Creating the Cosmos, Reifying Power: A Zooarchaeological Investigation of Corporal Animal Forms in the Copan Valley

Throughout Mesoamerica, corporal animal forms (a term encompassing living animals, animal-derived by-products and artifacts made from animal bodies) have long played essential roles in state-level ritualized activities. This paper focuses on three zooarchaeological assemblages from the Classic Period Maya kingdom of Copan, Honduras (ad 426–822), to describe how corporal animal forms were implemented to mediate power, express social identities and encapsulate contemporary socio-political circumstances. Two of these fundamental assemblages relate to world-creation myths associated with the Starry Deer-Crocodile, a mythological entity prominent in both contexts which was materialized into the ritual arena through a formalized process of commingling and translating animal body elements. The third context was deposited some three centuries later during the reign of Yax Pasaj, the last ruler of the Copan dynasty. This assemblage, extravagant with powerful felids conjuring the authority of the royal dynasty, reflects a period of acute socio-political struggle faced by the Copan dynasty. Detailed zooarchaeological analysis of corporal animal forms at Copan facilitates a more comprehensive reconstruction of some of the socio-political power negotiations in play.

A SEVENTH-CENTURY INSCRIBED MINIATURE FLASK FROM COPAN FOUND AT TAZUMAL, EL SALVADOR

Late Classic interaction between Copan and western El Salvador has been archaeologically recognized in prestige items, monumental influences, and the common use of Copador ceramics. An inscribed flask excavated in 1952 in the main pyramid at Tazumal, El Salvador provides historical evidence for these ties. The flask is dedicated as the property of K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil (Copan Ruler 12), a long-lived seventh-century ruler who presided over the expansion of Copan's influence far outside of the Copan valley. The flask is the only hieroglyphic text from El Salvador naming a recognizable individual or that can be dated to an absolute calendrical span, one of only a few miniature Classic Maya vessels tagged with an individual's name, and the only one naming an ajaw (lord). The vessel's text, iconography, and context brings the political relationship between Copan and western El Salvador into sharper focus.

CLASSIC MAYA WARFARE AND WEAPONS: Spear, dart, and arrow points of Aguateca and Copan

To provide some insights into the nature and role of warfare in the rise, development, and decline of Classic Maya civilization, this article discusses spear, dart, and arrow points used by the Classic Maya elites at the rapidly abandoned fortified city of Aguateca, Guatemala, and their temporal and spatial distribution patterns in and around Copan, Honduras. Both the royal family and elite scribes/artists at Aguateca used spear and dart points for intergroup human conflict as well as for artistic and craft production under enemy threat. An important implication is that the ruler and elite scribes/artists were also warriors. The unusually high concentrations of identifiable weaponry at the Early Classic hilltop center of Cerro de las Mesas as well as the Acropolis and other Late Classic locations in the Copan Valley, along with other lines of evidence, indicate that warfare was critical in the development and downfall of Classic Maya civilization at Copan.

MULTISCALAR MODEL OF RURAL HOUSEHOLDS AND COMMUNITIES IN LATE CLASSIC COPAN MAYA SOCIETY

A variety of models contribute to our understanding of Classic Maya sociopolitical structure. Few, however, consider the variability that existed within Maya systems, and the temporal and spatial scales of analysis have often been limited, especially with respect to the commoner segment of society. One model that has focused attention on this component of the Maya is thesian otot, described by Charles Wisdom (1940The Chorti Indians of Guatemala. University of Chicago Press) and introduced for the Copan Maya by William Fash (1983 Deducing Social Organization from Classic Maya Settlement Patterns: A Case Study from the Copan Valley. InCivilization in the Ancient Americas: Essays in Honor of Gordon R. Willey. University of New Mexico Press and Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University). Based on data from a 135-km2regional settlement survey and excavations of the Copan Valley in Honduras, it is argued that this model, in conjunction with other, broader models of Classic Maya society, offers a useful perspective from which to construct a multiscalar model of ancient Copan social organization. The variability amongsian otot, particularly in terms of economic production, is considered. The ceramic data from Copan suggest that ceramic production among commoner units was communal, and the possibility for community cooperatives is raised. Finally, the dynamic scale and productive relations among the commoners are considered in light of broader sociopolitical changes in the processual history of the Copan polity. It is concluded that the intersection of social, political, and economic institutional frameworks needs to be more comprehensively investigated from varied scales, both temporal and settlement, to appreciate fully the diversity of Maya social organization during the Late Classic/Terminal Classic transition.

LATE HOLOCENE FIRE AND AGRICULTURE IN THE COPAN VALLEY, HONDURAS

Pollen and charcoal analysis of a 5.3-m sediment core from Aguada Petapilla, a peat bog, provides evidence of late Holocene vegetation and fire history in the Copan Valley, Honduras. Low concentration and preservation problems characterized the pollen flora, but there are taxa present indicative of major agricultural trends, including Zea mays. Microscopic charcoal fragments are well represented and record continued burning in the region since the lowest level of the core (5700 B.P. [3750 B.C.]). Presence of Zea indicates that maize farming was initiated by as early as 2300 B.C. Three peaks in charcoal-fragment frequencies occur in periods centered approximately at 900 B.C., 400 B.C., and A.D. 600. Fires in this relatively dry region of the southern Maya Lowlands (whose mean annual rainfall is about 1,400 mm) could have resulted from natural forest fires or human agricultural clearing at any time in the Holocene. This contrasts with wetter areas of tropical Central and South America (mean annual rainfall of about 2,500–4,000 mm) where significant climatic drying is required to ignite primary tropical forest.