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Yucatan at the Crossroads

14

Joyce Marcus

Inspired by a �urry of new �eldwork in Yucatan, by the chapters in this book, and by Geoff

Braswell’s request that I write about the directions Maya archaeology might take, I will review

what we have learned and suggest how we might move forward.

The Yucatan Peninsula is divided among three Mexican states: Yucatan, Campeche, and

Quintana Roo. It comprises almost 200,000 square kilometers, or two-thirds of the Maya

region. Yucatan, however, receives neither two-thirds of all funding nor two-thirds of the

attention of Maya archaeologists. For these and other reasons, mentioned below, it is not

surprising that the story of the northern Maya lowlands is less well documented than that of

the southern lowlands.

Indeed, when the term “Maya” is mentioned, most people immediately think of the

southern lowlands, with its myriad cities, giant temples, and white roof-combs poking up

through the green rainforest, and its thousands of hieroglyphic texts providing the names,

deeds, and rites of Maya kings and queens. Many young archaeologists arrive in the southern

lowlands, fall in love with it, and cannot imagine leaving it for another region. Still others

begin in the northern lowlands, grow tired of the dense secondary growth and the acahuales,

and end up going to the southern lowlands.

Now, however, the northern lowlands seems to have a hard core of excellent archaeologists

who look as if they will stay and continue to conduct long-term excavations and surveys (e.g.,

Anderson 2003, 2009; Ardren 1997; Ardren et al. 2003; Bey et al. 1998; Bey and May Ciau

2005; Bond-Freeman et al. 1998; Burgos et al. 2003; Gallareta Negr�n et al. 2003, 2004;

Glover and Amador 2005; Glover et al. 2005; Hutson et al. 2004; Johnstone 2001; Magnoni

et al. 2008; Mathews 2001, 2003; Mathews and Morrison 2006; Morrison 2000; Rissolo et al.

2005; Shaw and Mathews 2005; Sierra Sosa 1999, 2001; Smith 2000; Smyth 2006, 2008,

2009; Smyth and Rogart 2004; Stanton 2000; Stanton and Ardren 2005; Stanton et al. 2010;

Uriarte Torres 2004, 2007; Varela Torrecilla 1998; and the authors of the papers in this

volume).

One reason the contributions of the northern lowlands have never been fully appreciated

relates to the image of the region: it is still perceived as the poor country cousin of the

southern lowlands. This view persists despite the fact that it was interregional interaction that

set in motion many of the developments seen in the northern lowlands, southern lowlands, and

Guatemalan highlands. All three areas were inextricably linked by language, history, the

exchange of craft goods and raw materials, and a wide range of co-occurring processes that

350 THE ANCIENT MAYA OF MEXICO

united the Maya world. Each area contributed key elements to the emergence of new social

and political institutions (Marcus 2008).

Without this interaction, none of the apogees and collapses seen in these regions can be

understood. Large numbers of people moved between regions. Without economic competition

and political con�ict, some of their political institutions would not have emerged. Collapses

seem less mysterious when one can document refugees moving from one region to another. To

be sure, our increasingly �ne-grained chronologies suggest that one region occasionally had a

headstart on another, but even these may be the apparent products of where one excavates and

what is preserved there.

If we continue to downplay our data from the northern lowlands, we will lack essential

pieces of the Maya puzzle. Giving those data their due will make it easier to explain the

dynamic cycles so characteristic of Maya societies (Marcus 1992, 1993, 1998; Sharer with

Traxler 2006).

Features of the Northern Lowlands

What were the distinctive features of the northern lowlands that played a role in both local and

regional developments? What might the northern lowlands have contributed to making Maya

civilization what it was?

Let us begin with the fact that the Yucatan Peninsula has no rivers, and includes some of the

driest zones within the Maya area. In the northwestern corner of the Yucatan Peninsula, for

example, some places receive no rain during the dry season; and even during the rainy season,

when they receive about 50 centimeters, they experience very high rates of evapotranspiration.

Much of the northern lowlands has thin or poor soils, and more than 25% has been charac-

terized as having virtually no soil at all (Beach 1998; Isphording and Wilson 1973; Luzzadder-

Beach 2000; Perry et al. 1995, 2002, 2003). Bedrock is exposed in these de�ated zones.

Although having no soil in some locales was a negative for ancient Maya farmers, it can be a

positive for archaeologists. Exposed bedrock can allow archaeologists to locate the remains of

Paleoindian and Archaic sites on the surface. In other words, a systematic and comprehensive

survey of areas with exposed bedrock should yield important data on early periods.

The poor soils of the northern lowlands, in tandem with low rainfall and high evapo-

transpiration rates, posed formidable challenges to the support of large concentrations of

people. It would have been particularly dif�cult during the long dry season for thousands of

people to meet their daily water needs (Houck Jr. 2006). In spite of these dif�culties, the

ancient Maya clearly made a successful living, as exempli�ed by the particularly arid area

where the site of Chunchucmil is located.

Chunchucmil lies 68 kilometers southwest of Merida and 55 kilometers northwest of

Uxmal. Fortunately, it is less than 20 kilometers from a swampy estuary, which could be

navigated with canoes to gain access to the Gulf of Mexico. By A.D. 500 it had become an

urban center with walled residential groups, streets, and a possible marketplace. Chunchucmil

apparently specialized in maritime trade, and met the needs of its population by importing

basic subsistence items, all the while exhibiting a brand of urbanism that seems distinct from

that seen in the southern lowlands (Ardren et al. 2003; Dahlin 2009; Dahlin et al. 2005, 2007;

Stanton et al. 2000, 2010). Given its thin soils and its location, Chunchucmil evidently relied

much less on maize and more on estuary and marine foods than was the case with other sites

on the peninsula (Mansell et al. 2006).

YUCATAN AT THE CROSSROADS

351

In the 20 square-kilometer urban area that includes Chunchucmil, archaeologists estimate a

population of more than 40,000 people from A.D. 400 to 550. Chunchucmil was in fact so

urban that its density of structures was the highest of any Maya site during this era (Dahlin

2009; Dahlin et al. 2005, 2007; Magnoni et al. 2008; Vlcek et al. 1978). One of the key

natural features that allowed this population concentration was a double ring of cenotes, or

natural wells, that appeared along bedrock faults associated with a 65 million-year-old crater

(Pope et al. 1996). That unusual con�guration in�uenced groundwater, serving to accelerate

and channel its �ow along the ring of cenotes. This ring of natural wells continues to provide

ready access to drinking water today (Luzzadder-Beach 2000). We will return to the

Chunchucmil site later in this chapter.

In addition to its aridity, the Yucatan Peninsula differs from the rest of the Maya region in

that only one language, Yukatek, was spoken there. Such monolingualism is noteworthy,

especially compared to the Guatemalan highlands, where many mutually unintelligible Mayan

languages were spoken.

Another feature that sets the northern lowlands apart is the fact that, as a peninsula, it has

access to marine resources along three coastlines. Although known as “The Land of the Turkey

and the Deer,” the Yucatan Peninsula could just as well have been called “The Land of Marine

Resources.” With its thousands of kilometers of ocean frontage, Yucatan provided access to

stingray spines, marine shells, manatees, salt deposits, sea sponges, turtles, and all kinds of �sh

and marine mammals (Andrews 1969; Hamblin 1984; Lange 1971; McKillop and Healy 1989).

The demand for such marine products throughout Maya prehistory is evident from the

archaeological record. That demand, however, manifested itself differently from site to site and

from time period to time period. In some eras there was greater emphasis on the use of marine

items for personal adornment or burial offerings. Other sites show greater use of marine

products in the enactment and performance of rituals, such as funerals, inaugurations, k’atun-

ending (20-year) celebrations, or building dedication rites.

Following the emergence of hierarchical societies in the Middle Preclassic, there were secular

and sacred rites that required stingray spines, marine sponges, marine animals, or shells. From

Preclassic times onward, there was an increase in societal complexity and a concomitant increase

in the demand for marine products. The populations of the Yucatan Peninsula were well situ-

ated to procure marine products and insert them into local, regional, and interregional

exchange networks, plugging them into the southern lowland and Guatemalan highland

networks.

These exchange networks have been of great interest to Maya archaeologists for decades,

but much more would be known if we had quanti�ed data from a range of houses,

neighborhoods, and sites (Marcus 2009). We have abundant data from middens, caches, and

burials, but lack information on family-to-family variation. By excavating a large number of

houses in their entirety, we could see what products were used and imported by every

household, and which were used and imported by a select few.

One important future task will be to determine what items the northern lowlands were

exporting. We can begin thinking about this topic by looking at sixteenth-century documents,

which can be an appropriate starting place even though we always need to remind ourselves

that sixteenth-century A.D. exports may not be the same as the Preclassic exports.

Complicating our effort to quantify the exports of the northern lowlands is the fact that

many may have been perishable. The exports might have included honey, shrimp, cotton,

352 THE ANCIENT MAYA OF MEXICO

cloth, tobacco, salt, and feathers; perhaps in the future we can con�rm some of these through

residue analysis or the excavation of waterlogged cave and cenote deposits.

Looking Backward

For decades a handful of northern lowland sites, including Mayapan, Chichen Itza, Uxmal, and

Tulum, dominated our discussions of the area. Since all were regarded as very late sites,

archaeologists began to think that the major role of the northern lowlands was to absorb

immigrants who �ed northward from the collapsing cities of the southern lowlands.

That scenario has been substantially revised during the last two decades. We now know that

many southern lowland cities were not abandoned; that many southern lowland residents did

not �ee to the northern lowlands; that many northern lowland sites had earlier occupations

than expected; and perhaps most signi�cantly, that the northern lowlands were responsible for

many innovations once credited to the south (e.g., Andrews and Robles Castellanos 2004;

Andrews and Sabloff 1986; Chase and Rice 1985; Demarest et al. 2004; Fash et al. 2004; Rice

1988).

Three recent themes that have emerged are: (1) the pace, tempo, and rhythm of the

developments in each region; (2) the nature of their co-evolution; and (3) the causes and

mechanisms that delayed, stimulated, or accelerated their developments.

Paleoindian and Archaic Eras

The last few decades of survey and excavation have revealed a long sequence of occupation and

substantial evidence for nucleated, dense populations on the Yucatan Peninsula. For the earliest

eras, however, few sites have been extensively excavated. The number of known Paleoindian

and Archaic sites is small, in spite of recent efforts (e.g., Andrews and Robles Castellanos 2004;

Gonz�lez Gonz�lez et al. 2008, 2010; Lohse 2010). The potential is there, however, to (1)

document the transition from a nomadic existence to a sedentary way of life and (2) identify an

Early Preclassic period for Yucatan.

The Preclassic Era

Our knowledge of the Middle Preclassic (800–300 B.C.) and Late Preclassic (300 B.C.–A.D.

250) has grown enormously in recent years. Most of the new studies build on the substantial

foundation made by E. Wyllys Andrews IV, E. Wyllys Andrews V, and Anthony P. Andrews,

and as each year goes by, we appreciate and increasingly value their pioneering survey and

excavation projects (e.g., Andrews and Andrews 1980; Andrews 1979b, 1981, 1988, 1990,

2003; Andrews et al. 1980, 1984, 2008; Andrews and Ringle 1992; Ringle and Andrews 1988,

1990).

For the Preclassic I think we will always use the reports on Komchen and Dzibilchaltun as

our solid foundation, and we will use the ongoing regional surveys as guides to designing

future excavation projects. One key survey, conducted by Anthony Andrews and Fernando

Robles Castellanos (2004), covered an area of about 2200 square kilometers, extending from

the coastal ports of Progreso and Celestun to the city of Merida. The survey was designed to

obtain new data for the �les of the Atlas Arqueol�gico del Estado de Yucat�n (Garza Tarazona

de Gonz�lez and Kurjack 1980), and it did so by discovering 249 prehispanic sites, 140 of

them dating to the Preclassic.

YUCATAN AT THE CROSSROADS

353

The variety and complexity of sites during the Middle Preclassic (Anderson 2009; Andrews

and Robles Castellanos 2004:8; Andrews 1986; Ball 1977; Boucher and Palomo Carrillo 2005;

Peraza Lope et al. 2002) suggest a three-tiered hierarchy of settlements, from hamlets with

scattered mounds at Tier 3 of the hierarchy, to Tier 2 sites with substantial pyramids arranged

around formal plazas with ballcourts, to at least one Tier 1 site that covers two square-

kilometers and has a ballcourt, pyramids, causeways (sacbeob), and a well-de�ned plaza.

The largest of the Tier 1 sites is Xtobo, southwest of Dzibilchaltun, where David S. Ander-

son has been working. Anderson’s mapping and excavations at Xtobo have revealed Middle

Preclassic monumental architecture and �ve causeways that radiate out from a well-de�ned

central plaza (Anderson 2003, 2009). Immediately to the south of the plaza is a ballcourt.

During Middle Preclassic times, ballcourts seem more common at sites in northwestern

Yucatan than anywhere else. The Andrews–Robles Castellanos survey discovered that 23 of the

Middle Preclassic sites had ballcourts, that they were always located near the center of the

settlements, had a north–south alignment between 345 and 25 degrees, measured between 10–

15 meters in length and �ve-eight meters in width, and enclosed a playing surface roughly six-

to-seven meters wide (Anderson 2003, 2009; Andrews and Robles Castellanos 2004; Medina

Castillo 2003, 2005).

In the Puuc region, one of the few known Middle Preclassic ballcourts was found at Paso

del Macho (Gallareta Negr�n and Ringle 2004). At the northern edge of the Puuc zone is

Xocnaceh, a site with a huge Middle Preclassic Acropolis 8.5 meters high and 150 meters by

150 meters at the base (Gallareta Negr�n and Ringle 2004; Gallareta Negr�n et al. 2005).

Anderson’s work at Xtobo resulted in the creation of detailed topographic maps of 67

hectares of continuous settlement and the mapping of 387 structures. Anderson estimates that

Xtobo had a population of about 1,500 people. Interregional exchange is documented by the

fact that the obsidian at Xtobo comes from San Mart�n Jilotepeque and El Chayal, two of the

major quarries in the Guatemalan highlands.

The density of structures at Xtobo (5.78 per hectare) is comparable to the density of

structures at Komchen, meaning that these two Preclassic sites have a greater density than that

found at many Late Classic (A.D. 550–900) centers in the southern lowlands (Anderson 2009;

Ringle and Andrews 1990). The strategy of concentrating a lot of people into settlements in

the driest sector of Yucatan, beginning sometime in the Preclassic, sets the stage for later

developments, such as the Early Classic urbanism at Chunchucmil.

Let us look at a few other Preclassic sites in Yucatan. North and east of Xtobo is Caucel, a

site with 1,500 structures in an 8 square-kilometer area; 90 percent of the structures are

considered to be Preclassic in date (Hern�ndez Hern�ndez 2008; Uriarte Torres 2007). Further

north and east in Quintana Roo, the Yalahau survey discovered many Middle Preclassic sites

(Glover et al. 2005; Rissolo et al. 2005). Other large Middle Preclassic sites on the Yucatan

Peninsula include Poxila (Robles Castellanos et al. 2006), Xocnaceh (Gallareta Negr�n and

Ringle 2004; Gallareta Negr�n et al. 2005), Ake (Roys and Shook 1966), Dzibanche (Nalda

2004), and of course, Calakmul, at the southern end of the Yucatan Peninsula (Carrasco Vargas

and Col�n Gonz�lez 2005; Folan et al. 1995a, 1995b; Marcus and Folan 1994; Pincemin et al.

1998).

Although the number of extensively excavated Preclassic sites is still small, progress is being

made. More Preclassic sites need to be the focus of multi-year horizontal excavations,

especially those sites where Classic-period overburden is not present. This lack of overburden

is unfortunately not the case at Calakmul, a city that went on to become one of the most

354 THE ANCIENT MAYA OF MEXICO

monumental capitals in the Maya area (Folan et al. 1995b; Grube 2004; Marcus 1987, 2004;

Martin and Grube 2008).

Given the number of Middle Preclassic sites, we can infer both that Yucatan had a large

population in that era, and that additional extensive surveys are likely to yield even more

Middle Preclassic sites. If future large-scale surveys use the same methods employed by

Andrews and Robles Castellanos (2004), the task of comparing and contrasting the results from

region to region would be greatly facilitated.

Such surveys might even make Yucatan an epicenter of Preclassic studies. That would

perhaps help to remove the perception that the north was a poor country cousin of the south.

What we still lack are very extensive excavations of Preclassic buildings and neighborhoods,

along the lines of what Andrews IV and Andrews V accomplished at Dzibilchaltun and

Komchen. Such excavation would probably reveal more about Preclassic social rank from

burials, household inventories, comparisons of building plans, and so forth. There are hints

that the northern lowlands were experiencing the same evolutionary developments and

innovations that occurred to the south, and in some instances were even more precocious for

their time.

More extensive excavations at Preclassic centers in the north would complement what we

know from southern sites like Barton Ramie (Willey et al. 1965; Hohmann 2002), Blackman

Eddy (M. K. Brown and Garber 2003; Garber et al. 1998), Cahal Pech (Aimers et al. 2000;

Awe 1992; Powis 1996), Cuello (Andrews and Hammond 1990; Hammond 1991; Robin

1989), Cerros (Freidel 1978; Scarborough 1991), El Mirador (Dahlin 1984; Forsyth 1989;

Hansen 1984, 1990, 1994; Matheny 1980, 1986, 1987); Nakbe (Forsyth 1993; Hansen 2002,

Hansen et al. 1991), and Pacbitun (Healy and Awe 1999; White et al. 1993).

Perhaps most importantly, we need to �nd the Early Preclassic that must be there given the

large number of Middle Preclassic sites that have been found everywhere that archaeologists

look.

Given the size and number of Middle Preclassic settlements in the northernmost corners of

the Yucatan Peninsula, it is clear that local populations and in situ developments have been

seriously underestimated. It is time to stop arguing that immigrants from the south were

responsible for advances made in the north. Regional exchange of all kinds probably connected

much of the Maya lowlands, and we need not invoke population movements to explain the

interregional similarities (Stanton 2000). In fact, surveys in several parts of the northern

lowlands suggest that well over half the sites found were occupied in the Late Preclassic

(Anderson 2009; Andrews and Robles Castellanos 2004; Gallareta Negr�n et al. 2003, 2004;

Mathews and Maldonado C�rdenas 2006; Morrison 2000; Stanton 2000).

The Classic Era

The Early Classic (A.D. 250–550) has been the focus of several recent projects in the northern

lowlands. We have learned much more about Yaxuna (Ardren 1997; Johnstone 2001; Stanton

2000; Stanton et al. 2010), Ichmul (Shaw 2008), Yo’okop (Shaw 2008), as well as relations

between Yo’okop and Calakmul in southern Campeche. This Early Classic tie between Yo’okop

and Calakmul is one example of interregional interaction between the northern and southern

lowlands (Shaw 2008). One of the few hieroglyphic texts known from Yo’okop mentions the

ruler named Sky Witness, a man who ruled Calakmul at ca. A.D. 560; unfortunately, the text

gives few details.

YUCATAN AT THE CROSSROADS

355

One hopes that the work at Yaxuna will inspire more excavation at Early Classic sites such

as Actun Toh, Ake, El Naranjal, Huntichmul, Ikil, Izamal, Kantunilkin, Ox Mul, Siho, Tres

Lagunas, Uci, Victoria, and Xcambo (Burgos et al. 2003; Ceballos Gallareta 2003, Jim�nez

�lvarez 2002; Mathews 1998; Mathews and Maldonado C�rdenas 2006; Qui�ones Cetina

2006; Roys and Shook 1966; Sierra Sosa 1999, 2001).

Two of the key Early Classic sites in the Puuc region were Chac (Smyth 2006, 2008, 2009;

Smyth and Orteg�n Zapata 2006) and Oxkintok (L�pez V�zquez and Fern�ndez Marqu�nez

1987; Rivera Dorado 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992; Varela Torrecilla 1998). Oxkintok, which lay

at the edge of the Puuc ridge, has produced Teotihuacan-style cylindrical tripod vessels, as well

as a number of buildings displaying talud-tablero architecture (Rivera Dorado 1988, 1989;

Varela Torrecilla 1998; Varela Torrecilla and Braswell 2003). Both the pottery and

architecture at Oxkintok, which date to ca. A.D. 500–600, seem to be variants or copies of

Gulf Coast and highland Mexican forms (Ortiz and Santley 1998).

Michael Smyth’s (2008) work at Chac, a site near Sayil, has been of particular interest

because it has raised a whole series of questions about relationships between Yucatan and

Teotihuacan (Stanton 2005). Smyth has found cylindrical tripod vessels, candeleros, �oreros,

green Pachuca obsidian, round burial cists, talud-tablero architecture, and other apparent non-

local elements. Speaking about the site of Chac, Smyth (2008:402) notes, “While no one

material category by itself is convincingly diagnostic of Teotihuacan contact, the presence of

multiple categories and the convergence of the evidence are compelling.” To Smyth, these

items suggest direct interaction with Teotihuacan, but we should not rule out the possibility

that some of them passed through the hands of intervening groups and some were local

imitations.

Perhaps the strongest evidence at Chac for direct foreign interaction with Teotihuacan is a

series of residential structures and a number of round burial cists constructed in a Teotihuacan

style. Such cists are similar to those known from Teotihuacan. One cist at Chac included a

tripod plate with the image of Tlaloc, and a candelero. The non-elite residential structures at

Chac had rooms arranged around patios, oriented about 15 degrees east of cardinal north. One

of these structures contained a rectangular altar in the center of the patio, and the residential

group was surrounded by a large masonry wall. Since such compounds are supposedly unusual

for the northern lowlands, Smyth thinks that they may have housed Teotihuacanos. If several

skeletons from these cists at Chac had been shown to be Teotihuacanos, the argument would

have been much more compelling. Additional evidence includes a cylindrical vase with coffee-

bean appliques, found beneath the stucco �oor of Structure E-III in the Chac Pyramid Plaza

(Smyth 2006:126). Some tripod vessels look to be local imitations, while others look to be

made on Fine Buff, a ware apparently produced at Matacapan. One vessel at Chac had non-

local motifs and the hollow round supports typical of Gulf Coast ceramics. Unfortunately,

however, pots are not people. In reassessing the data for Chac, Travis Stanton (2005:31)

concludes that “…none of this evidence proves that Teotihuacan men were permanently living

in the northern Maya lowlands.”

In sum, there is growing evidence suggesting that the Maya were active agents in adapting

and modifying foreign styles to �t their own needs, and this process of adoption, emulation,

and modi�cation is still poorly understood (e.g., Braswell 2003a, 2003b; Marcus 2003; Varela

Torrecilla and Braswell 2003).

At Chac and at Oxkintok we see local imitations of Teotihuacan-style artifacts mixed with

objects whose style had already been modi�ed by people who lived between Teotihuacan and

356 THE ANCIENT MAYA OF MEXICO

the Puuc area. The mediated interaction of Yucatan with highland Mexico, the Gulf Coast

lowlands, Chiapas, and the highlands and lowlands of Guatemala is rarely emphasized. There

has been a tendency to see interaction as direct and the response of the Maya as passive.

The Teotihuacan–Maya picture is fascinating, yet we should avoid simplistic interpretations.

In�uence is unlikely to have been one-way. Evidence continues to mount that Teotihuacan

borrowed and modi�ed Maya features for its own use (e.g., Braswell 2003a, 2003b; Marcus

2003; Taube 2003; Varela Torrecilla and Braswell 2003). The number of intervening societies

that lived between the Maya area and Teotihuacan is so great that we will need: (1) a type of

network analysis that connects all the nodes, gateways, trade routes, and pathways; and (2) a

careful evaluation of each kind of commodity.

Another of the interesting Early Classic discoveries is just how urban Chunchucmil was.

From A.D. 400 to 550 it covered perhaps 25 square kilometers, featuring three times as many

people in its nine-square-kilometer central zone than did Tikal. The residential groups of

Chunchucmil, bounded by walls and albarradas, make it an early forerunner of the urban

centers that we see later in the Yucatan Peninsula. The number of mapped residential groups at

Chunchucmil has now reached 1,000, with more than 400 being of the bounded houselot type.

We should look forward to seeing many of those houselots fully excavated, and their features

and artifact inventories published (e.g., Hutson et al. 2006).

The data emerging from the Chunchucmil project suggest that that site was actively

participating in maritime trade, using canoes to exploit the estuary, coastal salt �ats, and ocean

resources. At the same time, the residents of Chunchucmil evidently had to import many

essential products (including food and wood) to the site. This raises a series of questions: Was

there a road or canal that connected Chunchucmil to the coast, only 27 kilometers away? Were

there intermediate sites along the way, with storage for transshipment of the items brought to

and from the coast?

One reason the political complexity of the Early Classic northern lowlands has been

underestimated is its relative lack of hieroglyphic texts. Even when we do have texts for the

northern lowlands, they are most often integral building components such as lintels, capstones,

jambs, and walls, rather than free-standing stelae (an excellent Late Classic example would be

that at Sisila; see Benavides Castillo 2003 and Pollock 1980).

We need to remind ourselves that the presence or absence of writing is not the key criterion

for political complexity or social strati�cation. As George Bey (2006:36) aptly states, “The

Early Classic Maya in the north were not country bumpkins living in the backwaters of the

Maya world but instead a culturally distinct group that took a different trajectory to some

extent from that of the south. The limited number of texts and polychromes in the north is not

a result of the area being culturally backward but the result of an indigenous and not-fully-

understood regional cultural tradition.” One northern city with hieroglyphic texts is Chichen

Itza (e.g., Gra�a-Behrens 2006; Gra�a-Behrens et al. 1999; Krochock 1988, 1998, 2002). In

this volume, Geoffrey Braswell and his students report on their recent excavations there.

In addition, there have been recent excavations in the Initial Series Group, a complex of

buildings that may have housed the most important lineages at Chichen Itza (Schmidt 2005).

The site of Chichen Itza has a long occupation, with its occupants choosing styles and motifs

eclectically. Contrasting styles were selected by groups occupying various building clusters,

connected one to another by intra-site causeways. It now appears that, rather than being the

passive recipient of foreign styles brought to Yucatan by highland Mexicans, the northern

lowlands borrowed elements from several different areas (see Braswell and Peniche May, this

YUCATAN AT THE CROSSROADS

357

volume). Our assessment has now changed from seeing the northern Maya as passive recipients

to viewing them as active agents (Cobos 2006; Braswell and Peniche May, this volume).

The epigraphic record at Chichen Itza (and other Yucatec sites) has been variously

interpreted as evidence of: (1) a monarchy with a divine ruler and his support staff of priests

and of�ceholders; or (2) a kind of multepal, or joint rule, in which several lineages co-ruled the

city and its subject territory. The pendulum continues to swing back and forth between these

positions. Recently, however, the monarchical model has come to the fore, putting the

government of Chichen Itza more closely in line with those of the southern lowlands (e.g.,

Plank 2004; Ringle 2004; Zender 2004). In this view it would have been the political collapse

of Chichen Itza that created the conditions for joint rule, the kind of administration that came

to characterize the Postclassic Maya at Mayapan.

In addition to Chichen Itza, key sites with hieroglyphic texts include Oxkintok (Rivera

Dorado 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992), Xcalumkin (Pollock 1980), Edzna (Benavides Castillo 1997;

Forsyth 1983; Matheny 1987), Uxmal (Kowalski 1985; Ruppert and Smith 1957), Coba

(Folan et al. 1983; Ruppert and Denison 1943), and Ek’ Balam (Lacadena Garc�a-Gallo 2005;

Vargas de la Pe�a and Castillo Borges 2005). Of all these, perhaps the most spectacular

masterpieces of hieroglyphic writing are the texts painted on the walls and capstones at Ek’

Balam—especially in the palace and court of the ruler, which lay inside concentric walls.

The Ek’ Balam palace, known as Structure 1 or the Acropolis, was 162 meters long, 68

meters wide, and more than 32 meters high. Here archaeologists Leticia Vargas de la Pe�a and

V�ctor Castillo Borges have so far exposed 72 rooms. Elsewhere inside the walled precinct

were plazas, temples, residential quarters, a sweatbath, altars and shrines, stelae, and painted

walls with hieroglyphic texts. One sacbe on the west led to the outer wall of the precinct, while

two others led to the front (or south) side.

The Mural of the 96 Glyphs, found on the wall of Room 29-sub inside the Acropolis,

reports the A.D. 770 arrival of a man associated with the prestigious title, “kalo’mte of the

north.” Apparently under his auspices, a new ruler named Ukit Kan Lek Tok’ took the throne

of Ek’ Balam and administered the Kingdom of Talol. This new king is said to have come from

Man, a place we have yet to identify but which may be linked to Mani.

Alfonso Lacadena Garc�a-Gallo (2005) has concluded that because this ruler was the

founder of the royal dynasty at Ek’ Balam, he went on to become the most-often-mentioned

ruler in the texts of Ek’ Balam. A spectacularly preserved structure, with a stucco fa�ade

modeled in the form of an earth monster, was the �nal resting place of Ukit Kan Lek Tok’.

That structure, found on the fourth level of the west wing of the Acropolis, was called by the

ancient Maya sak xok naah, “the White House of Reading.” Ukit Kan Lek Tok’, in some ways,

was treated like the Copan ruler Yax K’uk’ Mo’o, since both were regarded as dynastic

founders. Their �nal resting places were shrines and their royal successors referred to these

founders with great reverence. Among the Ek’ Balam rulers who referred back to the dynastic

founder were K’an B’ohb’ Tok’, Ukit Jol Ahkul, and K’inich Junpik Tok’.

Prior to the discovery of these texts at Ek’ Balam, archaeologists had underestimated the

nature of divine kingship in the northern lowlands. Although divine kingship exists in societies

that lack writing, it is more dif�cult to demonstrate. To be sure, the evidence for scribes and

the carvers of stelae is much earlier in the southern lowlands, the Guatemalan highlands, and

the Paci�c piedmont than in the northern lowlands (e.g., Marcus 1976; Mora-Mar�n 2008;

Saturno et al. 2006).

358 THE ANCIENT MAYA OF MEXICO

The �nds by the Jaina Archaeological Project, however, are making investigators reconsider

whether or not Late Preclassic writing existed in the northern lowlands (see Benavides Castillo

and Grube 2002 to compare Jaina’s Panel 3 with Stela 10 at Kaminaljuyu and with Monument

60 at Izapa). Will future excavations in the northern lowlands uncover additional examples of

early Maya writing? After all, less than a decade has passed since William Saturno discovered a

column of hieroglyphs painted on a wall at San Bartolo, a site northeast of Tikal. That was a

signi�cant �nd because it put writing in the southern lowlands closer in time to its appearance

in the Guatemalan highlands (Saturno et al. 2006). Until Saturno’s discovery, the Guatemalan

highlands and Paci�c piedmont had laid claim to the oldest writing within the Maya region.

Now the discoveries at Jaina, Oxkintok, Ek’ Balam, and elsewhere suggest that, despite the

greater numbers of stelae with hieroglyphs in the southern lowlands, the north may have had

its own long tradition of writing.

Our views are also being changed by new discoveries at Calakmul in Campeche, near the

geographic transition between the northern and southern lowlands. One discovery is the

spectacular Late Preclassic fa�ade of Substructure IIc; others include Early Classic murals and

stelae (Carrasco Vargas and Col�n Gonz�lez 2005; Pincemin et al. 1998). Before the discovery

of Stela 114 at Calakmul, the northernmost site with a �fth-century date (8.19.15.12.13 or

A.D. 431) was Balakbal (Marcus and Folan 1994; Ruppert and Denison 1943). Stela 114 has

added a century of time depth to the Calakmul dynasty (Pincemin et al. 1998) and future

discoveries could add more.

Ivan Šprajc’s (2004, 2008) systematic survey in southeastern Campeche has raised our

estimates of Early Classic occupation in that area. Many of these key sites were in the social

and political web of Calakmul. Our understanding of the Early Classic is further enriched by

new survey and excavation data from southern Quintana Roo (Nalda 2004; Esparza Olgu�n

and P�rez Guti�rrez 2009). In particular, the excavations at Dzibanche and nearby sites have

been key to our current understanding of Early Classic politics, especially the relationship of

the Quintana Roo sites to the Kaan Polity later administered by Calakmul. The fact that the

Kaan (or snake head) emblem glyph appears in texts at Dzibanche, El Resbalon, and Pol Box

even before that emblem appears at Calakmul has piqued interest in the role of southern

Quintana Roo in the founding of the Calakmul dynasty (Carrasco Vargas and Boucher 1987;

Esparza Olgu�n and P�rez Guti�rrez 2009; Marcus, this volume; Šprajc et al. 2005; Vel�squez

Garc�a 2004, 2005).

The snake head was used by Calakmul as its emblem glyph from A.D. 636 to 736 (Grube

2004; Marcus 2004; Martin 2005). Before A.D. 636, and again after A.D. 736, Calakmul

seems to have used a bat as its polity name. If future research upholds this sequence—use of the

bat emblem, then the snake-head emblem, and then re-use of the bat emblem—we may have

evidence for political cycling that will be dif�cult to equal with data from any other Maya

region. To be sure, it is ironic that we are now learning so much about Calakmul from distant

sites whose monuments are in a better state of preservation (Marcus 1987, 2004). Like so

many Yucatan Peninsula sites, Calakmul carved its monuments on poor-quality soft limestone,

leaving its once-legible hieroglyphic texts highly weathered, eroded, and illegible.

The Postclassic Era

The Yucatan Peninsula, of course, abounds with Postclassic and colonial sites. Among the most

celebrated are Mayapan, Tulum, Dzibilchaltun, Becan, Coba, Edzna, and Chichen Itza, and the

sites of Cozumel Island (Anderson 1998; Andrews and Robles Castellanos 1985; Andrews et al.

YUCATAN AT THE CROSSROADS

359

2003; Andrews and Sabloff 1986; Benavides Castillo 1997; Folan et al. 1983; Freidel 1981;

Freidel and Sabloff 1984; Lothrop 1924; Masson and Peraza Lope 2008; Milbrath and Peraza

Lope 2003).

The full story of Mayapan is becoming better known as archaeologists return there to

augment the work conducted by the Carnegie Institution of Washington (Pollock et al. 1962).

This work uses sixteenth-century documents to complement the excavations of this walled city,

which encloses more than 4,000 structures in a 4.2 square-kilometer area (Brown 1999; Jones

1962; Marcus and Sabloff 2008; Masson and Peraza Lope 2008; Pollock et al. 1962). We now

know that residential settlement extended outside these walls despite the fact that defense and

personal safety were major concerns. The original founding of Mayapan is still shrouded in

mystery.

Ethnohistoric documents indicate that a Mayapan ruler named Hunac Ceel conquered

Chichen Itza. From A.D. 1100 to 1300, according to sixteenth-century documents, a Triple

Alliance called the League of Mayapan was co-administered by Chichen Itza, Uxmal, and

Mayapan. Later, with the collapse of the governments at Uxmal and Chichen Itza, Mayapan

came to be governed by a multepal or joint rule. That alliance involved the Kokoom, the ruling

lineage at Chichen Itza, the Xiw, the ruling lineage at Uxmal, and a few other groups.

By A.D. 1400 the Xiw had been expelled from Mayapan, leaving the Kokoom to dominate

that polity (Tozzer 1941). Remnants of the Xiw faction, however, became angry and revolted

against the Kokoom. Diego de Landa reports that all the members of the Kokoom royal house

in Mayapan were killed during the Xiw revolt. That statement has been reinforced by

excavations at Mayapan, which show the burning of buildings and widespread destruction.

Mayapan was a city modeled after the Classic metropolis of Chichen Itza. The Temple of

Kukulcan at Mayapan was a smaller version of Chichen Itza’s Castillo; its Round Temple was a

smaller version of the Caracol of Chichen Itza. When the Round Temple at Mayapan was

excavated in the 1990s, archaeologists found the four doorways described in the sixteenth

century by Diego de Landa (see Tozzer 1941).

The sixteenth-century documents also shed light on the colonial archaeology of Yucatan

(e.g., Andrews 1984; Alexander 1999, 2004). When the Spaniards arrived they found the

peninsula divided into autonomous provinces called kuchkabaloob. These provinces repre-

sented the polities formerly united by the multepal at Mayapan, an alliance that succeeded for

a time in centralizing the administration of Yucatan. All those autonomous provinces had

resurfaced when the centralized administration at Mayapan collapsed.

Looking Ahead

What might the future hold for archaeologists working in Yucatan? To begin with, some

periods are so poorly known that they are in great need of attention. Two very important

contributions would be to document: (1) the transition from the Archaic to the Early Preclassic

period; and (2) the transition from the Early Preclassic to the Middle Preclassic. Without such

research the very high density of Middle Preclassic sites cannot be understood.

Conducting household archaeology at a site of any period would also be a contribution. The

northern lowlands is particularly suitable for household archaeology since (in contrast to the

Peten) many stone alignments, small structures, and even entire house groups can be detected

right on the surface. Many more houses could probably be excavated per season than in the

360 THE ANCIENT MAYA OF MEXICO

southern lowlands. Huge sums of money would not be needed to dig such houses, unlike the

expenses involved when excavating huge temple pyramids.

We should consider increasing the amount of �eldwork being conducted at Preclassic sites

in Yucatan. This work should include documenting the variety of house types, village plans,

storage and other features, tool kits, mortuary settings, neighborhoods, and sociopolitical

networks.

Mayanists speak often of daily activities, household rituals, and the lives of commoners, and

yet few are actually digging large numbers of Maya households and piece-plotting everything

they �nd. We need many such studies before we can compare household-to-household

activities, and even more before we can compare whole villages. In some parts of the northern

lowlands, the soil is so thin that whole barrios could be exposed with minimal earth removal.

I frequently ask my students to describe their chosen archaeological site without referring to

its pottery. This makes them aware of the unrealistic burden we place on ceramics in our effort

to explain the past. Work in the northern lowlands shows us that the links between ceramic

spheres and political control are neither simple nor direct. One community can be under the

control of another for a few years and not have its ceramics affected. One community can be

autonomous, but use the same ceramic assemblage as another. A case in point is the much-

discussed relationship, distribution, and dating of Sotuta and Cehpech ceramics in the northern

lowlands.

Sotuta pottery dominated at Chichen Itza, but the nearby site of Yaxuna (only 19 kilometers

away) had no Sotuta ceramics until Period IVb. At this point, Sotuta pottery appeared for the

�rst time in association with the deliberate destruction of buildings (Shaw and Johnstone

2006:151-152). The lack of Sotuta pottery at Yaxuna during Period IVa (and before) has been

interpreted as evidence that Yaxuna was autonomous, and that “a powerful barrier prohibiting

the free exchange of goods” existed. At the site of Ek’ Balam, less than .01 percent of the

assemblage consisted of Sotuta sherds, leading archaeologists to regard that site as autonomous.

At the site of Ichmul de Morley, Sotuta ceramics constituted 10.6 percent of all the sherds,

leading archaeologists to conclude that Ichmul de Morley was not wholly in�uenced by either

Chichen Itza or Ek’ Balam (Smith et al. 2006). The site of Yula, just �ve kilometers south of

Chichen Itza, provides a contrast; 97 percent of its ceramics were Sotuta in style (Anderson

1998). In addition, two lintels at Yula were very similar to those at Chichen Itza.

It is likely that the percentage of Sotuta sherds at each of these sites will continue to be used

to infer political control or autonomy, but we may be placing too large an explanatory burden

on ceramics. A site can lose or gain its independence multiple times during a single century,

and pottery does not aid us in such instances, since our 300-year ceramic periods tend to mask

short-term political oscillations.

Hieroglyphic texts sometimes allow us to detect short-term oscillations between autonomy

and subordination, but without such texts and the dates they provide, the task can be

formidable. Many short-term episodes of control or autonomy can be documented in the

southern lowlands, because we have so many well-preserved texts from so many more sites.

The Pace and Tempo of Developments in the Highlands and Lowlands

Future research in Yucatan could take many directions, but if I had to isolate one interesting

problem, it would be to look beyond the local details and compare the pace of developments in

the three major regions of the Maya world. Now that we know that the northern lowlands

YUCATAN AT THE CROSSROADS

361

were not simply the recipients of in�uence from the south, we need to know which innova-

tions we can attribute to Yucatan and which occurred simultaneously in both the north and

south.

Having scrapped the notion of an active south and a passive north, we should consider the

possibility that one of the engines driving Maya civilization was the competitive interaction

among regions. The Yucatan Peninsula, at least as early as the Middle Preclassic, would have

been one of the regions driving both local and pan-Maya developments. Had there been no

such interaction—no exchanges, no alliances, no competition, and no con�ict—one of the

major catalysts of social evolution would have been missing. And as we have seen, there is

growing evidence that the northern lowlands, too often treated like a passive recipient of ideas,

was an innovator in many cases.

The Impact of E. Wyllys Andrews V

If you are to raise the archaeology of Yucatan to its rightful position, it is appropriate that you

dedicate this volume to E. Wyllys Andrews V. No noble lineage—not even the Kokoom and

Xiw lineages of Mayapan—has made a greater contribution to Yucatan than the lineage

founded by E. Wyllys Andrews IV.

The collective attention of this family to the Yucatec environment, to careful stratigraphy,

to empirical detail, and to maintaining high standards has set the bar very high. Their

presentation of hard-won �eld data and their efforts to quantify and explain their datasets in

meaningful ways will endure forever.

I close by mentioning some of the contributions of “Will” Andrews V. We can see in his

long series of publications not simply a desire to rework the datasets of a previous generation

(as so many archaeologists do) but to generate his own. His goal was to understand how the

Maya lived, changed, and evolved through time by contributing primary data on all time

periods, and he did it by directing original project after original project.

Figure 14.1. Will Andrews (right) engages in high-level modeling and problem solving

while the author (center) holds the stadia rod at Structure 10L-29, Copan, March 1991.

362 THE ANCIENT MAYA OF MEXICO

Will generated new data on the residences of commoners and kings, and on the activities of

both low-status and royal families. His interests have included cities and villages such as

Dzibilchaltun and Komchen; the earliest ceramics of the northern and southern lowlands; the

architecture of Puuc centers like Sayil and Labna; the demise of a Maya king and his palace at

Copan; and the southeastern periphery of the Maya region at Quelepa. His �eldwork has given

him a unique perspective on the peopling of the Maya area, its early villagers, the nature of

collapse and abandonment, and much more (Andrews 1979a, 1979b, 1981, 1990, 2003).

Because Will has contributed in so many ways to our understanding of the Maya—from

northernmost Yucatan to eastern El Salvador—he now deserves to sit back and relax while we

toast him with an appropriate beverage.

I once visited Will while he and Bill Fash, Bob Sharer, Ricardo Agurcia, and Geoff Braswell

were conducting excavations at Copan (Figure 14.1). Over the years I had visited a lot of �ne

archaeological projects; but when I returned from my trip to Copan, I sat down, removed one

site from my list of “Top 10 All-Time Projects,” and put the Copan Project into its vacated slot.

The work being conducted there was that impressive.

I venture to say that the contributions of Will Andrews will stand the test of time, and I

hope that his work will encourage future archaeologists to build on his �rm foundation—to

map entire sites, excavate whole public buildings, expose scores of houses and patios, and

piece-plot every object on every ancient �oor.

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