BRIQUETAGE AND BRINE: LIVING AND WORKING AT THE CLASSIC MAYA SALT WORKS OF EK WAY NAL, BELIZE

Systematic flotation survey and spatial analysis of artifacts at the submerged salt work of Ek Way Nal reveal evidence of a residence, salt kitchens, and additional activities. Ek Way Nal is one of 110 salt works associated with a Late to Terminal Classic (A.D. 600–900) salt industry known as the Paynes Creek Salt Works. Wooden posts that form the walls of 10 buildings are remarkably preserved in a peat bog below the sea floor providing an opportunity to examine surface artifacts in relation to buildings. Numerous salt kitchens have been located at the Paynes Creek Salt Works by evidence of abundant briquetage—pottery associated with boiling brine over fires to make salt. As one of the largest salt works with 10 buildings, there is an opportunity to examine variability in building use. Systematic flotation survey over the site and flagging and mapping individual artifacts and posts provide evidence that the Ek Way Nal salt makers had a residence near the salt kitchens, along with evidence of salting fish for subsistence or surplus household production. The results are compared with ethnographic evidence from Sacapulas and other salt works.

REDUCING RISK: MAYA LITHIC PRODUCTION AND ECONOMIC DIVERSIFICATION AT CALLAR CREEK QUARRY, BELIZE

The role of craft producers in past economies provides information that helps contextualize the role of economies in broader sociopolitical systems. Through this examination of lowland Maya lithic producers in the Late to Terminal Classic period (a.d. 600–890), this article explores the centrality of economic activities in integrating craft producers into larger regional political communities and simultaneously buffering them against regional political conflicts. Through a study of lithic extraction and production at Callar Creek Quarry, Belize, this article examines the relevance of crafting activities in the minimization of economic uncertainty. These data indicate that lithic reduction served to diversify economic activities for lithic producers, and thus minimized economic risk. The use of economic activity to minimize risk provides evidence for the continuity of small-scale householders. This illustrates the independence of economic activities from political frameworks, and suggests that economic diversification serves as a critical stabilizing force for rural Classic-period Maya residents.

The Difference a Marketplace Makes

Chapter 22 examines Classic Maya marketplace exchange from the perspective of the marketplace facility, which can differ or compliment from that which is learned from household-based studies of consumption patterns. Presented as a case study is the Late to Terminal Classic Maya marketplace in the urban center of Buenavista del Cayo where chert and limestone bifaces, obsidian blades, organics, and perhaps ceramics were available for exchange. Insights gained are that limestone tools were included as marketplace trade goods and that the vendors of the different stone stools were also the producers. The discovery of clay-covered wooden stalls that divided activity areas in the facility speaks to the level of commitment to this venture. The presence of a marketplace in the site’s architectural center was likely at the favor of or planned by rulers who would have been positioned to extract from it economic or social capital.

Salt and marine products in the Classic Maya economy from use-wear study of stone tools

Microscopic study of the edges of Late to Terminal Classic Maya (AD 600–900) chert stone tools from the Paynes Creek Salt Works, Belize, indicates most tools were used for cutting fish or meat or working hide, which was unexpected, given the virtual absence of fish or other animal remains at this large salt-production complex. Use-wear study shows that a minority of stone tools have edge-wear from woodworking. Our study suggests that salting fish was a significant activity at the salt works, which corresponds to Roman, Chinese, and other East Asian civilizations, where salt and salted fish were critical components of food storage, trade, and state finance. Based on analogy with modern Maya salt producers at Sacapulas, Guatemala, we provide estimates of the amounts of salt and salted fish produced at the Paynes Creek Salt Works and the implications for the Classic Maya economy. Salt cakes and salted fish were preserved commodities that could be stored and traded in the marketplace.

SITES OF MEMORY IN THE MAKING: POLITICAL STRATEGIZING IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND DECONSTRUCTION OF PLACE IN LATE TO TERMINAL CLASSIC SOUTHEASTERN MESOAMERICA

Archaeological spaces can be viewed as material manifestations of human drama—sites for the production, expression, and manipulation of social life, power, and history. By viewing such spaces as stages for the enactment of processes of social memory, we may further enrich considerations of the interplay of materiality and history. Here I address the insights archaeologists may gain from engaging with theories of social memory by exploring their application to the analysis of settlements occupied during the Late to Terminal Classic period transition (a.d. 650–900) in pre-Columbian southeastern Mesoamerica. I also consider their relevance to community initiatives engaged by archaeologists today. Ultimately, I argue that processes of making, altering, and remaking place are one among many ways that memory may have served as a tool for political strategies and discourses about power.

PERFORMING POWER

Archaeological research can draw on material remains to understand the ways that individuals may have expressed their identities in pursuit of specific goals. Here ritual performances in ancient Mesoamerica are considered for their role in shaping identities deployed to gain social and political power. The Late to Terminal Classic period (a.d. 650–960) site of Las Canoas, Honduras, is offered as a case study. In particular, the monumental Main Plaza Group at Las Canoas is examined as a spatial setting for the performance of rituals involving the use of incense burners and ceramic anthropomorphic figurines. These performances are argued to have facilitated the efforts of certain members of the community to take advantage of shifting political and economic alliances in the region and make a bid for power. Ultimately, however, their efforts to establish spiritual and political leadership did not endure.

CELEBRATING PLACE THROUGH LUXURY CRAFT PRODUCTION

This paper explores the production of Late to Terminal Classic Ulua marble vases (ca. 600/650–800/850a.d.), the hallmark luxury good from the lower Ulua Valley of northwestern Honduras. Unlike other areas of the greater Maya world, no one center appears to have held political sway in the valley. Yet marble-vase production at Travesia indicates that, through the patronization of this specific artifact, the site was able to celebrate its identity at home as well as abroad. Here the long-term production of the vases is investigated through a detailed analysis of stylistic groups and corresponding stable-isotope signatures from vases and potential procurement zones. The stylistic data suggest centralized production, which is confirmed through chemical signatures of vases and one specific procurement site. We argue that longstanding traditions of carving vases from marble in the Ulua Valley guided Travesian artisans in their procurement choices. The stylistic and chemical data augment settlement and ceramic data to situate vase production in its local social and political environment. In this case, luxury production corresponds not to a rise in central political authority but, rather, to a centrally located social center. The prestige granted to these luxury vases, then, stems from local histories of social and political networks that linked, rather than fragmented, communities. The results indicate that studies of material-cultural remains should consider the relationships between distinctive local social relations and the organization of craft production as integrative, not separate, processes.