Subtle differences in the context of feasting and manners of food consumption can point to underlying levels of civil and social competition in state‐level societies. Haute cuisine and high styles of dining are characteristic of societies with fully developed civil and social hierarchies such as Renaissance Europe and the Postclassic Aztec. Competitive yet socially circumscribed political and social organizations such as the Classic lowland Maya may have prepared elaborate diacritical meals that marked status, but the nature of feasting remained essentially patriarchal. Ancient Maya feasting is recognizable through archaeologically discernible pottery vessel forms that were used to serve festival fare such as tamales and chocolate. Comparison of ceramic assemblages across civic and household contexts at the site of Xunantunich, Belize, demonstrates that drinking chocolate, more so than eating tamales, served as a symbolic cue that established the political significance of events among the Classic Maya. [feasting, ancient Maya, pottery analysis, chocolate]

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 15:33:51 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsThe analysis of decorated pottery across house mounds at the lowland Maya site of Xunantunich in Belize investigates the complex relationships between wealth, social status, and political strategies in state-level societies. Rather than using the distribution of decorated pottery as an indicator of social status, this study treats it as an independent variable and illustrates how prestige goods circulated as political currency to further political ambitions. Two social strata and the two ranks within each stratum are defined by architectural complexity and intersite location of house mounds at the Late Classic II (A.D. 670 to 790) to Terminal Classic (A.D. 790 to 1000) provincial center of Xunantunich and its nearby hamlet, San Lorenzo. During the Late Classic II phase, elaborately decorated pottery was found concentrated in elite households in the civic center, whereas during the Terminal Classic, when Xunantunich was in the process of collapse, they were found dispersed equally among all house mounds. I suggest that local elites, to maintain power, abandoned rival displays of prestige goods and attempted to consolidate community support by gifting luxury items down through the social hierarchy. This article, therefore, seeks not only to craft a clearer definition of wealth, but to build a model of when and how prestige goods function as a means to promote political strategies in state-level societies. Tardfo II (670-790 d. C.) hasta el te'rmino del perfodo Clasico (790-1, 000 d. C.) encontramos que hay dos estratos sociales con dos rangos dentro de cada estrato que estan definidos por la complejidad arquitectonica y la manera como estan localizados los montEculos residenciales. Durante el Clasico Tardfo II la alfarerfa con decoracionfina se concentraba en los hogares de las e'lites del centro cfvico, mientras que a finales del perfodo Cla'sico, cuando Xunantunich se encontraba en el proceso de colapso, estos objetos se distribuyen por igual entre los montEculos residenciales. Sugiero que las e'lites locales, en su afan de mantener el poder, dejaron de lado la competencia por exhibir su riqueza e intentaron consolidar el apoyo de la comunidad a trave's del obsequio de bienes de lujo. Por lo tanto este artEculo no solo busca crear un modelo que defina ma's claramente el significado de riqueza sino que tambie'n trata de explicar cuando y como los bienes de prestigio funcionan como estrategias de promocion politicas en las sociedades estatales. El analisis de la ceramica decorada distribuida a trave's montfoulos de hogares investiga las relaciones complejas entre ...

This report describes the results of a geochemical analysis using a mild acid extraction and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy of 198 samples from plaster surfaces at the palace complex at Actuncan, a prehispanic Maya city located in a karst landscape of western Belize.Archaeologists working in the Maya region of Central America often refer to many different kinds of building complexes as "palaces" without a clear understanding of how they functioned.Often, the rooms inside these structures are devoid of features and artifacts, making it difficult to infer how they were used. Geochemical characterization of inorganic residues on plaster floors as a means of prospecting for activity areas is therefore critical for studying the function and meaning of ancient Maya palaces. At Actuncan, due to the high degree of preservation of many of the floors, overlying plaster surfaces were able to be sampled, thus informing not only how the buildings were used, but how their uses changed over time. Multivariate quantitative modeling and spatial interpolation of the chemical data demonstrate that a variety of domestic, ritual, and possibly administrative activities took place in the palace complex, a finding that challenges previous assessments of palaces as primarily royal residential compounds.

This article presents the chronological framework used to reconstruct the political history of the ancient Lowland Maya site of Xunantunich in the upper Belize River valley. Extensive excavations from 1991 to 1997 by the Xunantunich Archaeological Project produced the ceramic, architectural, and epigraphic data needed to place the site within a temporal context. Refinement of the Barton Ramie ceramic chronology was the first step toward clarifying the Xunantunich chronology. Seriation of well-known Spanish Lookout types and modes from stratified deposits established a framework for understanding Late and Terminal Classic assemblages. Twenty-two radiocarbon samples place these ceramic complexes in absolute time. Obsidian hydration and masonry techniques were found to be less reliable chronological markers. The results indicate that Xunantunich emerged as a regional center during the Samal (a.d. 600-670) and Hats' Chaak (a.d. 670-780) phases of the Late Classic period. Arguably, this rapid growth and florescence was initiated under the auspices of nearby Naranjo. Although the polity achieved political autonomy in the following Tsak' phase (a.d. 780-890) of the Terminal Classic period, civic construction diminished and rural populations declined until the site collapsed sometime during the late ninth or early tenth century.

A common property regime was established at the founding of the Maya site of Actuncan, Belize, in the Terminal Preclassic period (175 BC–AD 300), which governed access to land until the Terminal Classic period (AD 780–1000). This interpretation is based on urban settlement patterns documented through household excavation and remote-sensing programs. Excavations of all visible patio-focused groups in the urban core provided data to reconstruct residential histories, and a 60,621 m2 gradiometer survey resulted in a magnetic gradient map that was used to document buried constructions. Twenty ground-truth testpits correlated types of magnetic signatures to buried patio-focused groups and smaller constructions, including walled plots in agricultural field systems that were later exposed more fully through large-scale excavations. Combined, these methods provided data to reconstruct four correlates of land tenure systems: (1) the spatial proximity of residential units to land and resources, (2) diachronic changes in community settlement patterns, (3) land subdivision and improvements, and (4) public goods. Spatial analyses documented that houselots did not cluster through time, but instead became gradually improved, lending evidence to suggest the transgenerational inheritance of property rights in the Late and Terminal Classic periods.