Cacao Residues in Ancient Maya Vessels from Rio Azul, Guatemala

1990 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 138-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant D. Hall ◽  
Stanley M. Tarka ◽  
W. Jeffrey Hurst ◽  
David Stuart ◽  
Richard E. W. Adams
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
New Method ◽  
Chemical Analyses ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Clear Indication ◽  
Ceramic Vessels ◽  
Early Classic Period

Results of chemical analyses on residues collected from ceramic vessels found in an Early Classic period Maya tomb revealed that certain of the residues contained theobromine and caffeine, a clear indication that the corresponding vessels once contained cacao in some form. One of the vessels yielding cacao residues is decorated with hieroglyphs, two of which we believe have the phonetic values for the word “cacao” in the Mayan language. These findings are significant for three reasons: (1) a new method for recognizing ancient cacao use is demonstrated, (2) a novel way of verifying glyph interpretations is presented, and (3) data are generated that indicate what contents certain Maya vessels actually held, thus permitting useful functional interpretations.

Sculpture in the ancient Maya plaza: the early classic period

1999 ◽  
Vol 37 (03) ◽  
pp. 37-1631-37-1631
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Early Classic Period

An Early Classic Center in the Puuc Region

1998 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Smyth ◽  
José Ligorred Perramon ◽  
David Ortegón Zapata ◽  
Pat Farrell
Keyword(s):  
Surface Soil ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
New Information ◽  
Site Survey ◽  
Important Center ◽  
Early Classic Period ◽  
Rare Opportunity ◽  
Activity Areas

AbstractA comprehensive site survey and excavation program took place in 1995 and 1996 at the Maya center of Chac II (Chac) located within the Puuc hills region of Yucatan, Mexico. This work presents a body of evidence in support of the idea that Chac was an important center beginning in the Early Classic period (a.d. 300–600) that experienced significant foreign contacts. In addition, multifaceted data from surface, soil, architectural, and excavated contexts are addressing major questions pertaining to architectural and ceramic chronologies, the founding of the Puuc stoneworking tradition, site activity areas, and patterns of land use. Furthermore, dating indicates that Chac predated Sayil and that the two sites have a close geographical relationship. Also, terrace agriculture appears to have been widespread at Chac, contrasting greatly with Sayil where intensive gardening was widely practiced. In light of the new information from Chac, we argue that the traditional models of Puuc origins are inadequate. Investigations at a major Early Classic site in the heart of the Puuc region suggests that the region's rise was indigenous coupled with external ties to foreign groups reaching to central Mexico. The site of Chac is thus taking on strategic importance for understanding the origins of Puuc civilization, providing a rare opportunity to study a Maya center that was on the brink of urbanism in one of the most urban ancient Maya areas. These new data are helping to elucidate the nature of Maya urbanism in the Puuc region and establish the kinds of cultural links that existed between the northern Maya Lowlands and the rest of Mesoamerica during the Classic period.

Social structural consequences of population growth

1981 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-122
Author(s):  
R. E. W. Adams
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
City Size ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Rate Of Development ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
Political Units ◽  
Early Classic Period

SummaryEstimates from archaeological data of the numbers in the elite classes, non-elite occupational specialists, density of population, city size, and size of political units in the ancient Maya civilization suggest that there was a quantum shift in rate of development in the Early Classic period, associated with intensification of agriculture, and that the social structure approximated to a generalized feudal pattern.

Ancient Maya Queenship

2020 ◽  
pp. 196-217
Author(s):  
Olivia C. Navarro-Farr ◽  
Keith Eppich ◽  
David A. Freidel ◽  
Griselda Pérez Robles
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Political Network ◽  
Monumental Sculpture ◽  
Early Classic Period ◽  
The City

Olivia Navarro-Farr and colleagues explore another example of how the Snake Kings manipulated the political landscape of the Classic period with a fascinating case study in ancient Maya queenship at Waka’ in Chapter 10. Waka’ was first embroiled by the geopolitics of the lowlands during the Teotihuacan entrada of AD 378, after which the kingdom was apparently incorporated into the New Order’s political network based at Tikal. Kaanul subsequently brought Waka’ into its hegemony near the end of the Early Classic period with the marriage of the first of at least three royal Kaanul women to kings of Waka’. Beyond simply telling this story, Chapter 10 explores monumentality in two ways. First, Waka’ is presented as a contested node on the vast political and economic network of the Classic period, its importance evident in its role in the entrada, the deliberate and long-term strategy to integrate it into the Kaanul hegemony through royal marriage, and Tikal’s Late Classic star war conquest of Waka’ in AD 743. Second, Navarro-Farr and colleagues examine how, through reverential manipulation of monumental sculpture and architecture, the occupants of Waka’ continued to honor the great Kaanul queens for over a century following the failure of institutional kingship at the city.

scholarly journals Drought, agricultural adaptation, and sociopolitical collapse in the Maya Lowlands

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (18) ◽  
pp. 5607-5612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter M. J. Douglas ◽  
Mark Pagani ◽  
Marcello A. Canuto ◽  
Mark Brenner ◽  
David A. Hodell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Isotope ◽  
Sediment Cores ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Agricultural Adaptation ◽  
Terminal Classic ◽  
Paleoclimate Records ◽  
Early Classic Period ◽  
Plant Wax ◽  
Terminal Classic Period

Paleoclimate records indicate a series of severe droughts was associated with societal collapse of the Classic Maya during the Terminal Classic period (∼800–950 C.E.). Evidence for drought largely derives from the drier, less populated northern Maya Lowlands but does not explain more pronounced and earlier societal disruption in the relatively humid southern Maya Lowlands. Here we apply hydrogen and carbon isotope compositions of plant wax lipids in two lake sediment cores to assess changes in water availability and land use in both the northern and southern Maya lowlands. We show that relatively more intense drying occurred in the southern lowlands than in the northern lowlands during the Terminal Classic period, consistent with earlier and more persistent societal decline in the south. Our results also indicate a period of substantial drying in the southern Maya Lowlands from ∼200 C.E. to 500 C.E., during the Terminal Preclassic and Early Classic periods. Plant wax carbon isotope records indicate a decline in C4 plants in both lake catchments during the Early Classic period, interpreted to reflect a shift from extensive agriculture to intensive, water-conservative maize cultivation that was motivated by a drying climate. Our results imply that agricultural adaptations developed in response to earlier droughts were initially successful, but failed under the more severe droughts of the Terminal Classic period.

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.

Ecology and Ritual: Water Management and the Maya

1998 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vernon L. Scarborough
Keyword(s):  
High Performance ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Water Source ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Town Planning ◽  
Total Power ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Land Resources ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Centralize Control

How the ancient Maya of the central Yucatecan Lowlands managed their water and land resources remains poorly known, although crucial to an understanding of ancient political economy. Recent archival research and field data suggest the widespread use of artificially altered, natural depressions for the collection and containment of water, both for potable consumption and agricultural ends. During the Classic period (A. D. 250-900) several of the principal cities in the Maya area constructed their largest architecture and monuments at the summit of hills and ridges. Associated with these elevated centers—”water mountains”—were sizable, life-sustaining reservoirs quarried into their summits. The effect of this town-planning design was the centralization of a primary and fundamental resource. Although elite managers controlled the water source, other decentralizing forces prevented anything similar to Wittfogel's “total power.” However, by ritually appropriating the everyday and mundane activities associated with water by the sustaining population, elites used high-performance water ritual as manifest in the iconography to further centralize control. The significance of modifying the urban landscape in the partial image of the ordinary water hole defines the extraordinary in Maya ritual.

scholarly journals The discovery of an ancient Maya causeway system in the southern Maya Mountains of Belize

Antiquity ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 91 (357) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc A. Abramiuk
Keyword(s):  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Ancient Maya ◽  
Remote Location ◽  
Maya Mountains

The archaeological site of Quebrada de Oro, southern Belize, is one of four ancient Maya settlement sites, mainly dating to the Classic period (AD 250–900), that are situated in the Bladen Branch drainage of the southern Maya Mountains proper. This remote location has long been taken to imply that the region was a political backwater, but the recent discovery of an ancient Maya causeway system associated with Quebrada de Oro—the first significant example to be documented in this area—sheds new light on this group of Maya sites (Figure 1).

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