World Prehistory: Class 18
Mesoamerica: Maya
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Copyright Bruce Owen 2000
- regional background
- Highlands and lowlands
- highlands along the southern spine or length of mesoamerica
- also less pronounced mountains in the southeast part of the Yucatan peninsula: the Maya mountains
- We will focus here on the "Southern lowland Maya"
- where the most spectacular developments occurred
- centered on an area called the Petén
- The south-central part of the Yucatan peninsula: the Petén
- about 300 masl (meters above sea level) (975 feet)
- not flat, but few features over 50 m (160 feet) high
- gentle folds or ranges of hills slope to the coast
- several rivers at margins
- central area is a closed basin
- with swamps and shallow lakes
- in many places, the water supply is so seasonal that you need to construct reservoirs to have water year-round
- to the north, limestone topography
- few surface rivers
- cenotes (natural deep sinkholes, vertical-sided, with water at the bottom)
- in most areas, water table is too low to reach by hand digging wells, so you almost have to live near a cenote
- climate
- fairly dry in the north (450 mm, 18 inches), dry forest and scrubland
- to very wet in the Petén (1800 mm, 71 inches), up to 3,800 mm (150 inches) at base of mountains; rain forest
- highly variable rainfall
- marked dry season
- shallow lakes dry up
- drinking water becomes a problem
- hot, tropical temperatures
- land is actually very variable
- interdigitating areas of permanently dry land and seasonally swamp or flooded land
- variable soils
- huge area without natural divisions (contrast to highland valleys separated by inhospitable mountains)
- 40 to 100 times the area of the valley of Oaxaca or the Basin of Mexico
- thus lots of interacting groups, never a single relatively isolated entity as in the highlands
- more possibilities for competition, conflict, boundary problems
- many communities of a similar size and nature, not just one (as at San José Mogote/Monte Alban) or two (Teotihuacan and Cuicuilco)
- subsistence
- far more varied than in highlands; over 200 crops used for food, craft material, etc.
- corn, beans and squash
- pumpkin, camote (a kind of sweet potato), tomato, chile
- nuts: ramon, cashew
- fruits: guava, papaya, many others
- Maya general cultural traits (slides)
- ceremonial centers w. pyramids, courts, "palaces"
- ball game, ball courts
- mural painting
- decorated ceramics
- priests/shamans, caves
- other traits will come out as we progress...
- Early Preclassic Period 2450-1150 BC
- contemporary with
- Pre-Olmec and Initial Olmec
- Rise of San Lorenzo, ceremonial centers, monuments
- Oaxaca Early Formative
- Rise of San José Mogote, early ceremonial architecture, economic specialization
- Teotihuacan Early Horizon
- possible initial appearance of one or two central sites
- pollen cores from lakes in the Petén show "human disturbance" and maize from the mid 2000s BC
- indications of sedentary farmers at least on the Pasión river during 1150-650 BC; this pattern was presumably developed in the preceding period, the Early Preclassic
- Cuello, in northern Belize
- occupied during most of the Preclassic
- structures with lime-plaster floors, post construction, hearths
- simple pottery forms, with painted decoration
- farmed maize, root crops
- hunted species that prefer disturbed areas, not deep forest
- trade
- jade and "greenstone" imported from at least 350 km away
- stone for manos and metates (grinding stones) from 150 km away
- almost no "Olmec" motifs or artifacts
- thought to be lots of similar, small settlements
- no centers or hierarchy
- linked by variable exchange and social ties
- a "net" of equivalent units
- Middle Preclassic Period 1150-300 BC
- contemporary with
- Intermediate and Terminal Olmec
- Decline of San Lorenzo, rise of La Venta, monuments, massive offerings
- Teotihuacan: Zacatenco and Ticoman Periods
- Rise of several large centers with public architecture
- All of the lowlands occupied
- immigration, or growth in place?
- All have similar ceramics (Mamom style)
- suggests widespread trade and/or social contacts
- or possibly rapid spread of population from a single source
- Late in this period, some public architecture appeared at Altar de Sacrificios; but this was exceptional for the Middle Preclassic
- it is a platform 4 m (13 feet) high, facing a plaza
- a neighboring site, Seibal, did not build public buildings until the next period
- numerous sites in Belize did not have public architecture yet
- nor did other future centers (Tikal, Uaxactún, Becan, Dzibilchaltún), which had only domestic occupations
- Stratification
- burials show little or no evidence of stratification
- trade
- jade from south
- now obsidian, too
- General comments
- Middle Preclassic Maya society remained relatively simple, egalitarian, undifferentiated, while Olmec came and went, and highlands polities formed
- but: late in this period (Middle Preclassic), the first burials in public structures appeared; so stratification was getting established
- Late Preclassic Period 300 BC-250 AD
- contemporary with
- Teotihuacan Patlachique, Tzacualli Period, early Middle Horizon
- rise of two major Basin of Mexico centers
- destruction of Cuicuilco and phenomenal growth of Teotihuacán
- The Olmec society had decentralized to the point where they no longer made monuments or ceremonial centers
- the main features of Maya civilization were established by the middle of the Late Preclassic, say around 1 AD
- polychrome pottery
- jade jewelry
- carved stelae and altars
- elaborate stone architecture
- causeways
- writing on bark paper
- religious/cosmological purposes (books)
- political propaganda (stelae)
- calendar
- 260 day and 365 day cyclical calendars
- combination returns to starting point every 52 years
- this was the occasion for rebuilding monuments, ceremonies, etc.
- population grew, maybe tripling in the Late Preclassic
- very rough estimate of 2 to 5 million people in eastern lowlands by 100 BC
- very uniform ceramics, even more so than in the Middle Preclassic
- suggests intense interaction of common people
- produced by specialists
- specialists were free to make pottery without local control, barriers, etc.: the goods and/or ideas crossed any political boundaries
- Several (maybe numerous) town-sized centers with several thousand inhabitants each
- public architecture
- lots of mounds built in the Late Preclassic
- perimeter ditches
- large ditch surrounding a 37-ha portion of Los Cerros, Belize
- implies a large labor force
- maybe for defense, or to mark a boundary
- causeways
- go into some sites through entrances in the surrounding ditches (seven entrances at Becan)
- El Mirador: largest Preclassic site
- Tikal
- North Acropolis largely built in the Late Preclassic
- Another Late Preclassic pyramid at Tikal (5C-54) had 40,000 cubic meters of fill, and others were similar
- over 30 m (100 feet) high
- sides 80 m long at base (260 feet)
- four stairways flanked by huge stucco masks
- compare to the contemporary pyramid of the sun at Teotihuacan, which had over 1 million cubic meters of fill (25 times the volume of pyramid 5C-54)
- at Tikal and other centers, broad plazas, unrestricted access, with small buildings on high platforms
- suggests a few people performing rituals in a restricted, high place visible to a large crowd
- this might help to legitimize the high rank of those who performed the rituals
- they also began erecting stelae to honor rulers and their exploits, again presumably to legitimize their status
- first clear evidence of divine kingship
- Writing system
- appeared as early as 250 - 300 BC? (Late Preclassic)
- but most of the examples we have are later
- "cracked" using Diego de Landa's "alphabet"
- actually a syllabary of consonant-vowel syllables
- many words in Maya (which, fortunately, is still spoken!) are consonant-vowel-consonant
- they were written by using the first syllable, then adding the second with the appropriate consonant and the same vowel as the first, although that vowel is not pronounced
- plus "emblem" glyphs identifying cities
- i.e. a mixed logographic and "C-V" syllabic system
- about 800 signs, about half deciphered
- archaeologists used to think that Maya writing was about mythology, ceremony, and a ritual obsession with calendrics
- now we know that it was mostly about legitimizing kinship, alliances, conquests, and other political propaganda
- as more is deciphered, Mayanists are putting together histories of royal families, towns, and court and military events
- writing was often painted or inked in codices
- screen-fold books of bark paper, bound with jaguar skin
- Spanish colonial authorities burned almost all of them; only four are known to have survived
- the surviving books are mostly "almanacs" of astronomical and calendrical information
- writing was carved on stelae
- record events in lives of real rulers and nobles
- birth
- ascension
- conquests
- marriages and alliances
- sacrifices
- deaths
- emphasize ruler's kinship ties
- especially strategic marriages to women from other lineages and cities
- writing was painted or inked on ceramic vessels
- owner, use, and/or contents of the vessel
- mythological themes
- writing was painted or inked on walls of limestone caves
- relate to rituals, the underworld, etc.
- stratification
- burials with clear variation in grave goods
- including stingray spines used for bloodletting autosacrifices
- by piercing tongue, penis, etc., sometimes pulling through a cord with knots or spines attached, to draw modest amounts of blood
- an unpleasant responsibility of high status!
- shells
- jade ornaments and beads
- pottery in special forms only for burials
- some burials in "public" settings reinforce the idea of an elite class
- corbel-vaulted chambers
- murals on tomb walls
- fine craft production, literacy, architecture, etc. imply occupational specialization, which imply variation, stratification in status
- potters, stonecutters, painters, stucco sculptors, scribes, flintknappers, etc.
- near the end of the period ("terminal Preclassic" or "protoclassic")
- some centers were abandoned (El Mirador, for example)
- others flourished
- no obvious reasons: maybe political
- Becan, central Yucatan, built a massive defensive ditch and wall
- 19 ha enclosed by a ditch 5 m deep, 10 m wide (16 x 32 feet), with an embankment on the inside, forming a 12 m high barrier (39 feet)
- would have had a wooden palisade on top to make it even more formidable
- suggesting that the end of the Preclassic was a time of conflict...
- Early Classic Period 250-500 AD
- contemporary with
- Teotihuacan Middle Horizon
- Teotihuacan was the largest, and probably most sacred, center in Mesoamerica during the Early Classic
- Teotihuacan expaned to Kaminaljuyu, and had some sort of contact with Tikal, Copan, and other sites
- At Tikal, Teotihuacan warriors flanked the ruler Stormy Sky on a stela commemorating his ascension to the throne
- suggested that Stormy Sky had some Teotihuacan connection or support
- but he was apparently the son of the previous ruler (Curl Nose), so this was not a conquest
- the supporters could have been either from Teotihuacan, or from the Teotihuacan outpost at Kaminaljuyu
- Teotihuacan motifs on some local pottery at Tikal suggest Mayas adopting some Teotihuacan ideas
- Tikal pyramid 5D-43 in hybrid Maya-Teotihuacan style, good, central location
- burials with Teotihuacan goods, especially green obsidian, at numerous sites
- the Maya started carving stone stelae with pictures, writing, and dates
- already an old tradition in Oaxaca
- these initially appeared in the Peten lowlands
- mostly commemorate dynastic events
- ascensions
- marriages
- treaties
- conquests
- NOT tribute or economic transactions, but kingship and politics
- suggests that the state was not deeply involved in direct taxation or redistribution?
- settlements
- don't fit the usual concept of "cities"
- pretty much all the habitable spaces in the Maya lowlands had house mounds scattered over them; the "cities" were just areas where the house mounds were denser
- these denser parts were sometimes bounded by ditches or linear mounds, probably for palisades
- and they usually had monumental architecture in central areas: temples, pyramids, plazas, "palaces", with stelae set up
- old idea of "empty ceremonial centers" is no longer accepted
- concentrations of house platforms
- with stone or perishable walled structures on top, hard plaster floors kept clean
- storage pits associated with individual house mounds
- centers got to be quite large (several tens of thousands of inhabitants, at least, in Early Classic)
- but much lower density than highland cities
- house mound groups had space for kitchen gardens or orchards right around them, even close to the monumental architectural core
- stratification
- great variation in house size and elaboration
- obsidian mostly in high-status households
- burials had considerable variation in goods, especially imports
- occupational specialization
- now included additional specialties, such as "dentists" (tooth inlayers), weavers, scribes, bark-cloth makers, feather workers, etc.
- nature of rule
- many monuments and building complexes were built in flurries of activity lasting only a few decades, followed by long lulls in building
- suggests shifting political strategies and success of individual leaders, rather than stable, established institutions
- murals show violence and chaos associated with accession of rulers
- suggestion that there is a lot of propaganda here:
- rulers sought legitimacy
- but may not have kept it for long
- monumental architecture at this point was still open and ritual-oriented; later it became more restricted and "administrative"
- generalizations
- the lowlands were never dominated by a single center; always numerous important, competing centers
- centers were never as markedly different from other sites as in the highlands: no real "primate" hierarchies
- so probably always a lot more interaction in multiple directions
- frequent abandonments, realignments, conquests: rule was unstable, compared to long-lived centers like Teotihuacan
- so it isn't surprising that there was lots of evidence of warfare
- stelae
- murals
- taking of captives commemorated
- A quick summary of the subsequent Maya events...
- Late Classic Period (600 AD - 810 AD)
- Teotihuacan was in decline and collapse by the beginning of the Late Classic
- It had lost contact with Kaminaljuyu, no Teotihuacan goods were traded into the Maya region, and Teotihuacan people did not appear on Maya stelae or ceramics
- population grew dramatically
- increasing density in areas that had been occupied in the Early Classic
- and spilling into new areas that had been sparsely populated before
- monuments were built in greater numbers and in greater size than before, at many sites
- dwarfing the constructions of the Early Classic
- at Tikal, for example, they built a new "Twin Pyramid Complex" every 20 years (as a calendrical ritual renewal)
- each complex included two large pyramids, a gallery building with nine doors, and an enclosed plaza with stelae and an altar
- and this was just one of the projects on-going at any given time in this one city
- huge expenditures of labor
- temples continued to be built, but construction of "palaces" overwhelmed them
- completely different design, with long, narrow halls or series of rooms, opening out through many doors on the long side, often onto a wide staircase
- thought to be high-status residences (although there are no kitchens detectable) and/or administrative buildings
- in some cases, like Uaxactun A-V, the palace structures were added near temple(s) and eventually, with repeated rebuildings, literally engulfed the sacred architecture
- suggesting increasing administrative activities, and a growing upper class of at least partially secular leaders
- ceramic styles (fashions?) changed rapidly and dramatically, in contrast to the three centuries of virtually unchanging Early Classic ceramics
- suggesting a growing, competitive economy
- lots of fine craft goods were produced in the cities
- some suggest that they were for export, trying to take advantage of the power vacuum and demand left by the collapse of Teotihuacan
- warfare became more common in murals and sculpture, often with bound prisoners wearing the insignia of high rank
- Terminal Classic Period (810 AD - 910)
- It was typical for Maya cities to erect a monument celebrating the end of each 20-year calendrical period called a katun
- the erection of these monuments peaked in 790 AD, with 19 cities so far known to have dedicated one
- in 810 AD, 12 cities set up stelae
- in 830 AD, 3 did
- in 889 AD, just one hundred years after the height of stela carving, the last monument with a Maya long count date was erected. There would never be another.
- in Tikal, from 700 to 830 AD, the bulk of the architecture visible today was built; in the following 70 years, a few minor platforms and benches were added to existing buildings, but not a single new one was constructed
- it appears that the entire city of Tikal was abandoned except for a small remnant population living in and around the palaces
- for the first time, garbage piled up in and around the palaces
- when buildings collapsed, they were not repaired, but people kept living next to the rubble
- population is estimated to have fallen to 10% or less of what it had been less than a century before
- the remaining people apparently continued to practice Maya religion, but forgot many of the details, resetting old stelae in ways that violate earlier systematic rules, sometimes with the writing upside-down
- by the end of the Terminal Classic, even the small remnant population was gone, and the Maya sites in the Peten returned to the jungle
- the timing and details varied from city to city, but they all succumbed eventually
- depopulation over 100 years need not require a massive die-off; it can be caused by reductions in birth rates
- why?
- most explanations focus on excessive growth in many senses
- overpopulation put a strain on the farmland
- overfarming with shorter fallow periods then led to severe erosion, reducing output, and requiring even shorter fallows to keep producing...
- an "arms race" in monument construction sucked up more and more labor that could have been used to produce food in more intensive regimes
- some of the increased building might have been an attempt to satisfy the gods as things got worse - while instead putting an even greater strain on the lower class...
- the difference between rich and poor got greater and greater, as the resources were getting scarcer, possibly leading to unrest
- high population density and food scarcity would have made the society vulnerable to disease
- rising militarism would have been encouraged by, and might have worsened, these trends
- some people imagine many of the lowland Maya simply moving to the northern, drier part of the Yucatan Peninsula, which did indeed flourish in the Postclassic Period
- or maybe these were just the only ones left, after the core collapsed...
- the potential for a parallel to modern times is hard to ignore.