Regroup On “E-Groups”: Monumentality and Early Centers in the Middle Preclassic Maya Lowlands

Abstract

For nearly a century, scholars have used astronomical evidence to explain the Lowland Maya architectural type known as “E-Groups” as solar observatories and, by extension, as locations for rituals related to solar and agricultural cycles. This article departs from the usual focus on the observational properties of E-Groups and places them in the context of early Maya monumentality during the Middle Preclassic period. Specifically, E-Groups are seen as the earliest monumental social spaces in the Maya Lowlands, with multifaceted functions and placements that indicate a shared social map of the landscape. Geographic information systems viewshed analysis of Middle Preclassic E-Group sites demonstrates that populations constructed E-Groups in places that maximized visibility of the nearby landscape. Viewsheds conducted at sites with Middle Preclassic E-Groups in the central Maya Lowlands suggest that the large plazas and similar monumental architecture represent the centers of comparable, mutually visible communities. Settlers founding these communities consciously created distance from neighboring monumental centers, perhaps as means of defining and buttressing group identity and undergirding spatial claims to political authority. Recent archaeological evidence affords clues that such spaces were civic, allowing architectural settings for social gatherings and access to resources.

5 Maintaining Social Bonds during the Preclassic: An Incipient Urban Landscape

“…The Preclassic in particular was a time during which Mesoamericans demonstrated a willingness to completely modify their landscapes in reverence to the natural world (Blanton ; Blanton et al. ; Doyle ). Combined with ritual understandings of how Mesoamericans utilized elevations (Sugiyama , 105), we can see the contexts that would have driven people at the residential level to invest in the reshaping of hills.…”

“…The wealth of naturally significant landmarks (e.g., mountains, caves, cenotes) at Noh K'uh offered residents multiple opportunities to construct their residences in reference to sacred cosmologies. The Preclassic in particular was a time during which Mesoamericans demonstrated a willingness to completely modify their landscapes in reverence to the natural world (Blanton 1998;Blanton et al 1996;Doyle 2012). Combined with ritual understandings of how Mesoamericans utilized elevations (Sugiyama 1993, 105), we can see the contexts that would have driven people at the residential level to invest in the reshaping of hills.…”

“…During much of the Preclassic, monumental constructions were designed for communal rituals that focused on the natural world (Barber and Joyce , 230; Grove ; Marcus and Flannery , 57). For example, central plazas were large, flat, and open‐air in order to accommodate large gatherings (Aimers and Rice ; Aylesworth ; Doyle ). These constructions were often oriented in relation toward ritually significant landmarks, like mountains and caves (Brady ; Halperin ; Prufer and Kindon ).…”

“…I argue that cosmology was central to the selection of the site's location, and that Noh K'uh itself represented Preclassic concepts of the cosmological universe and that the construction of these spaces manifested both cosmological concepts and actions. While researchers of the Preclassic have generally acknowledged the important role of religion and cosmology in the physical shape and construction of early urban societies (e.g., Ashmore ; Aveni, Dowd, and Vining ; Aveni and Hartung ; Aylesworth ; Doyle , ; Grove ), there is considerable room to explore the ways in which non‐elites connected ritual and political economy through their urban landscapes.…”

Middle Preclassic Interregional Interaction and the Maya Lowlands

“…Ultimately, the activities in these early ritual areas, and later in the early plazas of E-groups and their triadic variants, were related to group identity and cohesion, and to the emergence of political authority (Doyle 2012;Inomata et al 2013). The figurines, rather than being fertility symbols per se, likely played roles in ritual and beliefs directed more toward cyclical renewal and regeneration, cosmic and agricultural, as well as familial (Rice 2013).…”