Este artículo examina la organización política de la ciudad prehispánica de Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, México, durante el reinado de K'ak' Upakal K'inich K'awil en la segunda mitad del siglo IX dC. Las interpretaciones políticas y territoriales que presentamos se basan en un entramado cronológico en el que entendemos los sectores del Chichén Itzá “Maya” y el Chichén Itzá “Tolteca” como dos periodos diferentes y secuenciales. Examinamos los cambios que aparecen en el período Clásico terminal, tales como las nuevas características no Mayas, el uso de glifos y nombres de origen foráneo, así como dioses de las Tierras Altas de México y nuevos tipos de edificios. En esta contribución también mostramos cómo el sistema interno de organización social cambió de un modelo de monarquía de un rey absoluto, identificado con la divinidad, a un tipo de gobierno más estructurado e incluyente, con mayor poder de la nobleza. Finalmente, proponemos un patrón de asentamiento que refleja esta nueva organización sociopolítica.

This paper examines an eighteenth-century roof in Chinchero, Peru to show the critical role played by roofs in Andean communities across time. Roofs can reveal identity constructions, continuation of traditions, adaptations to new influences, and relationships to local environments and the sacred. We present a discussion of the importance of roofs in architectural history, the critical role played by roofs in Inca architecture, and a description of the colonial period roof in Chinchero, along with its facture, dates of construction, botanical identification, and the environmental zones from where these items could have been gathered.

The site of Izapa, though famous for its unique “Izapan” style monuments, has lagged behind many other Mesoamerican centers in archaeological research. As revisions of important Mesoamerican chronologies are underway, Inomata and colleagues (2014) have questioned whether monument production at Izapa has been misplaced chronologically. This article applies new data from the Izapa Household Archaeology Project to assess Inomata and colleagues’ (2014) proposal for a shift in the chronology at Izapa. It specifically assesses the chronology for the Formative to Classic period transition at Izapa, from 100 BC to AD 400, with new excavation data, ceramic cross-dating, and Bayesian modeling of AMS dates from the southern periphery of the site. These data generally support the chronology developed by Gareth Lowe following the 1960s excavations at the site, though a temporal overlap appears possible for the Terminal Formative Hato and Itstapa ceramic complexes. Although results do not support Inomata and colleagues’ proposal for a shift in the Izapa chronology, ceramic cross-ties proposed between the Hato phase at Izapa and the Verbena phase at Kaminaljuyu support Inomata and colleagues’ (2014) revision for the chronology of Kaminaljuyu.

Recently, Inomata and colleagues (2014) proposed a revision to Shook and Popenoe de Hatch's (1999) chronology of Kaminaljuyu, recommending a new chronology based on detailed Bayesian analysis of the calibrated dates. In this article, I present data suggesting that Inomata and colleagues' proposed chronology should be viewed with caution, especially with regard to the apogee of Kaminaljuyu, the Verbena and Arenal phases. Furthermore, the impact of their revised chronology is overstated because the model of highland-to-lowland diffusion that they attack has long been moribund.

This study uses stable carbon δ13C and oxygen δ18O isotope compositions data to assess the extent to which diet breadths of northwestern Guyana changed during the Holocene. We analyzed human bone and enamel remains from seven shell mound sites dating between 7500 and 2600 BP. Our analyses demonstrate some constancy in C3 plant availability during the past several thousand years, though we note increasing reliance on such plants beginning in the Early Holocene. We also document warming intervals during the Early Holocene (Early Archaic) that appear to correlate with dry periods known elsewhere in the central Amazon during this period.

The Las Cuevas Canyon at Los Toldos locality (Santa Cruz, Argentina) has played a prominent and controversial role in the debate about the peopling of America. In spite of the high concentration of paintings in Los Toldos, its rock art has not been included as a significant variable in the discussion. This work introduces original information from the systematic study of six archaeological sites at the Las Cuevas Canyon with the aim of laying the foundations for a comparative study at local and regional scales. For this purpose, aspects such as the distribution of motifs, the superimpositions, and the size of the hand stencils are evaluated. The results shed light on the practices of different social actors in the canyon, and allow us to propose a sequence of rock art production. The discussion is contextualized within the regional archaeological scholarship of southern Patagonia.

Avifaunal remains from archaeological sites have a largely unrecognized explanatory potential. Archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic records have shown that, especially in Mesoamerica, birds and their products have served a wide range of utilitarian, decorative, and symbolic purposes. Despite their ability to inform research on many aspects of prehistoric life, avifaunal remains from archaeological contexts remain under-studied. This paper demonstrates how a holistic approach to their analysis—one that explores several types of human-bird interaction—can move beyond studies of subsistence. A previously reported and newly updated avifaunal collection was reanalyzed to shed light on the relationship between the many uses of birds and the establishment of hereditary inequality at Paso de la Amada, an Early Formative period ceremonial center on the Pacific coast of Chiapas, Mexico. Results indicate that Early Formative people used birds as a source of food, feathers, and bone, and that the ritual use of birds was an important component of status display. Even at this early date, birds were symbolically valuable and played a role in ritual performance, suggesting that their later significance in Mesoamerican ritual, religion, and iconography has an antecedent beginning no later than 1700 BC.

Los festines fueron una práctica común y recurrente en los Andes Centrales durante la época prehispánica. Sin embargo, no existe un consenso sobre los criterios utilizados en la caracterización arqueológica de estos eventos. En este artículo revaluamos las evidencias del Repositorio de Ofrendas 1 de Sipán, un sitio Mochica (siglos tres y cuatro dC) ubicado en el valle de Lambayeque, a través del empleo de una variable cuantitativa llamada “peso de carne disponible”. Asociado a la tumba del Señor de Sipán, este depósito contiene centenas de ofrendas de prestigio, pero también miles de restos de fauna. El análisis de estos últimos proporciona nuevas perspectivas sobre la comida funeraria dada en homenaje a este alto dignatario después de su entierro. El uso de la variable mencionada permite evaluar la magnitud de esta comida y muestra la importancia de definir criterios metodológicos fiables para seguir investigando los festines, eventos que constituyen una de las bases de las relaciones sociales y políticas de las sociedades prehispánicas.

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo comparar la información sobre la subsistencia de los Shelk'nam-Haush de Tierra del Fuego proveniente de dos tipos de registros: el arqueológico y el escrito (fuentes histórico-etnográficas). Estos registros abarcan desde los inicios del contacto con poblaciones europeas (siglo dieciséis) hasta la ocupación efectiva del espacio por parte de los Estados nación argentino y chileno (fin de siglo diecinueve y principios del veinte). Se analizaron 58 fuentes escritas por 41 autores desde 1580, que dieron como resultado 307 citas que forman un registro escrito promediado sobre la subsistencia de los Shelk'nam-Haush. El registro arqueológico contemporáneo a dicho período comprende 21 sitios adscribibles a momentos postcontacto. Los resultados muestran: a) una representación similar de los taxones faunísticos de rendimiento energético alto y medio en ambos registros; b) una baja representación de taxones faunísticos de menor rendimiento energético; c) una moderada representación de estos últimos en el registro escrito. La información escrita provee además datos de baja visibilidad arqueológica tales como el tipo de actividades de captura y la división del trabajo, lo que genera una visión más completa de la subsistencia de estos cazadores-recolectores fueguinos. En conjunto, se destaca que la metodología de trabajo propuesta, que combina de manera sistemática datos de dos tipos de registros, permite evaluar en qué medida estos se corroboran, completan o contradicen, generando nueva información para entender el comportamiento de los cazadores-recolectores durante el período postcontacto.

In this article, we couple Peircean semiotic theory with Laban movement analysis (LMA) to interpret scenes of Classic period Maya dance. We focus primarily on depictions found on polychrome ceramics that feature the dances of the Maize God and contrast them with those featuring the wahy creatures that inhabit the underworld. We interpret their inner emotional states based on their postural and gestural vocabularies using LMA, developed for that very purpose. The body can be considered a semiotic sign, and is therefore capable of simultaneously conveying iconic, symbolic, and indexical meanings. Maya dance has typically been interpreted at the iconic or symbolic levels, which reveal its mimetic or representational qualities. We explore the indexical qualities of the bodies of the dancers, and propose that shifting our attention to the indicative mode enables us to gain yet more insight into their embodied states.

The last 20 years have seen a great increase in the awareness of and interest in ancient Maya graffiti. Such graffiti have recently been rediscovered at the site of Plan de Ayutla, in the Lacanjá river basin of Chiapas, and add to the known Maya corpus. The Plan de Ayutla graffiti exhibit a diversity similar to that found at other Maya sites, including production by specialists as well as non-specialists, and themes ranging from daily activities to ceremonial events.

Stemp et al. (2016) published data on 81 preceramic (Archaic) points from Belize, Central America. In this comment, we report four more chipped chert bifaces recently recovered in Belize (Figure 1). Based on metrics (Table 1), technology, and style, three are classified as Lowe and one as a Sawmill point (Kelly 1993; Lohse et al. 2006; Stemp et al. 2016).

Sload (2015) disregards stratigraphic data from the Sun Pyramid and misinterprets our radiocarbon dates that re-evaluates Teotihuacan ceramic chronology.

Contrary to Sugiyama et al., radiocarbon dates from the Sun Pyramid do not mean that the Pyramid was constructed later than current estimates, nor that the Teotihuacan ceramic chronology should be changed.

Two recent articles (Sload 2015; Sugiyama et al. 2013) and the resulting exchange raise important questions about the dating of Teotihuacan. I will not reinterpret other scholars’ excavations or their understandings of contexts, or take a position in this fruitful debate. Instead, my purpose is to draw the attention of readers of the journal who do not work at Teotihuacan to the broader implications for the Maya region and Mesoamerica.