scholarly journals INTRODUCTION

2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
William R. Fowler
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Maya Civilization ◽  
Maya Area

In this issue's Special Section we present the first of a two-part series on studies of ancient climate change in the Maya area. Since the time of Ellsworth Huntington (1917, 1924) and Karl Sapper (1931), Mesoamericanists and Mayanists in particular have been aware of the possibility that climate change played a role in the fortunes of ancient Maya civilization.

Introduction

2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-265
Author(s):  
William R. Fowler ◽  
Molly Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Climatological Data ◽  
Global Correlation ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Maya Area ◽  
The Impact

In this issue's Special Section we offer the second part of a group of studies dealing with the impact of climate change on ancient Maya civilization. As mentioned in the Introduction to the first part (Fowler 2002), Mayanists have been aware of the possible effects of climatic factors on Maya culture since the early decades of last century. At first, comments on the effects of climate change in the Maya area were largely speculative. By the 1980s such work became increasingly compelling and sophisticated, including correlations of worldwide glacial, palynological, and other climatological data, as reflected in several publications (Dahlin 1983; Folan et al. 1983; Gunn and Adams 1981). Soon after, Lewis Messenger provided a broad global correlation with specific reference to archaeological sequences in Mesoamerica and the Maya area (Messenger 1990). Perhaps it would be fair to say that Maya paleoclimatological studies may have peaked with the massive work of Richardson Gill (2000), which has attracted much critical attention. David Webster (2002:241–247), for example, praises the book for its directness and clarity of purpose but expresses skepticism about the climatological bias and stresses that much more research is needed.

scholarly journals INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL SECTION: BORDERS, FRONTIERS, AND BOUNDARIES IN THE MAYA WORLD: CONCEPTS AND THEORY

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Halperin ◽  
Carolyn Freiwald ◽  
Gyles Iannone
Keyword(s):  
Special Section ◽  
Economic Networks ◽  
Maya Area ◽  
Cultural Connections ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThe Maya area has long been characterized as a mosaic of polities large and small, with cultural connections, linguistic dialects, ethnicities, and economic networks that shifted, expanded, and contracted over time. In this paper, we examine different ways of constructing boundaries. From physical demarcations in the landscape to habitual practices of interaction and affiliation, the lines that tied and divided were both unstable and multiple. We draw on definitions and theories from anthropology, history, and geography to review the concepts of borders, frontiers, and boundaries and their implications for the Maya area over the long term.

INTRODUCTION

2004 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-62
Author(s):  
William R. Fowler ◽  
Jon B. Hageman
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Settlement Studies

This issue's Special Section presents recent archaeological research and interpretive perspectives on ancient Maya social organization. This topic has received increasing archaeological attention in recent years, with inferences drawn primarily from settlement studies, excavation data from households, and mortuary patterns complemented by evidence from ethnohistoric sources and ethnographic data and interpretations (Fash 1994:187–188, 190–192).

Swamps, canals, and the locations of ancient Maya cities

Antiquity ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 54 (212) ◽  
pp. 206-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. E. W. Adams
Keyword(s):  
Radar Data ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Intensive Agriculture ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Rank Ordering ◽  
Topographic Information ◽  
Maya Civilization ◽  
Mapping Discovery

The recent radar mapping discovery of widely distributed patterns of intensive agriculture in the southern Maya lowlands provides new perspectives on classic Maya civilization. Swamps seem to have been drained, modified, and intensively cultivated in a large number of zones. The largest sites of Maya civilization are located on the edges of swamps. By combining radar data with topographic information, it is possible to suggest the reasons for the choice of urban locations. With the addition of patterns elicited from rank-ordering of Maya cities, it is also possible to suggest more accurate means of defining Classic period Maya polities.

3. The divine king

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-42
Author(s):  
Matthew Restall ◽  
Amara Solari
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Regional Variations ◽  
Short Biography ◽  
Maya Area

“The divine king” begins with a short biography of the Maya k’uhul ajaw (supreme lord or king) known as 18-Rabbit. During the Classic period, rulers were viewed as divine kings or queens, like 18-Rabbit and Lady K’abel (“Waterlily-Hand”). The ancient Maya used a combination of a cyclical calendar and a linear calendar called the “Long Count.” The Maya area experienced regular intrusions from imperial Teotihuacan, often leading to economic and diplomatic partnerships. Most Mayas experienced war in their lifetimes. The “Collapse” at the end of the Classic period could more accurately be called a transition, with major regional variations. Some well-known Maya sites flourished after the Collapse.

CLIMATE-CHANGE STUDIES IN THE MAYA AREA

2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel D. Gunn ◽  
Ray T. Matheny ◽  
William J. Folan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Annual Meeting ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Change Models ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cultural Paradigms ◽  
Physical Forces ◽  
Maya Area

The series of papers on climate change published in this issue are the result of the symposium “Environmental Change in Mesoamerica: Physical Forces and Cultural Paradigms in the Preclassic to Postclassic,” held at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in March 2000 in Philadelphia. The authors bring their expertise in paleoclimatological studies to bear on the Maya Lowlands and Highlands from the beginning of the Holocene to the Postclassic and modern times. The studies reveal that climate has changed during the past 4,000 years to a considerable degree that correlates in a reasonable way with archaeological periodizations. Several climate-change models are presented as an effort to understand better past cultural and natural events.

scholarly journals INTRODUCTION

2001 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-259
Author(s):  
William R. Fowler
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Architectural Features ◽  
The Status ◽  
Road Systems

This issue's special section presents a series of papers focusing on recent research on ancient Maya causeways, or sacbeob (“white roads”—a reference to their gleaming, plastered surfaces). Often relegated to the status of “minor architectural features,” even a casual perusal of the literature quickly convinces one that sacbeob were a major feature of the ancient Maya landscape. Throughout the Maya lowlands from at least the Late Preclassic onward, these elevated roads facilitated internal and external transportation within and between Maya centers for a combination of economic, political, social, and ritual purposes. Constructed as an organic element of the built environment, road systems grew in size and expanded in complexity as the Maya centers themselves did (Andrews 1975:89, 323, 428).

scholarly journals How Maya Archaeologists Discovered the 99% Through the Study of Settlement Patterns

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy A. Sabloff
Keyword(s):  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Settlement Pattern ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Single Group ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Maya Archaeology ◽  
Maya Civilization ◽  
The Many

This article presents an autobiographical perspective on the changing nature of Maya archaeology, focusing on the role of settlement pattern studies in illuminating the lives of commoners as well as on the traditional emphasis on the ruling elite. Advances in understanding the nature of nonelite peoples in ancient Maya society are discussed, as are the many current gaps in scholarly understandings of pre-Columbian Maya civilization, especially with regard to the diversity of ancient “commoners” and the difficulty in analyzing them as a single group.

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