. 642 (Helmke and Awe 2016; Martin 2020:138–139). Their network of alliance and intermarriage radiated southward, and Waka's early eighth-century queen, Lady K'abel, was from the Kaan bloodline and married in to the Wak lineage, exemplifying the close connection between the two political entities. The discovery of Stela 44 in tunneling efforts in M13-1, the city's important ritual center, allows us to trace political ties between the Kaan and Wak kings to significantly earlier than previously known, which seem to begin around the mid-sixth century. This monument provides insight into three converging lines of evidence supporting the profound alliance these elites had built: first, the accession of a Wak king, Wa'oom Uch'ab Ahk, under the supervision of the Kaan king K'ahk’ Ti’ Ch'ich’; second, the father of the new king, Chak Tok Ich'aak, seems to be connected to La Corona, another early Kaan ally; and third, the mother of Wa'oom Uch'ab Ahk, Ix Ikoom, is also connected to La Corona and the broader Kaan hegemony through her title ix sak wahyis.

The Kaanuˀl dynasty ruled a hegemonic state with political influence over much of the Classic Maya Lowlands between a.d. 520 and 751. The present article introduces the subject for a special section of the journal, which refocuses attention on the archaeological zone of Dzibanche in southern Quintana Roo, Mexico, where new data are emerging about the origins of the Kaanuˀl dynasty, its urban organization, and its connections to neighboring centers. In this article, we present new data from a recent lidar survey as well as from previous work by Enrique Nalda's Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) project to reevaluate Dzibanche's characteristics vis-à-vis its rise as a kingdom with far-reaching political influence. We complement these archaeological data with epigraphic information from new monuments and reanalysis of existing ones based on 3D scanning to update the list of Dzibanche rulers. We then revisit the chronology of Dzibanche's royal burials proposing correlations with known Early Classic Kaanuˀl rulers. Overall, the contributions to this special section present new perspectives on the Kaanuˀl's rise to power and its relationship with distant vassals in the crucial period of expansion into northern Peten, leading to the defeat of Tikal and eventually to its transition to a new dynastic seat at Calakmul in the a.d. 630s.