Problematical Deposits at Tikal, Guatemala: Content, Context, and Intent

Abstract

In the Mesoamerican archaeological literature, collections of material regarded as somehow anomalous according to the archaeologist's expectations are often referred to as problematical deposits (PDs). Their problematical aspect originates in the researcher's current state of knowledge of the particular site, not in past behavior. PDs are site-specific, provisional classifications, and need further study to determine the function or intent of the activity that created them. A sample of 223 features designated as PDs by the University of Pennsylvania Museum's Tikal Project is examined here in an approach to understand their intent. A typology of the sample, based upon content, date, and variables of recovery context, indicates three principal intents broadly summarized as ritual, political, and site maintenance, and a category of PDs without intent. The study of PDs demands a wide-ranging approach. It provides an opportunity to reevaluate inadequate ideas and gain new insights into past cultural behavior.

A Reversal of Fortune: Problematical Deposit 50, Tikal, Guatemala

“…He did not state whether the pit itself was burned, but the condition and juxtapositions of the contents indicate that they were smashed and burned elsewhere before some of the objects were taken away and dumped into the pit to form PD 50. This kind of treatment is a stark contrast to the usually complete condition and patterned arrangement of the contents of standard Tikal burials and caches (Moholy-Nagy 2020:48).…”

“…The offerings interred in Burial 48 include fine pottery vessels and sets of elaborate personal ornaments of stone and shell, which occur only rarly in cached offerings. Caches, in turn, are characterized by ceremonial lithics, specialized pottery containers, and unworked marine shells and other invertebrates (Begel 2020; Moholy-Nagy 2020; Moholy-Nagy with Coe 2008).…”

“…The goods and human remains deposited in PD 50 conform to the program of standard elite Tikal burials, rather than standard cached offerings (Table 1; Moholy-Nagy 2020:48). The original chamber burial was exhumed, and its contents were smashed, burned, and scattered.…”

Sealing with Stone: Assessing an Assemblage of Lithic Debitage from a Funerary Context at the Lowland Maya City of Caracol, Belize

“…The flaked stone layered above the Altun Ha tomb was explicitly described as an offering, yet when considering these contexts at Tikal, Moholy-Nagy (1997:306) suggests, “The accumulations of chert and obsidian debitage placed with chamber burials, as well as with other kinds of special deposits, may well have been regarded as a kind of offering.” Yet chert and obsidian debitage was still production waste that needed to be disposed of, and the construction of monumental architecture and closing and burying tombs provided opportunities for that disposal (Moholy-Nagy 2020). These designations—as events of offering or as opportunities for waste disposal—highlight the problems that arise when sharp distinctions are made between symbolic belief and mundane behavior.…”

Introduction

“…Anyone who has excavated structures—from the smallest to the largest, plazas, or extramural areas—will have encountered such deposits that can test our acumen. The term “problematical deposit” (PD; those working in Belize are partial to the term “problematic deposit,” and use it throughout this Special Section) was coined during the Tikal Project in the 1960s to account for a deposit that was neither a cache nor a burial but was produced by some other behavior (see the article by Moholy-Nagy (2020) in this issue for an update). This term is relative, for the issue resides in the archaeological interpretation of the deposit, not in the behaviors that produced it.…”