In this paper I present new, surface-collected ceramic data from the previously little-known Chikinchel region in northeast Yucatan. My goals are twofold: first, to expand the utility of surface-collected materials by suggesting a technological approach (paste analysis) to classify small or eroded sherds; and second, to place Chikinchel into the larger spatial and temporal framework of the northern Maya lowlands. The ceramic analyses presented here span the Late Formative through Spanish Colonial periods. Diachronic changes in the regional distributions of the different wares that compose the Chikinchel ceramic inventory are demonstrated and discussed in terms of larger processes occurring across the peninsula.

The discovery of a number of prehispanic saltmaking sites on the southern coast of Belize by the Point Placencia Archaeological Project suggests a concern with local saltmaking during the Late Classic and perhaps later periods. Previously, only one small source was thought to have produced salt in prehispanic Belize, and it was believed that most of this mineral was imported from the northern coast of Yucatan. This paper describes the sites located by our survey and offers an interpretation of the local saltmaking process. It is suggested that Placencia salt was inferior in quality to that from Yucatan, and that it might have been consumed by commoners, while elites were able to obtain pure Yucatecan salt.

For too long, Mayanists working in northern Yucatan have retained a focus on the single site. Although a few recent papers have begun to examine this area in regional terms, the world-systems perspective has yet to be applied. In this paper the world-systems framework is used to examine the post-Teotihuacan core center of Chichen Itza and its hinterland. Various lines of information are combined to achieve the fullest possible picture, including new settlement-pattern data, related ethnohistoric material, and a brief consideration of existing iconographic studies. Comparative examples from contemporary sites in other parts of Mesoamerica are provided to illustrate the systemic interconnections that characterize a "world system." 141

INTRODUCTIONThe papers in this special issue are about the method, theory, and practice of scientific, historically oriented archaeology. They address this theme by developing and operationalizing systematic analyses of multiple lines of evidence about the past; these include the archaeological record and various combinations of historical, linguistic, and ethnographic information. The use of nonmaterial evidence in archaeology, of course, is nothing new; throughout the discipline's history, most researchers have combined these sources. What distinguishes the papers in this collection [and those in several other recent volumes, especially Knapp (1992b)] from their predecessors is a shift that is both methodological and strategic. Below, I sketch out the familiar history of the field in order to situate our efforts within that larger context.The methods of the so-called "culture history" paradigm that dominated archaeology in the pre-Binford years were guided by marked preference for the spectacular evidence of elites (tombs, temples, and the chronicles of kings). Practitioners culled specific passages from the documentary record to complement their archaeological focus on elite remains. In part, this reflected the predilections of wealthy first-world researchers trained in an esoteric field with little practical relevance. It also carried subtler implications. As Feinman illustrates in his conclusions to this volume (see also Patterson, 1986;Trigger, 1989), culture history characteristically follows an agenda set by political (or corporate) interests. The manipulation of history for political ends is as old as complex society itself, 1Department of Anthropology,

Researchers interested in developing long-term social histories are faced with myriad difficulties rising from the biased and fragmentary nature of various available sources of information on the distant past. Understanding the crucial centuries surrounding the Spanish invasion of the northern Maya lowlands is hindered by uncritical mixing of the written and material records. This case study from the Chikinchel region in northeast Yucat6n is focused on economicissues. Relevant data from each register first are considered separately in order to preserve the integrity of each source. The resulting synthesis offers a new, well-informed interpretation of late prehispanic economic organization and its alteration under Spanish authority.