The spread of plaza-pyramid complexes across southern Mesoamerica during the early Middle Preclassic period (1000 to 700 BCE) provides critical information regarding the origins of lowland Maya civilization and the role of the Gulf Coast Olmec. Recent excavations at the Maya site of Ceibal, Guatemala, documented the growth of a formal ceremonial space into a plaza-pyramid complex that predated comparable buildings at other lowland Maya sites and major occupations at the Olmec center of La Venta. The development of lowland Maya civilization did not result from one-directional influence from La Venta, but from interregional interactions, involving groups in the southwestern Maya lowlands, Chiapas, the Pacific Coast, and the southern Gulf Coast.

Our archaeological investigations at Ceibal, a lowland Maya site located in the Pasión region, documented that a formal ceremonial complex was built around 950 B.C. at the onset of the Middle Preclassic period, when ceramics began to be used in the Maya lowlands. Our refined chronology allowed us to trace the subsequent social changes in a resolution that had not been possible before. Many residents of Ceibal appear to have remained relatively mobile during the following centuries, living in ephemeral post-in-ground structures and frequently changing their residential localities. In other parts of the Pasión region, there may have existed more mobile populations who maintained the traditional lifestyle of the preceramic period. Although the emerging elite of Ceibal began to live in a substantial residential complex by 700 B.C., advanced sedentism with durable residences rebuilt in the same locations and burials placed under house floors was not adopted in most residential areas until 500 B.C., and did not become common until 300 B.C. or the Late Preclassic period. During the Middle Preclassic period, substantial formal ceremonial complexes appear to have been built only at a small number of important communities in the Maya lowlands, and groups with different levels of sedentism probably gathered for their constructions and for public rituals held in them. These collaborative activities likely played a central role in socially integrating diverse groups with different lifestyles and, eventually, in developing fully established sedentary communities.Mesoamerican archaeology | sedentism | Maya | public ceremony | subsistence R ecent archaeological investigations have shown that the development of agriculture and sedentism was more diverse than the simple model of agriculture leading to sedentism and then to social complexity. In Europe, for example, the farming lifestyle that originated in the Near East spread in complex ways, involving the coexistence of farmers and foragers in relatively small areas and differential adoptions of Neolithic cultural elements in different regions (1-3). Studies of early monuments, such as Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, Watson Brake in Louisiana, and Caral and earlier mounds in the Andes, show that large constructions involving significant collective labor could be built by preceramic people who were still foragers or were at the early stage of farming adaptation (4-7). These emerging understandings lead to important questions about how sedentary and mobile populations interacted and how their relations affected the process of social change. To address these questions, researchers need fine-grained chronological information and a broad spatial coverage, which are not easy to obtain in many cases. A uniquely rich dataset obtained from the Maya site of Ceibal (or Seibal) suggests the possibility that groups with different levels of mobility gathered and collaborated for constructions and public ceremonies, which contrasts with the common assumption that sedentary and mobile groups maintained...

Kaminaljuyú has been an important focus of archaeological research since the 1930s, and the chronologies of various sites of the Southern Maya Area are linked directly to that of Kaminaljuyú. The implications of the currently prevalent chronology of Kaminaljuyú are that various social and political institutions developed significantly earlier in the Southern Maya Area than in the Maya Lowlands during the Preclassic period. Our evaluations of new and existing radiocarbon dates through the application ofBayesian statistics, as well as ceramic cross-dating, indicate that the Middle and Late Preclassic portions of the Kaminaljuyú sequence need to be shifted forward in time by roughly 300 years. Our chronological revisions have the following important implications: (1) many centers in the Southern Maya Area suffered political disruptions around 400 B.C., roughly at the same time as La Venta and the centers in the Grijalva region of Chiapas; and (2) highly centralized polities with divine rulers and their depictions on stelae developed roughly contemporaneously in the Southern Maya Area and in the Maya Lowlands after 100 B.C.

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This ethnoarchaeological study at the Q'eqchi' Maya village of Las Pozas, Guatemala, aimed to refine the understanding of the relationship between soil chemical signatures and human activities for archaeological applications. The research involved phosphorus, exchangeable ion (calcium, potassium, magnesium, sodium), and trace element analysis of soils and earth floors extracted by Mehlich II, ammonium acetate, and DTPA chelate solutions, respectively. The results showed high levels of phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and pH in food preparation areas, as well as high phosphorus concentrations and low pH in food consumption areas. The traffic areas exhibited low phosphorus and trace element contents, whereas refuse disposal areas were enriched. These results provide important information for the understanding of space use in ancient settlements. ᭧